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“I guess you’ll have to settle for being a slut for only three members of the band,” she sneers. “What are you going to do when they all get tired of you?”

“You really don’t know any other insults, do you?” I roll my eyes at her. This time she moves when I push past her. Only to grab my hair and yank on it so viciously that I see black. I cry out. My scalp is on fire.

“Listen, bitch—”

“Get your hands off her,” Riot barks as he fills my view.

Her grip on my hair loosens.

I whirl around, my fist pulling back. No one touches me unless I want them to. No one gets to treat me the way she is.

Riot’s back blocks me from punching her stupid face in. He grinds his molars as he grabs her upper arms and shoves her against the wall. “Don’t touch her again, or I swear, Sonatina, you will fucking regret it.”

“Baby,” she coos. “She started it. You know she hates me. I’m only trying to protect us.”

She’s fucking delusional. Not about me hating her. But that anyone will believe I started it when she’s holding a clump of my hair—root and all—in her fist. I touch my scalp where it still stings. It’s wet and sticky. Did she make me bleed?

The tips of my fingers come away red.

Bronx appears behind Riot. Rook too, but all three men can’t fit in the tiny area with us. They watch uneasily from the perimeter.

Lennon is there too. Passing a few feet behind them. Her big, sorry eyes taking everything in.

“She refuses to believe that you’re choosing me.” She touches his cheek.

He releases her and tucks his fists into his armpits. There’s a chill in the gaze he keeps leveled on her. It sounds like he’s chewing marbles. “She knows we’re engaged, Sonatina.”

“Knows and doesn’t care,” I snap, caring way more than I should. He says it’s for me, but this isn’t what I want. It’s what he wants... because... it protects the band too. Like she said, he is never going to choose me.

So why is he looking at me like I’m hurting him?

I suddenly can’t stand it anymore. Being stuck in confined spaces with Sonatina glaring daggers at me all the time sucks. I’m sick of her stupid, bitchy remarks to everyone within earshot about how much of a slut I am. Definitely not going to put up with her ripping hair out of my head. “I don’t want him.”

I run past Bronx and Rook. Past Lennon, who stumbles over herself to get out of my way.

“Kelsey,” Riot yells out as I run out of the suite.

The silver door of the elevator is closed. Waiting for it is the last thing I want to do. But I can go up. I shove open the door to the stairwell and head for the rooftop. My footfalls land with the bottled violence simmering under my skin.

She hates me. I get it.

She wants me gone. I get that too.

She’s spying on us. On the band. And on me. Invading the very little privacy I have. Using it to hurt us all.

And Riot...

Hell, I want to leave him behind more than she wants me gone. If Marco wasn’t out there somewhere... possibly following us across the country since he knows I’m with the band... preparing to swoop in at the first sign I’m vulnerable, I would have walked out of that stupid secret meeting Riot called weeks ago and not looked back.

I burst through the door onto the rooftop terrace. It’s quiet. Closed. Except Riot got permission to use it whenever we want.

The lights from below make everything glow and push back true dark. I rush to the railing, lean right over it, and inhale. I scream on the exhale. It’s a roar. An attempted exorcism of all the frustration and anger that have been boiling up.

How can anything or anyone be worth putting myself through this?

Maybe it’s time to consider taking Kodiak up on his offer. We could both leave. Go somewhere far away where Marco will never find me. Start fresh. I adore him. Perhaps in time I could fall in love with him.

But that wouldn’t really be fair to him. Asking everything of him when I can’t promise what he wants in return. When I’m still hung up on a man who should be firmly in my past.