Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
The room was quiet. Not city quiet…real quiet. The only sound was crickets chirping and wind flowing.
Syn lay on his back for an hour listening to the nothing as Fox’s words continued to circle.
Furi made a bad choice, with the best intentions. Then he followed you to Ro’s and stood there with his heart in his hands while you gave him your back.
Syn closed his eyes.
He saw Furi standing at Ro’s patio door.
He’d heard the break in his voice when he apologized. Heard him say he’d hated that he gave strangers what was Syn’s. Heard him put his blood pressure pills, multivitamins, protein bars, and peppermint tea on Ro’s kitchen counter like some love-infused care package.
Syn pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes.
After another long hour, he reached for his phone on the nightstand.
He hovered his thumb over Furi’s contact, labeled My World, staring at the screen until his vision blurred.
“Fuck. I miss you so goddamn much,” he whispered into the silence.
He pressed call before his pain could talk him out of it.
The phone barely completed one rang.
“Corbin.”
Furi’s voice was hoarse and raw as if he hadn’t spoken in days.
Syn closed his eyes.
For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.
Furi inhaled softly. “Are you okay?”
Syn swallowed. “No.”
More silence.
“Ro told me where you are.”
Syn rolled his eyes. Of course he did.
He stared at the ceiling fan turning above him.
“I pray you’re finding peace out there.”
Syn’s throat tightened until it throbbed.
He turned his head on the pillow, staring out of the dark window.
“You’re my peace.”
Furi’s breathing was shallow. “Corbin. Please.”
Syn shut his eyes. “Don’t.”
No more apologizing, no more pleading. That wasn’t why he’d called.
Another long silence stretched between them, taut as wire.
Furi spoke first.
“I didn’t call because you asked for space.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to.”
“I know.”
“Every minute, of every day.”
Syn bit his bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
“Love,” Furi said softly.
Syn’s eyes burned as he turned onto his side, phone pressed tight to his ear. “I can’t promise I won’t be angry tomorrow.”
“I’ll still take tomorrow.”
“You can’t lie to me ever again.”
“I won’t.”
He could hear when Furi stopped breathing. Waiting. Holding himself still on the other end as though one wrong sound might scare him back into silence.
Before he knew it, his heart overruled his mind. “Come here.”
Furi gasped before he blurted, “I’ll be there in an hour.”
Syn nodded despite Furi not being able to see him. “Drive safe.”
There was another long pause, until he ended it by hanging up.
He laid with the phone against his chest, his heart hammering as if it was trying to escape.
Xander Vale
At seven in the morning, Xander sat at the small table in the hotel suite with his phone propped in front of him.
Jesse filled one square of the screen from her office, sharply dressed, her all-business-no-bullshit expression in place. Maribel occupied another, calmly rotating the notes of the shooting crisis. Nolan Price, the studio manager, looked as if he hadn’t slept in days if the dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes and wayward hair were any indication. Elliot was in the bottom square, efficient and focused like always.
“We have to control the narrative,” Maribel said. “Right now the story is escalating without us. Police have no details of the shooters. Thank goodness no one else was hurt, but people are still blaming you since you were the target.”
Xander wanted to scream. He was a damn victim. How could he be responsible for another person’s criminal actions?
“If we don’t establish stability, speculation will continue to run rampant.” Maribel picked up another piece of paper and begin to read. “The statement should be simple. Xander Vale returns to set and production on the sequel to What Breaks in Silence. Filming continues and is on schedule. Additional security measures have been put in place to ensure his safety and the safety of his co-stars and studio personnel. The attempts on his life continue to be an on ongoing investigation, and we trust the LAPD will track down all responsible.”
Xander remained composed and impassive.
He never mentioned the meeting with River Blackwell last night or the implication of Bennett Ashford’s involvement.
That’d been God’s and Cassidy’s call, that the information River had given them was need-to-know only. River Blackwell had risked his life by telling them the truth, and if Bennett or his hired men found out he’d ratted them out, he could also become a target.
If the press got a whisper of it, Bennett could lawyer up and clean house or twist the whole thing into celebrity paranoia.
So Xander sat and listened to his team tell him he needed to be seen and to keep working.
He didn’t argue.
Bennett Ashford wanted him scared, injured, or dead, whatever it took not to finish his movie.
But fear had been driving too many of his decisions, and he wasn’t going to let Bennett Ashford, the coward, control him from behind the walls of his seaside mansion.