Free Rock God (Hearts of Metal Book 3) by Brooklyn Ann

church my parents went to.” He gave her a wicked smile upon seeing her shock. “I took quite a turn, wouldn’t you say?”
    Thinking of his dark clothing and often macabre lyrics, she nodded. A choirboy turned heavy metal? Who would have thought?
    “What led to that turn?”
    He stared at her. “A lot of people gravitate towards this music, especially the musicians themselves, because they had a painful childhood. I didn’t—well, except for later on, when my mom had her first bout of cancer.” A cloud of sadness passed over his features. “But I can’t remember a day when heavy metal and rock ’n’ roll didn’t lift my spirits, make me feel more alive. I started out listening to Ritchie Panic. He was really big in the eighties, but to hell with him now.”
    Shayna blinked at the sudden flicker of hostility. “Why ‘to hell with him’?”
    “He just up and abandoned us all.” Dante said bitterly. “I’d finally gotten tickets to see him—saved up for a year—and my friends and I waited for hours before the venue manager announced that the show was cancelled. Apparently the guy just up and quit that day, deciding he didn’t want to play metal anymore. He took his money and retired to some island in the Florida Keys to drink margaritas and laze around.”
    “What if something happened to him?” Shayna asked, thinking of her own reasons for losing her creative spirit.
    “I wrote him a letter after I made it big,” Dante said with a frown. “He wrote back that he’d been tired and just wanted to enjoy his money while he was still young. Not even an apology for me and all the rest of those people he let down who’d paid to see him. I get that he has the right to do what he wants, but I still think he’s a selfish asshole. Still, I have a lot to thank him for, I suppose, first for inspiring me to pick up a mic in the first place, and then motivating me to become better than him. I’d been just hooking up with a band, and Panic’s abandonment made me even more determined to become a success—and to never do what he did. We were good enough to get gigs in local clubs when I was sixteen, and the next year we signed our first record contract.”
    “Sixteen? Wow.” Shayna couldn’t hide her awe. “Were your parents proud? Or did they disapprove?”
    His eyes shone boyish and clear as he smiled. “My parents were great. No matter how much other people in the church complained about the ‘Devil’s music’ that I’d gotten wrapped up in, they were always supportive, even when the touring and recording schedule meant I’d have to drop out of school. They even left the church when their friends wouldn’t lay off. Eventually, the money I brought in from my gigs helped pay for mom’s medical bills, and thankfully her cancer went into remission after a five year battle.”
    “So, you saved her life.”
    Dante rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks coloring slightly. “I wouldn’t go that far, especially not anymore, but I was thankful that I could at least do something to help. I was afraid my parents would ask me to quit and go back to school after she was better, but they didn’t. They even came to my shows.”
    “It’s so wonderful that your mom and dad stood by you and your dream,” Shayna said, thinking of her own mother. Maybe this was why he’d turned out to be so kind and selfless. “So many people have monsters for parents.”
    He raised a brow. “Like…?”
    “My mother,” she admitted with a shudder. “I barely knew my father.” Then she realized what she was saying, and not wanting to delve deeper into painful memories, she brought the subject back to him. “So, what made you first want to help people?”
    People like me, she didn’t add.
    He shrugged and refilled their glasses, hers with wine, his with beer. “Part of it was because of how I was raised. My mom always brought me to help her with coat drives and soup kitchens.” A strange look flickered across his