Collaring Chaz (Dante's Infernal #2) - Joel Abernathy Page 0,72

to think. The man’s mask had finally crumbled all the way, and for a second, I thought he was going to just outright attack Drake. I’d probably let them fight it out, too, and escape with Chaz while they were distracted.

“Your tour is over,” Sterling spat. “You did this just to spite me and take the spotlight away from his new debut.”

“There you go, making everything about you,” Drake said with a weary sigh. “I was simply doing an old friend a favor. But I suppose that would be a consequence, wouldn’t it? And I just realized...technically, you’ll be opening for us,” he sneered.

“You’ll regret this,” Sterling said in a chilled tone, like all his rage had just congealed to another layer of ice inside him. “Enjoy begging for my scraps while you can. Dante’s Infernal’s been gasping its last for a long time, and you can’t keep it propped up forever with tabloid fodder. No matter what slot you managed to buy your way into, we’re not just going to outdo you, we’re going to crush you.”

“How thrilling,” Drake said with a malicious gleam in his eyes. He really was in his element. That or Sterling just brought out the devil in him. “May the best band win.”

Chaz cast one last glance over his shoulder at me before following Sterling and the lawyer out of the room. The door slammed shut, and for a few minutes, we all just sat there in silence as I contemplated the look of betrayal on Chaz’s face.

“You really waited until the last minute to throw down the trump card, didn’t you?” I finally muttered.

“There is an art to these things,” Drake answered, giving me an almost pleasant smile. “I’d say that went well, wouldn’t you?”

I got up from the table and left before I could knock him out. “I’d say you’d better fucking hope it works.”

Chapter 24

Chaz

The night of the festival, I was full of more live wires than the entire sound system. No matter how many times I’d rehearsed, I kept tripping over my words. Maybe it was just the knowledge that Dante’s Infernal was going to be there, along with Drake, who’d undoubtedly be watching my every move.

No matter how much success I’d achieved before the tour, I still felt like a complete fraud, and it felt like this was finally the moment it would all come out. The moment where they would realize they were right about me all along, and soon, so would everyone else.

“You okay, Chaz?”

I turned to find Marina, our bassist, watching me from the end of the hall outside the dressing rooms. Judging from the look on her face, I wasn’t doing a great job hiding my freakout.

“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’m good. Just going over some stuff.” I held up the sheet of paper in my hand.

“Okay,” she said doubtfully. “Just try to relax. You’ve got this. We’ve rehearsed, what, a million times?”

“Yeah,” I said with an awkward laugh. “True.”

Easier said than done, though. She was probably just being nice. Granted, Sterling made his opinion known when anyone made a mistake, but he wasn’t always around during rehearsals. Not all of them, at least, and even if my performance was okay then, that didn’t mean I could actually lead the band on stage.

Fuck. What was I doing?

I went back into my dressing room so at least I could melt down in private. Right about now, I really could have used a drink, but Sterling had already done a clean sweep of the backstage area. I still had a half-full pill bottle I’d been saving stashed away in my things, and I was contemplating using it.

Supposedly, being sober was going to make me a clear-minded savant and solve all my problems, but so far, I was just alert enough to realize what a fuck-up I was. At least it was easier to live in denial when I was trashed. Or maybe I was just such a complete loser that I was the one person who was better off an addicted trainwreck, because the alternative--the me that existed when everything else was stripped away--was just that fucking bad.

Maybe I could just take enough to get through the show. That wasn’t falling off the wagon so much as taking a slight detour, right?

I stared down at the bottle in my hand, and I couldn’t actually remember getting it out. Its siren’s song was about to win out, and I was twisting the cap off when the