It broke me a little to see the faint light of hope in her brown eyes. I wondered how much more it was going to take before that hope finally burned out. She hadn’t seen Liam at his true worst yet, and I prayed she never did. “The longest I’ve ever seen him clean was when Marissa was sick, but as soon as she was better he went even more hardcore. He hasn’t touched heroin since then, though. The detox from that nearly killed him.”

“Meth and coke aren’t as bad as heroin—” she started but I cut her off.

“Brie, don’t. You can’t make excuses for him. Meth and coke are just as bad. He needs help but there isn’t anyone who can help him until he wants to help himself. Maybe he will want to now since he’s losing you…”

“But you don’t think he will.” She said what I was unable to because I didn’t want to hurt her more than I was sure she was already hurting.

My phone ringing kept me from having to answer. I pulled it from my pocket and saw that it was Devlin. I put it to my ear. “Yeah?”

“Liam left. He went to New York,” the drummer informed me. “He was pissed that you went to Gabriella’s… He was high, so of course he was spouting off about not being able to trust his friends with his girl. If he were sober he would have known that was complete bullshit, but now he’s raging thinking you and Brie are hooking up.”

“Of course he is.” I rolled my eyes. “Can the three of you make it to New York this week?” I had to be back there by the end of the week anyway, but I wouldn’t be able to handle Liam on my own. It would take Wroth and Devlin at the very least to just restrain a raging Liam. “Maybe by the time we find his ass he will have calmed down.”

“Wroth is taking Marissa back to Tennessee tomorrow. He said he would be able to get to New York by Thursday. Zander is going to head out first thing in the morning, try to find him before the tabloid vultures spot Liam. I can’t leave until Friday night because Harris has school. Let’s plan to meet up Saturday morning, okay?”

“Fine.” I rolled my neck back and forth, trying to get some of the tension out of my shoulders. “I’ll talk to you before then, Dev.”

“I’ll talk to Natalie about finding him another rehab. Tell her to keep it on the DL from Em.”

I exhaled sharply. “Good luck with that.” Natalie and Devlin were like fire and ice when put together, but I knew that he was the most likely to get her to help without involving Emmie. “I have to go. I have to get rid of this stuff and then try to smooth things over with Dallas before it’s too late.”

“Sorry, man, but it’s already too late,” Devlin told me with what could only be reluctance in his tone. “Dallas heard Liam raging about you and Gabriella. So when he left, she asked if he wanted company.”

“FUCK!”

Lana

When Drake wasn’t on tour he always brought me breakfast in bed. Nothing too serious. A bowl of cereal, some fresh fruit, sometimes some pancakes if he was in the mood to cook. This morning, I was awake before he was, having barely slept at all the night before.

Every time I closed my eyes last night, thoughts of Lucy and Vince Grady filled my mind. All I could think about was that she could be that vile man’s daughter. He had treated my mother like pure crap, which was saying something when you compared the usual disgusting men she had tended to hook up with. While most of them had creeped me out, Vince had truly scared me. Memories of my mother’s face, black and blue from the beatings he had given her, flashed behind my eyes and I felt sick to my stomach.

I stood in our living room, staring out at the predawn sky. I really liked this condo, maybe even more than the house we had back in New York. But right now, the home we had created together wasn’t bringing me any of the peace that I normally found here. The baby, feeling my distress, kicked out hard and I twisted as I rubbed my hand over the little foot. Drake and I hadn’t settled on a name yet, although we had narrowed the long list down to two. I wished we could have just decided already, but knew that Drake wanted to wait.

Not even the baby could distract me for very long, unfortunately. My own fears and trepidations couldn’t come close to what Layla and Jesse must be feeling right now. Both had been a wreck when they had finally left the wedding reception last night with a tired, but happy Lucy tucked between them. We had all decided not to tell Lucy about what was going on until we absolutely had to. There was no reason to upset her when this could all go away as quickly as it had started.

I knew what I wanted to do about the whole thing. I wanted to grab Lucy and take her back to New York with Drake and me. Hide her, protect her. My whole being was anxious to do it. The buzzing in the back of my head screaming at me to do it now, before something happened.

“You scared the hell out of me, Angel.” Drake’s voice startled me and I turned to face him as he came into the living room in nothing but a pair of boxers that hung low on his lean hips.

I was momentarily distracted by the view before me and that sexy V at his waist that disappeared inside of the black boxers. But then what he said penetrated my desire-fogged mind and I shook my head to clear it. He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tighter than he normally would have. “I’ve been calling for you for the last five minutes. When you didn’t answer I thought something had happened.”

I buried my face in his bare, clean smelling chest. “Sorry, babe. I’ve been lost in my own thoughts for a while.”

“Lucy?” I nodded and he blew out a long sigh. “I wish I could snap my fingers and fix this for you, Angel. I’m worried too, but seeing you like this is killing me.” He brushed his lips over the top of my head. “It will all work out. Emmie will do everything she can.”

That was possibly the only thing that was keeping me sane. If Emmie couldn’t take care of this, then I knew no one could. Two hours later, as we sat in Emmie’s office listening to the lawyer lay everything out for us, I realized that it was truer than I originally thought.

Brad Horton, the lawyer who had handled Lucy’s adoption, was not going to be able to help much at all. Because Lydia hadn’t put Lucy’s father’s name on the birth certificate Jesse and Layla hadn’t known who, if anyone, they had to get permission from to legally adopt her. With a man coming forward now, only a paternity test or his signature on the bottom of the papers saying he didn’t contest the adoption would keep this from going to court with what would only be an extremely ugly, widely publicized custody battle.