Page 45 of Heads or Tails

Dylan froze, and Slick took the opportunity. He shoved Dylan off, moving toward his desk. Dylan moved away, looking at Rose in confusion. He didn't know what to do. But Dylan did know she was right. He couldn't have that blood on his hands.

TWENTY-TWO

ROSE

Sighing to herself, Rose climbed the steps up to Slick’s dingy and rundown studio, feeling the knot in her stomach grow tighter the closer she got to the door.

She’d been mulling over the contract for days now, toggling between what she needed to do versus what her heart was telling her. She felt backed into a corner with no way out. All of her choices were stripped from her the moment she’d become entangled with Slick.

Now that her future was on the line, she needed to make a decision. Whether it was the right one or not.

Pulling open the door to the studio, Rose stepped inside and looked around.

There was a front desk with no one behind it and a half-glowing neon sign that had Slick’s infamous logo hanging above it.

“Hello?”

Her voice echoed around the empty space. Strangely, no one seemed to be around.

Weird …

She headed behind the desk to the off-shoot hallway that she could see led to more rooms. She hoped that Slick’s office was back there. Even if he was busy with a client, she’d wait in order to talk to him.

She needed to sign this contract, not for herself but for her poor bandmates that had been caught up in the middle of this unknowingly and unwillingly.

It sucked for all of them, not just her. But maybe once everything settled down, they’d see that she was doing this because she wanted them to be taken care of and to succeed ... even if it was going to be without her there. She only hoped that they’d come to understand that with time.

Going solo had never been her plan from the start. She’d always wanted her girls behind her one hundred percent. But with Slick’s contract only extending her way, she had no choice but to let them all go and step into whatever chains he was threatening to put around her neck.

She wished it hadn’t ended up this way. She’d been agonizing over it for days, losing sleep and focus until she’d woken up this morning and couldn’t take it anymore.

Dylan had texted her on her way over, which she had to force herself to ignore. She couldn’t be around him either now that she was going to be involved with the same man that had killed his friend. It’d break his heart to find that out more than it would if he knew the truth.

So, she’d have to cut him off once all of the paperwork was signed and stamped.

The thought made her want to die.

But she shook her head fiercely and stormed down the hallway. Regardless, her friends and her boyfriend would be better off in the long run.

Turning the corner, Rose heard a commotion coming from the end of the hall. Sounding like a bunch of yelling and loud banging going on behind one of the closed doors. She hurried her pace, following the noise to the last door.

She wrapped her hand around the knob and then jumped back when there was a loud bang against it, followed by what sounded like scratching noises.

What the hell?

She pushed the door open, her eyes widening at the state of the room inside.

Things had been flung around, awards on the wall shattered and smashed to the floor, with glass littering the floor everywhere. The desk had been cracked in half along with the papers on it flung across the room haphazardly. Debris was all over the floor, some of which she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it once was.

Near the windows, Rose spotted two large cats ... one of which was a tiger and the other a panther. They hissed at each other, raising their claws at the same time and smacking the other.

She winced when they both let out high-pitched whines.

Before she could blink, the tiger whipped around and slammed the panther onto the floor, pinning him with both of his paws crushed into the other cat’s windpipe. Unhinging his jaw, the tiger let out a nasty growl.

It made Rose’s heart thunder in her chest. For some reason ... some other force that she couldn’t exactly recognize ... she knew that this tiger was Dylan. It had to be.

She stepped into the room, glass cracking underneath her shoe and making her wobble slightly.