Every Song He Stole Was Mine novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Bring Nothing

Jude walks Joanna out, Dax threatens her at the loading dock and cuts off her cards, the clip goes viral, and a stranger texts her to come to Gold Line Records at nine.

The guards stopped on the steps and looked at Dax.

Dax looked at Jude Ransome.

Nobody told the band to stop, so the drummer kept the beat, and I finished the song.

When the last note died, the ballroom did not clap.

Four hundred people stood there with their phones up, deciding who to believe.

Then one woman near the front started clapping, slowly, and a few others joined her.

Kiera was gone from the stage.

I never saw her leave.

Jude walked up the side steps and took the microphone out of my hand.

"The party is over," he said into it. "Thank you all for coming."

He took off his rumpled charcoal jacket and put it around my shoulders.

It smelled like coffee and cold air.

"Walk with me," he said. "Don't talk to anyone."

He led me through a door behind the stage and down a gray service corridor.

Dax caught up with us at the loading dock.

His tie was crooked, and his smile was gone.

"You embarrassed me in front of four hundred people," he said.

"You embarrassed me in front of four hundred people first," I said.

"Jo, listen to me." He dropped his voice. "Nobody will believe a wife with a notebook."

"I'm not your wife anymore. I signed, remember?"

"Then you've got nothing." He leaned in. "No house, no money, no name on a single record."

Jude stepped between us.

He did not raise his voice.

"Dax, go back inside and thank your guests."

"This is my husband's party," Dax said, then caught himself. "I mean, my album. My party."

"Go inside."

Dax stared at Jude for a long second.

Then he turned and walked back through the service door, and it banged shut behind him.

My knees went soft.

Jude caught my elbow, only for a second, and let go.

"Is there someone I can call for you?" he asked.

"My friend Tilda," I said. "She's at the sound board."

"Then she's already on her way."

She was.

Tilda came around the corner at a run with her headphones still around her neck and her phone in her fist.

"Jo!" She grabbed me so hard my teeth clicked. "I recorded the whole thing off the board. Every second. Three clean tracks."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"I never kid about a clean track."

I laughed, and then I was crying.

Jude looked politely at the wall.

"Where are you staying tonight?" he asked.

"At home," I said. "Our house, I mean. His house."

My phone buzzed in my clutch.

It was a message from our bank.

Your joint card has been closed at the request of the primary account holder.

It buzzed again.

Your access to the home security system has been removed.

It buzzed a third time, and a fourth.

Dax had known exactly what he would do the moment I signed.

He had done it while I was still singing.

"I'll drive," Tilda said. "You're sleeping on my couch."

"I can get you a hotel room," Jude said.

"No," I said.

It came out sharper than I meant.

"I'm sorry. Thank you. But I don't know you, and your label is the one that made his record."

He nodded.

"Fair enough," he said. "Keep the jacket."

"I'll send it back."

"There's no hurry."

Tilda's car was parked in the alley with a flat bag of chips on the dashboard and a stuffed raccoon on the back seat.

I slid into the passenger side with a stranger's jacket around me.

My phone showed the video before I even opened it.

Somebody in the third row had posted a clip of me on the stage.

It already had two hundred thousand views.

By the time Tilda pulled onto the highway, it was past a million.

The comments scrolled faster than I could read them.

Who is this woman?

She just sang the whole bridge and the other girl didn't know it.

Wait, did he just divorce her at his own party?

Then the other kind of comments started.

She's obviously a bitter ex.

Jealous wife has a breakdown at her husband's big night.

An hour later Dax's team posted an official statement.

"Dax and Joanna have been separated for some time. We ask for privacy as Joanna works through a difficult period. She is not a songwriter and has never been credited on any Kingsley release."

I read the last sentence three times.

I had never been credited, and now they were using that to say I had never written a thing.

"They're calling me delusional," I told Tilda.

"They're calling you delusional on a night when a million people watched you sing a bridge nobody else knew," Tilda said. "That's a bold choice."

"They can say anything. I have no notebooks. They're all in the studio at his house."

"You have me," she said. "And every voice memo you've ever sent me."

I looked at her.

"I back up everything," she said. "It's a sickness. We'll deal with it in the morning."

I put my head against the cold window and watched the city lights go by.

At two in the morning, on Tilda's couch, a text came in from a number I did not know.

Nine a.m. tomorrow. Gold Line Records, fourth floor. Bring nothing. Tell no one but your friend. J. Ransome.

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