Grasping at desperation, I threw misplaced anger at him. “I’m not the only one who stands to lose here.”
Finishing another text, he shoved his phone back in his pocket. His hands going to his hips, he gave me the full weight of his attention, but it would never compare to his brother. “Short of setting off one of his fucking bombs, there’s nothing he can do to either of us. And since I’m not going to let that happen, you’re safe.”
Safe.
What a cruel joke. And it wasn’t lost on me that Vance said either of us. “I set the chain of events in motion that made Ronan beat Kyle Abernathy and kill his dreaded assistant.”
Vance snorted. “Did you also make Abernathy tell your boyfriend he was going to fuck you and the assistant tell him that he was going to pass you around? Did you make Abernathy a pedophile? Did you propel Ronan’s arm as he threw that well-deserved punch?”
I knew I wasn’t responsible for any of that. People were responsible for their own actions. But sometimes a trigger is pulled and it doesn’t matter who the bullet hits. It only matters who fired the gun, and my finger was on the trigger that night.
“For ten years this had been hanging over my head.” The entire chain of events that fell like dominoes was on my shoulders. “If I’d never signed the contract or stupidly told Kyle about the party, then I wouldn’t have a deranged bomber after me who I got fired so he couldn’t tell the police who’d beaten him up and killed his assistant.”
“You got him fired?” Vance challenged.
“I showed up at Trinity the next day, didn’t I?” I’d done what Vance had told me to do. Even though I’d had a loophole to get out of the contract with what Kyle Abernathy had said, a loophole that maybe could’ve brought me and Ronan back together, I’d shown up because keeping Ronan’s secret was more important.
I never would’ve signed in the first place if I’d known it would’ve led to me losing him. I could’ve always gotten another recording offer or made my own music and sung on my own terms.
I never wanted to be a megastar. The money meant nothing to me beyond food on the table, because I was a simple girl and I always had been. I would’ve been happy singing in a church choir if it meant I could’ve lived a quiet life with Ronan and had his babies and his arms around me every night.
But that didn’t happen, and I showed up that next morning because Vance told me to. He’d said all I had to do was sing and keep Leo happy, which in turn would keep Kyle silent and, most importantly, Ronan free.
So I did it.
Without hesitation.
Except now here we all were, in a horrible mess that could blow everything apart, literally, because a sick man could detonate his bombs or, worse, point the finger at Ronan and he could go to jail.
All because he’d defended me.
“Yeah,” Vance quipped. “You did great.”
“Don’t you dare patronize me.” Anger simmering, ignoring the fact he had found the previous bombs, I antagonized him. “Why didn’t we just tell Ronan who it is and get this over with?”
Vance looked at me for a moment, like he couldn’t believe he was having to explain himself. Then he shook his head and sighed. “We already discussed this. Ronan wouldn’t have gone along with the plan to use you as bait to flush this sick bastard out. Since we weren’t making headway in London with hundreds of people on the tour who could’ve all had hundreds of hidden agendas to hide however this prick was getting past your security, the next logical step was to isolate you. Abernathy saw both me and Ronan that night. He knows there are two of us. Throwing you, me and Ronan in his sights, cleverly packaged all together in one location, should make him salivate. If it doesn’t, getting him on Amherst’s home turf combined with the fact that the ten-year annual payoff term he negotiated with Amherst just expired should. If Abernathy doesn’t make a move to kill us all with a fucking bomb, I’m betting he’ll be stupid enough to go after Amherst for more money. Either way, I’ll be ready. Therefore, this is, and always has been, the quickest way to draw him out.”