"What's this fucknut up to? It's a given that when one of these assholes starts showing his ass, it means there's something much worse he wants to keep hidden from the world. Knowing what I know about his ilk, I can take a wild guess as to what that might be. I'd bet everything I own that this asshole is involved in kiddie trafficking and, worst.""Who the hell gave Lyon a newspaper?" I was still trying to decipher his rant when Mancini asked that question to the room at large."I don't think anyone gave it to him; it was delivered to the house this morning," Tyler answered."I'm sorry, I must've signed up for some kind of daily subscription." The way they were acting, I felt as if I had committed a crime."Who is he talking about?" I asked Mancini since Lyon was still scowling at the paper."Who knows?""Asshole politicians. Every last one of them was either bullied on the playground, and now they're taking their shit out on the rest of the world, or they were the bullies who never ou
I can't believe I pulled it off. I kept looking over my shoulder each time I came to a stop light, my heart racing and fear threatening to choke me, but the angst was more than acceptable, given the alternative. I'd felt like a sitting duck back in L.A., waiting for someone to break down the door to that shitty little motel room and shoot me every other second.Between that fear and the image in that photo playing through my head on a loop, I barely slept a wink. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the two of them together and suffered a pain worse than death.It was a remembered pain; one I was very familiar with from back in the day when they were a couple, and I had to watch them together on screen. It was debilitating to be thrown back to that time after all the work I had put in to change things.But this time, it was even worst because I'd tried and failed to gain his love for myself. He'd always have this way of looking at her that anyone with eyes could see the love and admirati
Since I was already down the rabbit hole, I decided I might as well see it all now. I told myself I was in a better place now and more equipped to deal with it, but I underestimated the viciousness of my enemies. Putting aside the stories about how in love Ryder and Janie were, which I now knew were all lies, the lies about me were astounding.My character had been assassinated in ways I couldn't imagine. As someone who's always prided myself on being fair and kind to everyone, seeing those things in print hurt almost as if they'd just been said, even though most of it was from years ago.One of the reasons I'd gone searching was because of something that had been mentioned in the packet I received. Apparently, it wasn't only Janie and her family who had told lies to the press, but Mary and her kids had been on that bandwagon as well, and because I'd taxed Rachel with handling all of my social media accounts, I never got to see any of this until now.There was mention of my mental heal
"Whoa! What the hell is all this?" I got onto the service elevator in her building that the guys had somehow found and brought me to and pulled out my phone to call her, but there were over a thousand notifications on my phone; at least, that's what it looked like.I was expecting it to be more fallout from Janie's little meltdown since that's all I'd been seeing on my timeline for the past few days, but instead, I got the shock of my life when an image of Elena and me popped up on the screen.I started to panic at first, wondering who had been spying on us and how they'd gotten so close, and then I saw that it was she who had posted it. The smile on my face could not be contained. This could only mean one thing; she was ready to go all in. No one else might understand the significance of her posting that herself, but I did.I know she didn't do it for any clout; she was sending a message that she was ready to let the world know we were back together again, something I thought would ta
"What's the Scalene triangle up to?""Lyon, I have no idea what the hell that means.""Look it up. The three little girls, where are they, and what are they doing?" Tommy is another one of my guys from the original crew and the only one I could get ahold of on the island since Hitler's youth seemed to be up to some shit and had shipped the rest of them off somewhere.I hadn't seen it immediately because, one, I'd just left one job and was thrown ass first into another with barely any warning, and two, I don't fuck with Mengele and her demented shit because it's like being a mouse in a fucked-up maze designed to make me lose my shit.But it'll be the day when Kat's spawn can get one over on me. As soon as I saw the pattern, I knew something was up, and the little sneak had orchestrated it all perfectly. She knew my hands were tied because as long as she, her mother, or her brothers and sisters were not in any danger, I wouldn't leave the job to come back there to deal with her shit.Not
This impromptu date night idea turned out to be easier said than done; I soon found out. I thought I was ready, and I still am to some extent, but I'd underestimated the amount of attention our outing would garner. Since it was already so late at night, I foolishly thought that no one would be around, but I'd forgotten about the staff at the restaurant.Since I'd been coming here for a while now, ever since I started shooting my series in the city, and no one had ever bothered me, and neither was there ever a write-up about my visits to this place, I thought things would remain the same. That's one of the reasons I'd grown so fond of the place, that and the fact that the food was nothing to sneeze at, and it was one of the only places open so late at night. But I guess it was too much to ask for them to overlook the shock of seeing Ryder and me together after everything that had been going on in the press lately. It would've been hard to miss the looks of surprise and the questioning
The closer I got to my destination, the more nervous I became. I’d been driving for hours, only stopping for gas and to grab some snacks here and there when hunger broke through the high of the pills I’d finished a while back. I was surprised that I’d made it this far since I’d had that gnawing feeling of being hunted since leaving California, what must’ve been days ago.But now, with the lights of the city up ahead, I felt like I could relax, but first, I had to find a place to stay. There was no way I could stay in the city without being recognized, and I didn’t know how much money I had left. I gave some thought to heading to Jersey and my parents’ home before I remembered that it was no longer theirs.I started to panic, but then the thought hit and stuck that maybe no one had taken possession of the place as yet. I have no idea how that stuff works since I’d never bought a home before. When we got married, I’d just moved in with Ryder and never had to pay any bills. Just thinking
Dinner was amazing, but everything that came after, not so much. Ryder had gone above and beyond to make me forget our unwanted audience, and it worked to some extent, and after a time, I really did forget that they were even there. We didn’t pretend to be two old friends playing catch up, but neither did we go crazy with the PDA.It turned out to be just the perfect end to a crappy day, and by the time we left the restaurant, I was beyond happy that we’d got our first outing since getting back together out of the way. We were mobbed by fans on the way out, none of whom had been there when we arrived, so it was obvious that something had been posted about us on social media to get all of them there.Now, in the past, something like this would’ve soured Ryder’s mood. It was always a toss-up what kind of response he’d have to being bombarded like this out of left field, and I felt myself tense up. Old habits die hard, I guess.As if guessing my thoughts, he wrapped his arm around me, pul