I take a beat, trying to ignore the panic crawling up my throat like prickly thorns.

    But the spotlight burns hot against my skin.

    The colors of the crowd kaleidoscope around me.

    And thesers sh like memories trying to work their way back in.

    I shut them out, mming my walls down as tight as I can. But the screams of the crowd still get in. The screaming and stomping and sobbing I can’t ignore, no matter how hard I try.

    And God, do I try.

    Fuck, fuck, fuck.

    Get it together, Sloane. Get it the fuck together.

    You’ve only got one more song. Surely you can keep your shit on lock for the next four minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

    But my breath ising in short gasps now, my throat growing tighter by the second. I’m not sure I can keep it together for four seconds, let alone four minutes.

    But I have to. Because the trauma doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. The only thing that does is finishing the show and getting off this stage before anyone knows something’s wrong.

    I close my eyes, open my mouth, and try to sing the first line. But the sign is right there behind my lids. ck Widows Eat Their Mates, with a picture of Jarrod and me directly below.

    Only the words aren’t ink. They’re knives, and somehow they’re finding all the tender ces he’s already cut.

    As the crowd throws presents at the stage—projectiles they’ve bought or made—shbacks m through me, one after the other. I try to block them out, try to force them back before they slice me wide open all over again.

    His fingers on the guitar.

    His blood on the tile floor.

    The feel of silk brushing against my skin.

    The blue of his eyes.

    The rich syrup of his voice.

    The strength of his fingers wrapping around my thro—

    A bouquet of roses hurtles into my arm. The stems prick me, and the pain drags me deeper, turning my skin cold despite the bright lights and hundred-degree heat.

    Get it together, I tell myself again, even as my teeth start to chatter. Get it the fuck together.

    The band is still ying the intro, looping it around and around until the drums thump inside my chest like a second heartbeat. The sensation cuts through the static like nothing else has, and I use it to w my way back from the abyss—inch by inch, thorn by fucking thorn.

    This time when I open my mouth, I don’t stop singing until the whole damn song is out.

    I hit thest note. Breathless, hollow, empty.

    As I do, the tform beneath me shudders and starts to drop. Damn it. I didn’t w my way back fast enough. My team noticed, or they would have given me a few extra seconds onstage for a few waves.

    The tform locks into ce below the stage, and I catapult myself off it like my whole damn body is on fire.

    My assistant manager, Olivia, is waiting at the tunnel entrance to meet me, sk in her hand. I grab it, then take a long, desperate drink.

    The sweet tea burns like bourbon as it makes its way down my raw throat. Despite that, I drain the sk dry before lowering it. Only to find Olivia and several stagehands watching me with eyes so nk theye all the way back around to judgmental.

    They think it is bourbon, because that’s what I want them to think. The ck Widow can knock ’em back like nobody’s business. I, on the other hand, am not much of a drinker.

    Don’t like the smell. Don’t like the taste. Really don’t like the feeling of being out of control. Too much of my life has been out of control already. Tonight is just another case in fucking point. But living down to other people’s expectations, especially when it’s a lie, gives me the advantage.

    “What else do you need?” Olivia starts, but I just shake my head as I stalk toward my dressing room.

    To breathe. I just need a moment to fucking breathe.

    I pass my tour coordinator, Jace, on the way. His faded blue eyes find and hold mine for several seconds before I look past him. “You up for the encore?” he asks in a voice several degrees gentler than usual. But this is our fourth tour together, and he can read me well.

    “Always,” I rasp. “I just—”

    I break off, gesturing to my dressing room.

    He nods, then lifts a hand like he wants to pat my shoulder. But he drops it just as quickly—Jace knows better than most that I don’t like being touched. Even by the closest thing to a father figure I’ve ever had.

    “Don’t take too long,” he calls after me as I stumble thest several yards down the hall and throw open my door. Instead of the peace I crave, I find my stylist with three outfits spread across the couch before her.

    “Which do you want to end in tonight?” Lucinda asks in her oh-so-posh British ent.

    “Surprise me,” I grind out, tossing my sk on the coffee table as I head straight for the bathroom. Straight for sixty seconds of privacy.

    As soon as the door closes behind me, I’m ripping at my tight clothes. I yank the ck tube dress and strapless bra over my head and drop them at my feet before wrapping my arms around myself.

    Only then do I take a deep, shuddering breath. And another. And another.

    I knew I shouldn’t have let them book Austin on the tour. I told them I didn’t want toe here. But thebel insisted—it’s a major music city. A huge, happening market. Plus there’s history here, the roots of the ck Widow lore.

    Precisely why I didn’t want toe.

    For the umpteenth time tonight, Jarrod’s too-pretty face shes in front of my eyes. And for the umpteenth time, I shut that shit down. Or at least I try. It’s not as easy as it sounds when I can still hear the shouts from the fans demanding Ie back for an encore. They’re like vampires, moring for an open, aching vein. And tonight I haven’t bled enough for their liking.

    I take another deep breath, bracing my hands on the edge of the sink as the woman I’ve be stares back at me—at what the press and the fans and thebel have made me. At what I’ve made myself. The ck Widow, who will kill a man as soon as fuck him.

    I used to try to exin that it wasn’t like that, but nobody wanted to listen. Then again, killing two boyfriends in a row tends to fuck up your credibility. And possibly even the rest of your life, or so my therapist says.

    Turns out, she’s not wrong.

    There’s a knock on the door. “Sloane? You okay in there?” Lucinda’s voice is both concerned and urgent.

    She doesn’t need to say it because I already know. I’ve got to get back out onstage.

    “I’m—” My voice breaks, so I clear my throat and force the words out. “I’m fine. Just had to pee.”

    I flush the toilet to prove my lie, then turn the water on as I lean closer to the mirror to check out the damage.

    I didn’t cry out there—I never cry—but right now my face looks a little like I did.

    The glitter along my cheekbones is streaky, like stardust dragged down to earth, and my smoky eye has smeared a little at the edges. I wet my finger, start to clean things up a little. Then decide: fuck it.

    If they want messy, I’ll give them messy.

    I thrust my hands into my hair and shake until thest few pins fall out. Smear the gray-and-ck shadow into the hollows under my eyes, pressing it into the glitter until it looks like bruises shot through with gold.

    Then I put my bra back on, straightening my back and my resolve, before I throw open the door to meet Lucinda’s worried eyes.

    She doesn’t say anything, though. Just holds my sk out to me. “I filled it up for you.”

    She’s one of the only people on the who knows my drink of choice. “Thanks.” I take another long swallow of tea, then nod to the dresses she still has spread out on the couch. “So what’d you decide?”

    “Honestly, I’ve got a long, white dress in wardrobe that I’d love to put you in—”

    “Only nice girls dress like that,” I interrupt with a snort, flopping down in one of the big easy chairs. The leather is cold against my back, but it can’t touch the chill inside me.

    “That’s why I want you to wear it.” She nces at me over the top of half-moon sses, her gaze catching and holding mine a few moments too long. “Come on, Sloane. Don’t you ever get tired of the act?”

    “I am who I am.” I force myself to look away even as a knock sounds at the door.

    “Three-minute warning,” Jace calls from the hallway.

    Lucinda ignores him. “You are who you think they want you to be. The fans won’t burn you in effigy if you decide to show them the real you.”

    Been there, done that, got the bruises and the broken heart to prove it. “No, but they might strangle me. Again.”

    She shoots me a look but doesn’t say anything else. She knows it’s true.

    To prove I’m not a sore winner, I toast her with my sk before taking onest sip of tea.

    “Fine.” She rolls her eyes as she picks up the Alexander McQueen dress on the far left of the couch and heads toward me. “You could at leasty off the damn sk, though.”

    “But the doctor tells me I need to stay hydrated.” I bat my inch-long falsies at her and pretend my head isn’t throbbing. “I’m just following orders.”

    “So why not drink your tea like a normal person?”

    I don’t want her to know she’s scored a point, so I just shrug. “I tried normal. Turns out it’s not what they want from me.”

    “And what do you want for yourself?”

    Good music and a tour that doesn’t explode in scandal. In that order. I’ll do whatever I have to do—be whoever I have to be—to get it.

    But what I say is, “Another willing victim, obviously. They do say three’s the charm.”

    Lucinda doesn’t take the bait. She rarely does. There’s a reason she’s been with me for three tours now. Instead, she just holds the costume out to me and asks, “Do you need help getting sorted?”

    “I think I can handle it.” The fewer people who touch me, the better.

    I reach for the dress, which is very, very ck and very, very short, with a corset-like bodice,ce sleeves, and an embellished skirt.

    The perfect outfit for the ck Widow to wreak a little havoc in.

    “You say that now, but wait ’til you try toce that back up yourself.” She sends me an amused grin before gathering the other outfits and heading for the door.

    I start to change my mind and ask her to stay, but knowing her eye for detail and the sadism thates with it, she’ll tie the corset way too tight and I’ll end up onstage struggling to hold a note. With my luck, I’ll pass out fromck of oxygen and tomorrow’s headlines will all be about my hidden substance abuse problems and how I cked out onstage. Now that I think about it, it’s not the worst idea.

    I spend the next minute or so struggling into the dress—I really hate it when Lucinda’s right—and have just finished tying the damn thing up when there’s another knock on the door.

    “Almost ready!” I call, which Olivia must take as a damn invitation because the door cracks open.

    “Great, I’ll walk with you,” she answers, then pauses like she’s about to deliver bad news.

    My stomach cramps up. Out of habit, I reach for my sk, wishing it was bourbon for the first time tonight, and whisper, “What now?”