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Chapter 1
Teagan splashed cold water on his face and stared at his ragged reflection in the bathroom mirror. He felt as worn-out as he looked. Not from the music. He loved playing, and he loved touring with the band, even if they were all knackered from their final weeks on the road. No, it wasn’t the travel, or the long days spent rehearsing, or the long nights spent sleeping on a bus that had him down. He couldn’t seem to shake this strange emptiness deep in his soul.
Bloody hell, could he sound any more ungrateful? His life was damn near perfect, his musical career everything he’d hoped it would be. He drove the car of his dreams and lived in a flat four times the size of the one he’d grown up in. His bandmates were more than fellow musicians, they were his friends. Fiona’s two-year-old daughter called him Uncle Tee-Tee.
He smiled at a memory of little Violet Siobhan Flynn-Evans sitting on his lap, thwacking away on his drum kit. Much to her parents’ displeasure, Teagan had given her a mini setup for her first Christmas, which she’d largely ignored until she’d turned two. Now, banging on the drums, his or her own, was her favorite activity. Fiona promised revenge.
Despite millions of fans, friends he would die for, and a different, willing female or two any night of the week, he felt empty. He hung his head and sighed, wishing he could sleep in his own bed tonight. Alone. Well, maybe not alone. The one person with whom he wanted to share his bed wouldn’t give him the time of day, and this last stunt would certainly seal his fate with her.
He should have been thrilled that two dark-haired beauties lounged in his king-sized hotel bed, eagerly awaiting his return. Instead he felt flat, exhausted, and not at all like playing with the lovely ladies. He scrubbed his short, spiked hair with one hand and squeezed his eyes shut.
It took a second for his mind to register the incongruent sounds coming from the bedroom. A sharp, piercing scream. A muffled pop. A menacing male voice.
Without thinking, Teagan flung open the bathroom door and rushed out, then skidded to a stop, his bare feet slipping on the marble floor. Time seemed to slow. Frozen in place, he took in the gruesome sight. One of the young women lay sprawled on the bed. A splatter of bright-red blood painted the sheets and headboard behind her, like some macabre Jackson Pollock canvas. Her open eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling.
The other woman cowered on the floor in front of the nightstand, her body quaking.
“Cristina!” Teag shouted.
His eyes darted from the terrified woman to the man standing in his hotel room. The image of the intruder’s face—his cold blue eyes, pale skin, and close-cropped blond hair—burned into Teag’s brain. Although he was dressed like a waiter, the ink snaking out from under his collar and the gun held competently in his hand said he was something quite different.
In the half-second it took for the man to swing his gun in Teagan’s direction and pull the trigger, several thoughts shot rapid-fire through Teag’s mind.
He wished he could remember the dead woman’s name. How did someone get into his room? This asshole was going to shoot Cristina.
That last thought would have spurred him into action, except there was no time. He registered the fact that the gun had a silencer when he heard another hissing pop just before his chest exploded in agony.
The force of the shot sent him crashing back through the bathroom doorway. His head hit the tile with a hard thud, and his vision stuttered. He heard a final scream from the bedroom, abruptly cut short. Seconds later, the door clicked shut and the room plunged into silence.
Teagan’s chest throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and a warm, wet pool spread over his bare torso. With his last bit of strength, he turned his head toward the bedroom, and then wished he hadn’t. Cristina, a woman he’d only met the day before, lay on the floor crumpled in a lifeless heap, her mouth opened in a silent scream and a neat hole carved in the center of her forehead.
