Good music.
The band was excellent.
I didn’t look at the band. I concentrated on getting where Kellie was guiding me without slamming into someone in a chair or a waitress negotiating tables and bodies.
Kellie got us to her table, which was populated by two men and another woman, none of whom I knew, all of whom looked to us as we got there.
“These are my best friends for the night since they let me sit at their table,” she shouted, Kellie being one who could make friends anywhere (and did) and thus could go out without a girl posse (and did). She threw her arm out their way. “Jeff, Mark, and Helen.”
“Hey,” I yelled.
“Yo,” Jeff or Mark yelled back.
Mark or Jeff threw up his chin.
Helen smiled, gave a slight wave, then looked back at the stage.
Kellie tugged my hand again until I was sitting in one of the two vacant chairs.
She sat in the other one and expertly snagged a passing waitress.
“Twelve shots of tequila!” she shouted at her, and I felt my eyes get big. “Two for all, and four for my girl here so she can catch up!”
Four shots?
“Gotcha,” the waitress yelled back, and took off before I could stop her.
I leaned into Kellie.
“Babe, I’m driving!” I shouted.
“You’re also gonna be here awhile and my new buds got popcorn to soak up the booze!” she shouted back, tipping her head to the table.
I looked to the wax-paper-lined red basket on the table that had, on a quick count, seven popped pieces of corn and a plethora of unexploded kernels left in it. Then I looked back to Kellie, who was now eyes to the stage.
“Babe!” I yelled. She kept staring at the stage, bobbing her head and not turning to me, so I yelled again, “Kellie!”
She leaned back my way, attention never leaving the band, and yelled back, “They so need a dance floor here. This band makes you wanna move.”
She was not wrong. They were currently kicking the Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” and doing it so brilliantly, if Chris Robinson was standing at the bar, he’d be smiling.
My eyes started to move to the stage but stopped when someone slammed into my chair and my entire body jerked as my chair moved three inches toward Kellie’s.
“Whoa!” a man shouted, and I looked up at him. “Sorry!”
I smiled. “That’s okay!”
He grinned back and moved on.
I again was about to look at the stage when I heard, “Rumor was true! They get their old front man back whenever they come to Denver. And fuck if he doesn’t rock!”
This was shouted by Helen and I looked to her just as the band ended the song and she jumped up, as did everyone else at our table, at other tables, all the people obscuring my view of the stage, and the crowd roared its approval.
I started clapping and kept smiling because this wasn’t so bad. I’d do a shot, maybe two, order a Coke and listen to good music, sitting with my girl and her new friends. I’d be tired tomorrow but it wouldn’t kill me, Kellie would be happy and that was all that mattered.
Slower notes to a song I recognized started. The folks around drifted their asses back to their chairs and a familiar voice sounded over the microphone.
“This song is dedicated to a bitch named Millie.”
My eyes shot to a stage I now could see and my heart shriveled to dust when I saw Hopper Kincaid, back in the day a new Chaos brother, and by his words undoubtedly still a Chaos brother, standing front and center. His flame-tattooed arms were moving on the guitar he held. His eyes filled with hate were aimed at me.
“Not good to see you again,” he growled directly to me, the dust of my heart floating away on his words. Then he played a few more notes and launched into the lyrics of Candlebox’s “Far Behind.”
I heard Kellie’s totally pissed-off, “What the fuck?” but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Hop lacerating the bloody pulp of my soul with every word of a sad, angry song.
It was a fantastic song but I’d never really listened to the lyrics.
I listened to them then.
And I knew they might mean one thing to Candlebox.
They meant another to Hopper Kincaid and the family I once had that I loved called Chaos.
Last, they meant something else entirely to me.
And as he tore through me with that song, intentionally lashing wounds that already were laid bare and never would heal, I heard Kellie snap, “I didn’t buy into this shit,” and I knew.
I.
Fucking.
Knew.
I was not there because Kellie got a wild hair to drag me back to life.
I was there because of something else.
I ripped my stare off Hop and looked through the bar knowing what I’d find before I found it.
Then I found it.
Off to the side of the stage, at their own table with a RESERVED sign on it, sat Tack Allen.
With him was his woman, Tyra.
Also the one they referred to as Lanie.
Worse.
Boz. Hound. Big Petey.
And Logan.
The men were aiming their loathing at me. It hit true, the toxin coating my skin and sinking deep.
The women were looking shocked.
They got to Kellie.
They got to my girl.
And she’d jumped on board being fed promises of healing wounds that had no cure not having any clue their play would end me.
I shot out of my chair, tucking my purse under my arm, and rounded the table, winding my way their way, eyes to my guess at the ringleader.
Tack’s new woman.
“Millie!” Kellie screamed.
I ignored her and kept going, brushing people, twisting past chairs. Well before I got to the Chaos table, all were standing, the men in aggressive defensive postures, the women uncertain.
I stopped at their table, Hound stepping mostly in front of me, but I kept my eyes pinned to Tyra.
“Stop!” I shouted, knowing my face was twisted, certain it was ugly, but not caring, only needing one last thing before I ceased to exist.
And that was to get my message across.
“I—” she began, but I cut my gaze to Tack.
“Make her stop!” I demanded.
“Millie—”
That was Logan. He was close. I could hear it and I could feel it.
But I had eyes to Tack, who was injecting my bloodstream with the venom of his gaze at the same time opening his mouth to speak.
Kellie got there before him. “You motherfuckers!” she screeched. “Total fuckin’ bitches. You played me! You goddamned fuckin’ bitches. Got me to play my own girl!” she shrieked.
Tack looked from me to Kellie, then down to his woman.
“Tell me you did not,” he growled.
She looked up at him, face pale. “Kane, honey—”
“Millie.”
That was Logan again and I felt his hand on me.
It burned.
God, it burned.
Seared.
Scorched my flesh to nothing.
I twisted my arm viciously, yanking away, slamming into Kellie and tipping my head back to look up at him.
I lifted my hand, pointing a finger an inch from his face.
I couldn’t shroud the agony and I didn’t care about that either when I shouted, “Make them stop!”
“Babe—” he began, lifting his hand but before he could get to mine I tore it away.
“I’m done walking through fire for you, High!” I yelled. “I’m done not because I’m done but because there’s nothing left of me to burn. You have it all! You’ve always had it all! I gave up everything so you could have it all! Please! God! Leave me to my nothing!” I swung an arm out to their table. “And if you gave one single shit about me, ever, make them let me have my nothing!”
On that, I pushed, shoved, desperate to get to a place where I could completely fade away and do it
alone. Having been given too much too soon and paying the price by having it ripped away so that was all I’d ever have. Nothing. All I’d ever be. Alone. With all that, I made my final dash through the flames, making my way through the bar, out, and I ran to my car on my high heels.
Destined to fade away.
Ready to fade away.
Needing nothing but to leave it all far behind.
High
“Woman, I fuckin’ told you.” High heard Tack snarl.
But he couldn’t pay any mind to what was unraveling because Cherry couldn’t keep herself to herself.
He was moving.
Moving to get to Millie, her words battering his brain.
I gave up everything so you could have it all!
And then he was not moving because Kellie was in his space, in his face.
“You fucking motherfucker!” she screamed, shoving at his chest.
His body locked, his jaw tightened, and both were good because they stopped him from reciprocating in any way when she shoved him again.
“You ruined her!” she shrieked, and his locked body strung tight. “Wasn’t that enough?” she asked. “Do you and your bitches gotta get your jollies by fucking her up again?” She looked beyond him in the direction of the table. “Newsflash, assholes, there was nothing to fuck up. She was gone. You didn’t need to make the effort. But awesome,” she snapped sarcastically, “you hit it just right, bringing back the only fuckin’ thing on this earth that would tear her shreds into tatters.”
And on the last, she jerked a thumb High’s way.
“Memory serves, bitch, someone else was in shreds after your gash laid him to waste,” Boz returned.
“Oh yeah?” Kellie asked, eyes narrowed dangerously on his brother.
“Yeah,” Boz shot back.
“You didn’t see.”
Hop was now at their table, the band still playing onstage, but the players embroiled in the current mindfuck could be anywhere, their attention completely on what was happening right there, right then.
Especially when Kellie whispered those three words.
And how she did it.
They all heard it; High could sense how they heard it.
But he felt it.
Each word.
“What didn’t we see?” Pete asked.
High watched Kellie’s body twitch, then she shook her head. “You don’t deserve to know that. You don’t deserve,” she looked to High, “dick.” She raised a hand to point a finger in his face. “Keep the fuck out of her life, asshole. Leave her alone.”
“She left me,” High growled.
“Wasn’t her who walked away,” Kellie returned.
High’s shoulders strained taut in a way it felt any movement would make them snap.
Jesus.
Fuck.
Jesus.
“Was her told him to get gone,” Boz pointed out angrily.
“Wasn’t her who walked away and didn’t come back,” Kellie replied to Boz, but the words were for High and he knew it from more than the fact that she didn’t take her eyes from him. She was whispering in a heaving bar with a rock band playing but he heard every word clear. “You didn’t come back.” She repeated, got up on her toes, her gaze locked to his, and sneered, “So who left who behind, asshole?”
On that, she rolled back on her heels, sent a poison look through them all, turned, and stormed through the tables.
High watched her go, frozen.
You love a man, Millie, you believe in him, you take him as he is. You go on his journey with him no matter what happens, even if that means you have to walk through fire.
He’d said that.
Twenty years ago, he’d said that, looking into her eyes, feeling so much, he didn’t see shit.
He didn’t see what was in her eyes.
I’m done walking through fire for you, High!
Jesus.
Newsflash, assholes, there was nothing to fuck up. She was gone.
Fuck.
She was gone.
He knew it. He saw it. Her house. Her clothes. Her office.
The only time she was back was when he had her in his arms.
So who left who behind, asshole?
Fuck!
He came unstuck just as a hand landed on his shoulder.
He turned to it.
“Brother,” Tack said low.
“Control. Your. Woman,” High ground out, shrugged off his brother’s hand, and pushed through the bar to the door.
He got to his bike, swung on, and took off.
He hit every red light, every fucking one, before he parked right in front of Millie’s house.
He saw it was dark.
He found this concerning.
Jesus, her face at the bar.
That was not anger. It wasn’t frustration.
It was anguish.
Etched there.
Hidden until then.
It had leaked out. He’d seen it in her office.
But he’d still refused to see.
Fuck.
He prowled up to her house, pounded on her door, and kept doing it.
Nothing. No lights coming on, he sensed no movement through the sheer.
He continued pounding.
She could be ignoring him.
The look on her face in that bar, she could be in there doing something else.
He didn’t have his picking kit and he didn’t have time to go get it. Furthermore, upon testing it, she had a deadbolt, so a credit card didn’t work.
That meant he had to take off his cut, wrap it around his fist, and punch through her glass.
He did it, unlocked the door, pushed it open, and went in, his boots crunching through the shards.
He went right to her bedroom switched on the light, and his lungs expanded so sharp, he thought they’d explode.
Shit was everywhere. Clothes, shoes, drawers open, stuff hanging out.
He jogged to the bathroom and found more of a mess.
Fuck, did she do this or was someone waiting for her?
Was this a struggle or a frenzy?
Was someone paying attention to what High was doing, where he was going, who he was doing, and they targeted Millie to get to High? To Chaos?
Shit, had Valenzuela finally lost patience and made his play?
With Millie?
Fuck, could their luck suck that bad?
He jogged out of the bathroom, her bedroom, into the house, finding switches, turning on lights.
Everything in the rest of the house was as it should be.
Immaculate.
He moved to the back door, pulled the curtain aside, and looked through.
No red SUV.
He swiftly moved back through the house to the unused bedroom, going straight to the closet.
Her luggage was gone.
It was frenzy.
It was Millie.
It was Millie packing in a rush to get away from him and to get away from Tyra and her crew’s bullshit.
“Goddamned… fucking… shit,” he bit out, yanking out his phone.
It was then High made the call he’d not made in twenty years.
It rang five times and then he heard, “Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Millie Cross of Cross Events. I’m unable to take your call right now but leave a—”
He hung up and tried again.
Voicemail again.
He went to the email with the file Shirleen sent and pulled it up.
He stared at it, scrolling through with his thumb to get the number he needed.
He decided to start with phoning. He’d see where that got him and make his next move.
So he punched in Dottie’s number.
It was picked up on the second ring and High got a pissed male voice who didn’t bother with a greeting.
“I know who the fuck this is and I know your shit is done,” the man stated. “She’s gone. Let her be gone and stop dicking with her head.”
High studied his boots and ordered, “Listen to me—”
The man cut him off, “You got nothin’ to say I wanna hear. Nothin’ Dot wants to hear. Sure as fuck nothin’ Millie wants to hear. It’s over, man, and it’s that in a way you got no choice. So let it go.”
“I don’t know you, bud,” High started. “But I know you weren’t around then, so you don’t know dick about what’s happening, so you don’t know I gotta speak to Millie and you don’t know how I gotta speak to Millie. You got no call to trust me but I’m askin’ you to trust this, it’s urgent.”
“Only chance you got of gettin’ your urgent message to her is if you can send smoke signals, she can read them, and she sees them before she gets her ass on a plane. Dot and her are on their way to the airport. She’ll be gone before you can get your bike parked out there.”
Fuck!
“DIA?” High prompted.
“Far away from you,” the man replied. “First hit, red-eye to New York. Second hit, Paris. Think that’s far enough she can get her head together and sort out her life. But, man, I’m tellin’ you this for the sole purpose that you’ll get the message. She’s not comin’ back. She’s puttin’ distance between her and here, which means her and you, and she’s gonna keep that up one way or another and I mean physically. Denver is a memory for her because you need to be a memory for her. And while I got you, bud, thanks,” he spat the last word. “Thanks for takin’ our girl away from us. The aunt my kids fuckin’ love, the sister my wife adores, the woman I met who’s got no light in her but she’s still got enough love in her to light up the worlds of the people who matter. That’s lost to us now ’cause a’ you. Thanks for that, asshole. Thanks a fuckin’ lot.”
And with that he hung up.
High dropped his hand to his hip, fingers still curled around his phone, and he studied the toes of his boots.
Not sure you can get a passport in a day, Logan.
You wanna go to Paris, I’ll find a way.
She went to Paris.
He knew from what Shirleen and Brody found that Millie had never left the country but she did have a passport.
And she was using it to go to Paris.
Without him.
Leave me to my nothing!
High had a choice.
Lead with his heart and get an emergency passport, get Brody on finding her, and get his ass to France so he could find out what in the fuck was going on.
Or lead with his gut, knowing a woman could not change her entire life from Paris. She had a business. She had a home.