Hollywood Rebel by Misti Murphy
Chapter Thirty-Four
Summer
“Are you ready?” Riot asks me as we stand outside the apartment building we’re about to enter.
I draw in a heavy breath and try to calm my racing heart. I made a promise to Rebel that I wouldn’t do what I’m about to do. The fact that he broke up with me because he thought he couldn’t trust me and now I am doing what I promised him I wouldn’t isn’t lost on me. But it’s been three days and he hasn’t come home yet.
They’re talking about prison time. The witness stories are all in Alec Hawthorne’s favor. I tried to go see him, but Rogue wouldn’t let me because apparently the big jerk told him he wouldn’t see me if I showed up. Rogue says their lawyer is encouraging Rebel to plead guilty in the hopes they can get him sentenced to mandatory rehab instead.
I can’t let that happen without trying everything I can to stop it first. “Just get me in the elevator and I will manage the rest.”
“Not a chance,” he says, bumping his arm against mine. His gray eyes are full of worry and sympathy. He looks hardcore, but he’s a big softie underneath the tattoos and emo-punk hair and leather. He’s worried about his brother going back to prison. He’s worried about what we’re about to do. He’s worried about me. “We stick together.”
When I told them I was coming here without them he immediately added himself to my plan. That’s the Maddox boys through and through. Always loyal to those they accept into their lives.
I haven’t moved out of the house yet. Burke took most of the stuff that had migrated from my place to Rebel’s over the last few months back to my apartment while we’ve been in crisis mode. Riot noticed my bags as Burke carried them out to his truck, but he didn’t say anything. Rogue’s been more…weird. It’s like he’s obsessed with my safety, but also trying to keep his distance. He practically bounced across the room to protect me from the toaster ‘pop’ this morning then pinballed away so hard he smacked into the wall and almost knocked himself out.
My heart dives and I pinch the bridge of my nose to cut off the tears that threaten to start whenever I let my mind wander past the immediate need to save Rebel.
I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss them all. I’m going to go back to the ranch with Burke for a while after the arraignment. I need to bury myself in a fort made out of blankets and a landscape that doesn’t remind me of Rebel at every single turn. I’ve already organized it with Bernadette, who surprisingly hasn’t fired me yet. She told me to take the time I need and my job would be waiting for me when I get back. I have no clue how when my first client is about to go to prison, but I’m not giving up yet.
I blink back the wetness before it can get out of hand. There will be plenty of time to wallow and feel sorry for myself later. Right now, we all agreed convincing Ro to finally speak about that night is our only chance.
If she’ll speak about it. I nibble my lip as my stomach flutters with anxiety. I don’t blame her for not wanting to relive that night. I hate that I have memories of being powerless and that even now they have a certain amount of control over how I live my life and make decisions. But Rebel didn’t deserve to be punished for protecting her that night and he doesn’t deserve it now. “I’m ready.”
He puts his hand on my lower back as we move forward with our plan. It’s a comforting and protective move, but it makes me miss Rebel so damn much. I almost cry out when I realize I’ll never again feel his warm hand on my back or encompassing mine.
We walk past the doormen and Riot says something that they both laugh at. A bank of elevators line the back wall and we step into the last one on the right. He pulls a plastic card out of his wallet and presses it to the scanner and we start to rise.
I watch the floors change, my knees jiggling. I can’t stay still. There’s too much riding on what happens here.
The elevator stops and opens into the foyer of a huge apartment. Everything is clean and modern and luxurious.
“Ro? We’re here,” Riot calls out as he leaves me standing in front of the elevators to go and find her. I guess she’s used to him letting himself in, but she doesn’t know that I’m with him.
Rochelle steps into the room and body checks when she sees me. Her eyes widen and her nostrils flare. One arm curls up protectively around her upper body. She glides toward me. Not too close, but there’s curiosity in her gaze. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Riot…” I clear my throat. “I came with Riot.”
Her eyes narrow and disdain washes over her features. “You’re that girl… with Rebel.”
“His publicist,” I remind her.
“If you say so.” She purses her lips and looks down her nose at me. “I’m not sure why his publicist would have her tongue down his throat though.”
“You’re right.” I don’t take offense at her wariness. She clearly was in love with Rebel even if it was never reciprocated. She very well might still fancy herself in love with him. Which could be useful right now. “I was his girlfriend for five seconds there, but that’s over now.”
“Really?” The haughtiness fades away under curiosity.
“It’s not important,” I say. I don’t want to focus on the fact that if I’d just come clean with him on something so small that we wouldn’t even be dealing with this mess. And why didn’t I? It certainly isn’t because I hate conflict.
The truth is I was scared. If I’d been open with Rebel from the start, if I’d let down my walls enough to be vulnerable with him, I never would have hid my conversations with Marty in the first place. He would have known he could trust me. Instead I let my fear of giving him the ability to hurt me keep him out, and now we’re over, and everything hurts anyway.
That doesn’t mean I can’t start to try and fix it. Or at least find a way to keep him from going to prison again. I’m going to put it all out there for the woman across from me—a woman who still has feelings for the man I love—in the hopes that she’ll find the strength to help me make this situation right.
Riot is at my shoulder, backing me up. It must be hard for him to be so caught up in this. I take a step toward her. “Alec Hawthorne is going to do a tell-all with Marty Kendall about what happened between him and Rebel and you. Unless you and Rebel tell your side of the events first.”
“What?” She wraps a hand around her throat and swallows convulsively. Her eyes fill with fear and she takes a step back. “You can’t be serious?”
“Unfortunately, I am,” I say softly. I can imagine how hard this is for her to hear. It’s probably like she’s in a never-ending nightmare. As if it isn’t enough that she went through whatever happened that night, now he wants to bring her nightmare back into the light and twist it to make him the victim.
“Did Rebel tell you?” All the blood drains from her face. She’s so pale her skin is almost translucent. “Did he—”
“No.” I want to reassure her. “He would never do that. He doesn’t even know that we’re here now.”
“Rebel’s being arraigned tomorrow,” Riot tells her.
“Oh my God,” she says, continuing to back up, stretching out her arm as though searching for something to grab onto.
Riot moves to her side quickly, holding her up when her knees give way. “We should sit, yeah?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I follow them to the lounge where she collapses onto the buttery leather of a huge modular sofa.
“I’ll get some water,” he says and steps out of the room.
“I saw he was arrested,” she says more to herself than to me. She’s of such slight build and she looks so fragile and sad that it seems she might shatter under the weight of her pain. “But I didn’t think… what happened?”
“Alec baited him and he lost his temper.” I suck my lips in and lock my fingers together. “He was angry at me. I hadn’t told him about the exclusive. Or that I was talking to Marty. I don’t know what Alec said to him, but I’m assuming it had to do with the interview and you.”
“Marty Kendall?” Her gaze snaps wide. “Do you have any idea what she did to him? They were high school sweethearts, but that didn’t matter to her. She saw an opportunity to make her career and she told the world every private detail about him.”
And I truly believe she regrets it. Not chasing her career or the breakup, but hurting him in the process. “It’s the fact that she’s so career orientated that makes me willing to consider that she might be our best ally. She wants the truth. She wants the world to know what really happened and what kind of guy Alec Hawthorne really is.”
“Rebel truly didn’t tell you? If you were close—”
“No. I made some educated guesses,” I admit. “He didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t figure out on my own.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” Riot joins us. The tall glass in his hand is filled with water and ice. “You know he wouldn’t, Ro.”
Under normal circumstances I would be bristling at the idea of having to come here and beg the woman who has feelings for the guy I wish was still mine, but these circumstances are far from normal. And Rebel isn’t the only one who needs this story told.
There are monsters that pull us into the darkness. They keep us trapped in the shadows of our fear. Unless we bring them into the light and strip them of their power. It’s a process. It might be a never-ending process, but we have to make that first step.
“He needs you to tell your story,” I say. “And I think maybe you need—”
“No.” Rochelle shakes her head. “No, I can’t.”
“Not even if it could stop him from going back to prison?” Riot sits beside her and hands her the water.
Her hand trembles as she lifts it to her mouth. It shakes so bad that water droplets darken her dress where they soak into the material. “You don’t understand. What happened, you’ve never—”
“I might not know what you’ve been through, exactly,” I admit. My hands clench in my lap and I pick at a loose thread to keep them busy. Sometimes your greatest strength isn’t it in your ability to keep it all together but in your ability to be weak in front of other people. To let them be your strength in the times when you can’t be. It’s okay to fall apart. It’s okay to stop duct taping yourself back together. It’s okay to realize that someone else can be a part of your glue.
I realize that now. I only wish I’d been able to be weak with Rebel. “And I haven’t been through what you must have gone through. But that’s only because timing was on my side. I… I found myself trapped in a bathroom with a group of boys who wanted to… hurt me. The only reason they didn’t was because my brothers got to me while they were still discussing what was going to follow. But it doesn’t change the fact that I was powerless and they wanted to hurt me.”
“Shit,” Riot says.
I find his gaze over the top of Ro’s head and offer him a reassuring smile. Not all wounds are easy to see. They shouldn’t be. We have to choose wisely the people we give our fragility to. The Maddox boys are definitely a wise choice. “I’m fine. It was a long time ago.”
“Did you…” Ro clears her throat. A tear slips down her cheek. “Did you talk about it?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say. “My brother, Owen, had the boys charged. Everyone in our small town knew the story within a week.”
“Did it help?” Her watery gaze flickers with curiosity. “Did they go to jail?”
I inhale slowly and expel all the air from my lungs. It’s still hard to talk about any of this. Especially when we don’t know each other. I could lie and tell her that talking about it fixed everything and I went on to find my happy ever after, to push her toward helping Rebel, but I don’t want to give her false hope.
“No, they didn’t. It was their word against mine since no one actually saw anything. The boys banded together and made it sound like we were just hanging out. Smoking cigarettes and having a drink.”
They pointed out that I was drunk when I arrived at the dance. They told the cops I’d fallen and hit my head on accident. One of them was my boyfriend up until that night. Everyone knew that. “There was no evidence and it was my one voice against their many.”
“I am so sorry.” Rochelle tucks her limbs in close to her body. “But you understand why I can’t do this. I can’t talk about it.”
“It’s different, Ro.” Riot wraps his arm around her. “You have us. Rebel saw what was happening. If you talk about this, Alec Hawthorne won’t get away with it.”
“I can’t.” She shakes her head.
I see the patience wearing thin in the tension in his jaw. “What about my brother? You can’t expect him to go to jail again. At least let him tell them his side of the story.”
“I can’t. People will know what Alec did to me.” She holds her throat again.
“We’ll work something out,” I say even as my heart sinks. We’re out of options, but I won’t push her. If she’s not strong enough then she’s not strong enough. “We’ll figure it out.”
I don’t know how. But I’m not giving up. I won’t.
“You should go,” Rochelle says. Her whole body stiffens and the emotion in her gaze disappears behind the veil of her eyelashes.
I reach into the pocket of my skirt and pull out a business card. The edges of the cardboard rectangle are curled from being in my pocket. “Marty gave me her card to give to you.”
“I don’t want it.” Rochelle stands up and clasps her hands to her elbow.
“That’s okay. I get it.” I bend and put the card on the low table next to the almost full glass of water. “It’s hard to be vulnerable when all you feel is helpless. But if you change your mind, call Marty. She’s ready to tell your story and get the truth out there. She wants Alec Hawthorne to be held accountable for what happened as much as any of us do. She’ll make sure the truth gets told.”
“I didn’t want it to be like this.” She bites her lip and tucks her chin into her shoulder as she stares at the dove gray wall instead of making eye contact with either of us. “I wish I could save Rebel. I just can’t deal with people knowing.”
“I understand,” I say as Riot comes to stand at my back again. I open my purse and pull out one of my own cards. I layer that one on top of Marty’s. “But if you change your mind… now or in the future… and you want someone to lean on, you call me and I will have your back.”
“We all will,” Riot adds. “You know that.”
“I-I do,” she says.
“You can’t change what happened, but you can stop it from happening again,” I say. “And you can make sure Alec Hawthorne is revealed as the monster he is. Just think about it.”
She gives the barest of nods as though she might actually consider what we’ve discussed.
That’s all I can hope for.
“Come on.” Riot guides me back toward the private elevator. “We need to go. Jason is coming to the house. We need to work out some other way to keep my brother out of jail.”
“Tell Rebel…” she calls after us as we step into the elevator. “Tell him I’m sorry.”