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She wrapped her arms around herself as a chill worked its way down her spine, needing the protective barrier between them. She ran her finger over the band of her engagement ring, spinning the stone around and around her finger. “You’re just questioning if I can still do my job.”

“No,” he said slowly. “No one’s questioning that anymore either.” Her brow furrowed as her eyes darted between his, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “It’s clear you’re no longer able to make objective decisions about this band.”

“What does that mean?”

“This video of Jackson in the hotel room… You’ve seen it?” She nodded. “I told you, my partners wouldn’t tolerate it getting out that another member of Midnight Storm had been deceiving the press.”

“But what if we’re not?”

He paused, his gaze zeroing in on the restless movement of her finger over the engagement ring. “How long have you been in love with Beckett?”

“What?”

“I know you two had a thing back in the day, but I thought that was over.”

“It was,” she said softly. He arched an eyebrow at her and she struggled to find the words to explain her relationship with Beckett. “I… We didn’t…”

“You didn’t plan it?” he offered with a sympathetic smile. “I know how that is.”

For a moment, the dread tugging at her sternum subsided as a spark of hope whispered to life. “Of course, you do.”

“Kat.” His tone immediately extinguished that hope. “Your relationship with Beckett is a breach of contract. If it were that alone, I might be able to convince my partners to keep you on, but taken alongside the Jackson situation, and now the press knowing that your engagement was fake, that you lied to everyone for financial gain—”

“Derek, please,” she said, forcing herself not to cry.

“I’m sorry. It’s out of my hands.” She released a breath, turning towards the window so he wouldn’t see the tears starting to streak down her cheeks. “You’ll be booked on the first flight back to Boston.”

“Today?” she asked, spinning to face him as she dashed away her tears.

He nodded. “I hate to ask, but I need your security credentials.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Beckett followed the doctor down the hall, though he would have been able to find Jackson’s room on his own by the hulking security guard standing outside his door. Gideon gave him a brusque nod as he passed, his jaw set in an expressionless calm, but the slight flare of his nostrils and focused movement of his eyes gave him away. He might pretend he was emotionally detached from his duty of care for the members of Midnight Storm, but their long-time head of security cared deeply. It was written all over his face. Beckett clapped him on the shoulder as he moved past him into the quiet hospital room.

Outside the broad picture window on the opposite wall, Cleveland was lit up neon against a dark sky, a reminder that despite the fluorescent timelessness of the hospital, it was the middle of the night. Jackson reclined on the hospital bed, a blue and white patterned hospital gown covering his chest and a white cotton blanket draped over his legs. His feet, covered in purple socks with grippy bottoms, stuck out of the bottom of the blanket. The monitor beside his bed flashed with neon green numbers Beckett didn’t understand. An IV pumped fluids into his brother’s arm while another tube delivered oxygen to his nose.

“Hey, Becks,” Jackson said with a slow grin.

Beckett sat in the chair beside his brother’s bed, unsure what to say. How to explain his relief that his brother was—relatively—okay, his anger that his brother got drunk while they were on stage, how hurt and betrayed and so goddamn scared for him.

But they didn’t talk about their feelings. Never had. Maybe if they had, he’d know how to tell Jackson that he was furious and worried and felt so fucking helpless.

“Scared the shit out of us back there,” he said. A tentative toe dipped into the water of the raging rapids of emotions swirling around them.

“You know me. I’m like a cat. Nine lives.” Jackson chuckled, the sound dissolving into a groan. His eyes fell closed, a moment of pain flitting across his face. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

“The doctor says you have a collapsed lung.”

Jackson nodded. He swung his eyes to the IV. “They said they’ll fix me up when…”

“When you’re sober,” Beckett finished the sentence for him.

Jackson grunted an acknowledgement, immediately wincing as the movement jostled his broken ribs. “Six to eight weeks before I can sing again,” he said, his expression grim. “Looks like you’ll have to finish the tour without me.”

“No. Midnight Storm is all five of us. We don’t go on without a member of the band.”

“Becks,” his brother said, closing his eyes again as though he was exhausted by the conversation. “You’re just afraid the fans will realize I’ve been carrying the rest of you all these years.” The corner of his mouth twitched up in a grin.