Rock Me Deeper (Licks of Leather #5) - Jenna Jacob Page 0,1

for any sign of life inside the house. When none came, I shoved my tools away, then reached in through the empty frame and flipped the deadbolt.

After tugging my ski mask in place, I motioned for the others to do the same.

In the band’s thirteen-year career, we’d sold over a hundred and eighty million albums. We couldn’t step foot in public without being recognized and usually mobbed. Anonymity had been nothing but a distant memory of our youth for a long, long time. Though we were putting our careers, our livelihoods on the line, we’d all agreed that nothing was going to stop us from helping Mia take Zattman down…except maybe the LAPD.

It was ironic and a bit humbling, in a weird way, that I was committing my B and E for altruistic reasons. When I was young the jewelry, electronics, and food I stole were simply for survival. Back then if someone told me when I grew up I’d make more money than I could spend in three lifetimes playing a fucking bass guitar, I would have pissed myself laughing and punched them in the mouth. Not because I hadn’t wanted to believe them but because I’d been a badassed motherfucker with a giant chip on my shoulder.

Disturbing memories of my juvenal delinquent days crowded my brain. Specifically, the memory of coming face-to-face with a pissed-off homeowner while pilfering his wife’s jewelry box. It was the summer I’d turned sixteen. I’d already had two strikes against me for fencing stolen property. I knew if the cops showed the old man my juvie hall mugshot, he’d instantly ID me. The terror of being tried as an adult—as the last judge promised—and sent to the state prison to be gang-raped and beaten scared me so badly I’d bolted out the door. Like a coward, I’d run. I’d left Arkansas that night and didn’t stop running until I’d reached Detroit.

Before the crushing memories of that fateful night wormed their way into my brain, I shoved them aside and slammed the lid closed. I couldn’t afford to let guilt and shame drag me into the dark chasm I still struggled to ignore.

Sucking in a deep breath, I focused on the surreal fact that we were actually implementing the plan we’d cooked up less than forty-eight hours ago.

Yesterday morning Ozzy called a virtual meeting. I sat on my deck, sipping coffee as a visibly anxious Mia spilled the details of her encounter with Carl Zattman. By the time she was through, I’d wanted to vomit. All of us were brimming with rage and disgust and wanting to seek vengeance. With that kind of motivation, it didn’t take long for us to concoct a perfect plan. Aside from the chance of confronting someone in Zattman’s house, I was ninety-nine-point-nine-percent certain we’d covered all our bases.

I sure as fuck hope we have.

After the meeting, we’d packed our bags, booked hotel rooms, and arranged private jets to fly us to LA. Before Mia and Ozzy left Phoenix, she’d placed a call to her former hairdresser, Iris, who still lived in LA, and asked the woman for a huge favor.

Ten hours later, Iris was waiting for us inside the bar at the Beverly Wilshire to finalize our plan. She was young, beautiful, and vivacious. But like Mia, Iris was a rape survivor. And she was all but salivating to help set up Zattman.

While we were here committing our little B and E, Iris—posing as a singer anxious to break into the business—was meeting with Zattman for a late dinner at a restaurant a few miles away. We’d sent her in fully prepared to prove her vocal talents with a couple of songs that Ross’s fiancée, Harmony—who had a killer voice but was too shy to share it with the world—had recorded before the couple left Chicago. Harmony’s MP3s were a tempting combination of soulful innocence. I had no doubt the prick was promising Iris heaven and earth if she’d sign a contract with him. Of course, the lying sack of shit would only deliver brutality via physical and mental annihilation.

Per the plan, Iris was supposed to text Mia when her meeting with Zattman was over—providing he hadn’t drugged her and tossed her in the trunk of his Mercedes—then Mia would text Ozzy. So far, the keyboard player’s phone had remained silent. Still, a part of me wished Zattman would return unannounced so we could beat the living fuck out of him. It had been a long time since