Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“Right,” one grunted.
“Yup,” the other one also grunted.
Clearly, those two were less dumb, or maybe they were just less assholes.
He went back to the room, letting the door close behind him.
Stella was there, handing him an open beer.
“You were the shit out there tonight, baby,” he told her.
“You always say that,” she replied before she put the bottle to her lips and took a tug.
“I never lie.”
She blasted him with a smile, it was lit with the afterglow of a great gig, which was also a promise of off-the-hook sex when they got back to the hotel room. She did this before she strutted to the couch and threw herself on it for a much-needed rest. As always, she put everything into the show. So much, Mace was wondering how she was still conscious, much less how she’d pull out even more when she did what he knew she was going to do in about an hour, that being fucking him stupid.
She was beside Leo, who had a gurgling bong to his mouth, taking a hit.
He felt Floyd at his side.
“They’d demand people sort through the M&Ms for us if we asked,” Floyd started. “They go all out. Red carpet. Five star. Top of the line. But their security is for shit. Our rise has been stratospheric, as you know, but I think you and I both also know, it’s only just beginning. So the bigger she gets, they get, the worse that particular problem is gonna get. They don’t tighten their safety procedures and the people who enforce them, I don’t see good things.”
This was Mace’s same thought.
“You have a word?” Mace asked.
Floyd nodded.
“Three times,” Floyd answered.
“Right, then I’ll have a word.”
Floyd smiled.
A knock came at the door and Mace twisted that way.
One of the guards had his head stuck in.
He looked right at Mace and said, “Guests.” Then he jutted his chin, an indication the band would be okay with who was on the other side of the door.
Mace returned the gesture.
The door opened, and the hip-hop megastar Dee-Amond strolled in, followed by a more than impressive entourage.
“Damn, my motherfuckers,” he said by way of greeting. “I heard you were planting new roots in rock ’n’ roll, but hell if they didn’t get that shit right.”
“Holy fuck,” Leo breathed, pot smoke still drifting out of his mouth, bleary eyes glued to Dee-Amond.
Hugo smiled slow.
Buzz stared.
Pong was buried in women and wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
It was Stella who stood from the couch and made the approach, hand out.
“Dee-Amond, wow. Honored,” she said as he took her hand.
“Couldn’t believe it’d be true, you being more beautiful up close and personal, but here it is. And that voice. Damn, sis, platinum-plated.”
Stella smiled at him, and the richest, most famous recording artist of the day was instantly charmed for a lifetime.
Mace grinned.
Yeah.
That was his girl.
“Eventually, you gotta get outta the game, my brother,” Dee-Amond said through his phone into Mace’s ear. “Time to spend less of it on the road workin’ my ass off, and more of it enjoyin’ all the money I earned.”
“I hear you,” Mace replied.
“Still gonna need you, Mace. Just because I’m slowing down doesn’t mean crazy motherfuckers don’t want a piece of my ass,” Amond went on.
“You need my services, you got ’em. You don’t, you’re still invited over this weekend. I’m grilling. My mom is in town.”
“Lana? Is Tom with her?”
“’Course.”
“Chloe and Ben coming?”
“Absolutely.”
“Count me in. Have your girl talk to my girl about times and shit.”
His “girl” was the woman who ran MTS Security for him so he didn’t have to be behind a desk all the fucking time.
She was also sixty-seven years old and had been the executive secretary to two studio heads. Both of whom she hated. Both of whom she’d wrung top salary out of, including “retirement” packages (even when she left one at age forty-three) that meant she didn’t have to work again, even in LA.
He suspected it was more about the dirt she knew about them, but she’d endure torture before she’d ever tell.
Another reason why she worked for Mace.
After her second retirement, she realized she’d become used to the excitement of the business and couldn’t stay away.
Now she kept Mace’s ass in gear, and all his men…and women.
“I’ll get on that,” he told Amond.
“Right. Later, brother.”
“Later, Amond.”
He’d barely put his phone down before the screen lit up with a picture of him with his seven-year-old daughter wrapped around his back, Stella pressed to his side, smiling up at Tallulah, who was smiling down at her mom. His wife’s hand was on his abs.
It was only Mace who was smiling at the camera.
For a second, the past came rushing back, and he didn’t know who the man in that picture was.
But he grabbed the phone, took the call from his wife, and after he said, “Hey, baby,” and she replied, “Hey, Kai,” he remembered.