I managed a few short hours of uncomfortable drowsing in a chair in Emmy’s room. When I woke and saw that she was still asleep I made my way back out to the waiting room, only to find it empty of everyone I knew, but full of reporters. The only familiar face was Jim Turner, my lawyer. He gave me a surreptitious signal to keep my mouth shut, so I ignored all the questions the reporters shouted when they saw me. Jim had already secured the use of a place for us to talk, so I followed him back out of the crowded waiting room and into a small conference room.
After shutting the door, we shook hands and sat down.
“I’ve seen the videos, so I know what it looks like,” Jim said with no more preamble. “Tell me what you’ve told the police- or anybody else, for that matter- about what happened.”
As he took notes, I related to him the brief conversation I’d had with the two cops, and also the little bit I’d told the ER nurse. I couldn’t remember saying anything else to anybody else, I told him.
“What have you said to your friends?” Jim asked.
I told him that I’d said nothing about the events, really, just that Emmy needed to prove that she wouldn’t be silenced and so wanted to continue and finish off the remaining stops of the tour.
“You asked Tyler to help you write a press release, but I’ll have our PR specialist in The City do it,” Jim said, glancing over his notes.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what actually happened?” I asked, a bit surprised.
“No,” Jim answered. “I know what happened. A group of armed assailants attacked you, specifically targeting Emmy De Lascaux, Angela Castro and you, for unknown reasons. You and Ms De Lascaux’s bodyguards fought them off, but they managed to murder Angela Castro and her unborn child in cold blood, as well as cause the loss of Ms De Lascaux’s own unborn child. Additionally, you and the two bodyguards suffered potentially life-threatening wounds of your own in the altercation,” Jim said. “That is what happened.”
“That is what happened, alright,” I agreed.
“Your legal jeopardy is minimal, and the DA knows it. Proof of that is the simple fact that there’s been no attempt to arrest you, despite witness testimony and video evidence of you using commensurate force on the attackers. Force completely justified by the circumstances.”
“That’s good to know,” I said.
“They will probably enjoin you from leaving the state for a few days, but that’s it,” Jim said. “They may argue that you have the resources to flee, but there’s no compelling argument for charging you, so I doubt we’ll hear anything besides a simple ‘please stick around while we investigate’.”
“I can do that,” I said.
“Excellent. Now,” he said, shutting his notes in his briefcase, “let’s talk about the PR ramifications. This is no longer legal advice, but the simple truth of the matter is that winning in the court of public opinion is, at least in this case, as important or more. You say that Emmy wants to show that she is unbowed, despite losing her pregnant lover and her own unborn baby. By now half the world has seen the videos of the fight. Everyone can see that these people attacked you guys and you defended yourselves. As far as the public is concerned, you’re the victims of a brutal, premeditated attack by unknown assailants. This would normally paint you in a completely sympathetic light.
"The two major… issues we need to get ahead of,” Jim continued, “in my opinion, are the fact that almost anybody watching the videos will recognize that you, Leah, are, to put it mildly, a killing machine. The longer of the two videos I’ve seen online is only two minutes, and in that brief period you killed six armed attackers, while Emmy’s bodyguards took down three between them. All terminally. It looked like a Quentin Tarantino movie, to be honest. That one guy you grabbed and threw down on his head- you can actually hear his neck break if you turn the volume up high enough. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was…” he trailed off, then laughed at himself.
“Look at me. At a loss for words, for what might be the first time in my life,” he joked. “But anyway, we need to lead with the idea that you aren’t a stone cold killer.”
“Knowing that no bodyguard could ever be there all the time, I’ve been taking self defense instruction for years to protect Emmy if she were ever attacked,” I said. “I started taking kickboxing as cross-training in college, and then when Emmy was attacked in San Francisco I fought those two guys off. That experience convinced me I needed to take it seriously,” I offered.
“That’s great,” Jim said, grabbing his notepad from his briefcase and writing down what I’d said. “We’ll remind the press of that earlier incident. We won’t hint that the attacks are related. We’ll let them speculate on that, but the idea that you’ve dedicated years of training to protect your wife… That’s gold. We can run with that.” Nodding in satisfaction, he wrote some more notes.
“The second issue is a matter of making Emmy sympathetic rather than hard-hearted when she announces that the tour will continue. We have to draft a statement for her that highlights her determination, but doesn’t downplay the loss in any way. We need to make it clear that she’s suffered the greatest tragedy a woman can face and is truly heartbroken, as well as in great physical pain. If she’s seen as callous, sentiment will turn against her. It would be easier if the tour did get canceled, but…” he said, thinking about it. “Alright. I’ve got enough to work with here.”
Changing the subject, he said, “Stephanie Houk, she’s The Downfall’s manager, right? She booked everyone out of the Omni and into the Chandler downtown. She said she didn’t want to be anywhere near that ballpark ever again. I’ll be staying there as well for the next few days.”
“Alright,” I said. “Am I going to have to identify Angela’s body?”
“I think that’s been taken care of. Grant Henry identified her already this morning,” Jim replied as he stood up.
“Stephanie has called a press conference for four this afternoon, here at this hospital. Make sure that Emmy’s doctors know she needs to be alert for it.”
I found Emmy awake as the nurse fussed over her when I got back to her private room. Once the nurse left, I told her about the conversation with the lawyer.
“Am I doing the right thing?” Emmy asked, an unexpected note of uncertainty in her voice.
“Em, that’s for you to decide. I think everybody else will support you either way,” I assured her.
“Oh, Leah,” Emmy said, her face crumpling in sorrow. “Angela…”
“I know, Em, I know,” I said, sliding onto the bed to wrap my arms around her. “She was the best of us,” I murmured, holding Emmy as she quietly sobbed against my chest. “I failed her. I failed you, too.”
“We failed her,” Emmy said, clutching me as hard as she could. “We failed her and we lost her and our child.”
“Our children,” I corrected.
“It might be best I lost my baby,” Emmy said, her voice more sorrowful than I’d ever heard it, “without Angela to raise her.”
“No, Em, there is no silver lining to that,” I said, burying my face in her hair as I cried. “We just lost our future. Because I didn’t see them coming in time, Em. I should have been able to prevent what happened.”
“Please don’t leave me,” Emmy said, her voice muffled by my T shirt.
“I won’t,” I assured her. “I’ll be here until the doctors release you.”
“Don’t leave me ever,” Emmy said, her voice almost too soft to hear.
“I won’t, baby, I won’t,” I whispered into her hair.
“I need to call Mamá and Papá,” I told Emmy after she’d cried herself dry. “I don’t want to, but the news needs to come from me and not from social media or whatever.”
“Do it here. Call them now, and put us on speaker so that we may both talk,” she instructed, her voice still shaky.
“Are you sure? I can do it if you’re not up to it.”
“I am not up to it, but we must both tell them what happened. It is a matter of respect,” Emmy said.
“I don’t even know how to break the news to them,” I said as I took my phone out of my pocket, idly noticing that it showed I’d missed a ton of calls and texts.
“I do not, either,” Emmy confessed.
Rafael answered on the fourth ring, both to my dismay and relief. Dismay because I hated to give him the news, and relief because I wanted to let him know before he found out some other way.
“Leah?” he asked.
“Papá, you need to get Mamá and Cecy,” I said. “I have some terrible news.”
“The baby?” Rafael asked, alarm in his voice.
“I need to tell you all at once,” I said. It took a minute, but soon he had Mamá on speaker.
“Cecy is already at school,” Rafael said.
“Mamá, Papá, I have the worst news I could possibly give you. Last night we were attacked, and they killed Angela and also Emmy’s baby,” I said. There was no way to sugarcoat it.
“Míja está muerta?” Mamá gasped.
“There were nine of them,” I said. “They got to her before I could save her,” I said, and I could hear my voice crack. “They killed her, Mamá. Right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get there in time!” I sobbed.
“And Emmy’s bebe, too?” Rafael asked, his voice husky.
“They kicked her right in the tummy,” I said. “They knew she was pregnant. They tried to kill her, too, but didn’t manage to do that. Grant and I both got stabbed, and Tiny was seriously injured in the fight. But Angela, I never taught her how to fight, how to defend herself, and she just… she wasn’t a fighter,” I said. “She didn’t stand a chance.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“What happened to the men who attacked you?” Rafael asked.
“We killed them all,” I said. “They’re all dead.”
I could hear Mamá sobbing through the phone line, but Rafael’s voice was hard.
“But you do not think that these nine were the… the root, do you?” he asked.
“No, I don’t,” I admitted. “I think that someone sent them.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“No, not exactly, but I think I do know where to look,” I told him.
Rafael sighed, letting out a long breath. “I trust you to take care of this,” he said, and I understood the deeper meaning of his words.
“I will,” I assured him. “I’ll hit them like a freight train.”
“Leah,” Rafael said, his voice soft. “There is a thing, a very real thing, called ‘guilt of the survivor’. I have seen it- I have felt it myself. Don’ let yourself fall into it. They killed Angela. You did not. It was not your fault. Don’ blame yourself. Angela loved you. She loved you and Emmy. You made her happy. At least for a while, she had the life she dreamed of with you two. She had that- you gave it to her. Remember that.”
“She gave us so much more,” Emmy said, barely keeping her voice from failing. “She was the best thing in our lives, and now she is gone because of our enemies.”
“Make them pay for what they did, Leah,” Rafael said, and I understood his feelings exactly.
“They will pay,” I assured him. “They will definitely pay for this. All the way up to the very top.”
Jim Turner showed up an hour before the scheduled press conference with the announcement he wanted Emmy to give. She read through it a couple of times, then handed it back to him.
“I understand,” she told him.
Still in her hospital gown but with a robe thrown over the top, Emmy was pushed into the hospital’s large conference room in a wheelchair. She had intentionally not cleaned herself up, so it was very obvious that she had been crying and was a terrible condition.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jim announced into the microphone. “Emmy De Lascaux will give a short statement. She’s still in a lot of pain, so we’ll have to keep the questions to a minimum.”
“My name is Emmy De Lascaux,” Emmy said when the microphone was lowered so she could speak. “I am a member of the band The Downfall. Last night, after our concert at the Truist Park, a group of armed assailants attacked us. They specifically targeted me, Leah Farmer, and Angela Castro. They succeeded in killing Angela, who was six months pregnant with our baby. They also injured me, causing me to lose my own baby. I was four months pregnant. In addition, one of our bodyguards suffered severe injuries. My wife Leah and our other bodyguard were injured as well.”
Taking a breath, Emmy continued. “I have never hidden the details of our home life, but I have also never spoken publicly of it. I have never felt that it should matter to anyone besides my own family. Much of it is common knowledge, though. Angela Castro was the third member in our marriage. She was our wife- a wife to Leah and me in every way that mattered. She was the light of our lives,” Emmy said, her voice starting to get shaky with emotion.
“Angela was the most loving, the sweetest, the most beautiful woman in the world. She would have been the most incredible mother to our two children once they were born- Angela was so full of love, so full of life… It was not just the two of us who lost something precious. No, the world is a lesser place without her. She was truly a shining beacon of how we should all aspire to be,” Emmy struggled to say as the tears began to flow in earnest.
“Our two babies would have been special, because they would have grown up in a house full of love,” she said, before stopping to sob quietly.
The reporters, to my amazement, were all completely silent, waiting to hear what Emmy had to say next.
Wiping her tears from her eyes, Emmy looked up at the crowd of cameras. “We were attacked, and Angela and our two babies were killed. Killed in a savage, unprovoked attack. Why was my family targeted this way? The killers made no attempt on my bandmates, or anyone else in our group.”
Wiping her eyes again, Emmy continued. “I can only imagine that they wished to end me and my family, to silence me. This is all that makes sense.” Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Emmy exhaled in a sort of sigh. “I cannot let Angela’s murderers achieve their goal. Angela, she is gone. But I will never forget her, and never forgive those who killed her in cold blood. I can also not let them succeed. They will not silence me. Not as long as there is breath in my body. Angela-” Emmy said, breaking into tears again.
“Angela and our babies were murdered by those who wished to end my family, to silence my voice. I will not be silenced. I will not allow them this victory. I have made it clear to Jackson and Lee that I have no intention of running away, defeated and frightened. We will continue our tour, and I will continue to make my voice heard, loud and clear.”
Wiping away her tears, Emmy said, “I have lost the best part of my life. My heart is missing a very large part- the most important part. But my will, it has been strengthened, like hammered steel. I will not be defeated, no matter the loss. These murderers thought that I would simply die under their onslaught. They were wrong. They failed. They failed badly.”
She looked at me, so I took the microphone. “Sorry, but Emmy needs to rest. I’ll answer any questions you might have.” I nodded to the nurse, and she wheeled Emmy back to her room.
A number of reporters started shouting questions, but I called on one who had her hand raised.
“Leah Farmer, right? You’re Emmy’s wife?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I confirmed.
“Um, Angela Castro, she was your, um, lover as well, right?” the reporter asked.
“Angela, as far as Emmy and I are concerned, was our wife as well. Poly marriages aren’t legally recognized, but she was our wife in every way that mattered to Emmy and me. We loved her. As Emmy said, she was the sweetest, most loving person in the world. A true angel here on Earth,” I said. “The three of us were committed to each other, and planned on a long life together. I fully expected to grow old with Angela and Emmy by my sides.”
I called on another reporter who had his hand up.
“We’ve all seen the videos of last night’s fight online-” he began, but I interrupted him.
“Call it what it was,” I said. “Those people straight up attacked us with full intent to murder us in cold blood. They did murder Angela and our two unborn babies. They planned this attack, and succeeded in killing a truly wonderful human being along with our two babies. It was not a fight- it was an attempted massacre.”
Taken aback, the reporter reframed his question. “You and your two bodyguards managed to fight off the attackers before they could do more damage, despite you yourselves being unarmed and against terrible odds,” he said.
“Not well enough,” I interrupted.
“I guess not,” the reported conceded. “But far better than almost anybody else could have…”
“If I understand what you’re getting at,” I said, “you want to know how I managed to fight so well.” At his nod, I continued. “When Emmy and I were in college, I took up kickboxing as a form of off-season cross-training to build my speed and strength for volleyball. I enjoyed it, so stuck with it. Then, after a Downfall show in San Francisco, Emmy was attacked and I used my training to fight the two men off.” I paused to look around the room at the reporters.
“That incident really drove home the idea that Emmy needed protection. I dove headfirst into the training and have spent uncountable hours in the gym, learning to fight just in case she was ever attacked again. Last night proved that I was right to do so. Our bodyguards are good, don’t get me wrong, but if I hadn’t been there prepared to fight the attackers would have overwhelmed our guys and we would have all been killed,” I said.
I called on another reporter, who said, “Witnesses said that after Angela Castro was attacked, you did nothing to aid her. Is this true?”
I took a long breath to calm myself before answering. “The bulk of the attackers came from a larger group of fans following us, where they blended in with the crowd. My efforts were focused on that direction. The first thing I did when I realized we were under attack was to shove Angela behind me, to protect her. What I didn’t realize- and this will haunt me for the rest of my life- is that they had another part of their group come around from behind us. When I turned to see if Angela was O.K., it was too late. That woman killed Angela right in front of my eyes, before I could close the distance to stop her.”
I took another breath to keep tears from forming. “Angela, a woman I loved with all my heart, the woman carrying our child, died not twenty feet from me. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Believe me, I would have done anything. Anything at all. I would have gladly traded my life for hers if I could have. Like Emmy said, she was the best of us,” I said.
“Angela…” I said, but I had to stop to collect myself. “Angela was such a wonderful person, so full of love, so caring… Everybody that ever met her fell in love with her a little bit. She would have been the best mother imaginable. But now, I can’t imagine our life without her. She was a very special human being, and the world has lost one of its precious lights.”
“But witnesses said you did nothing to help her once she was, um, attacked,” the reporter pressed.
“Do you understand the concept of triage?” I asked. “Angela was killed right in front of me. That woman cut her throat clear through. Nobody survives that. There was nothing I could do that would have prevented Angela from bleeding to death right then and there, but in the meanwhile that woman still had her knife in her hand and was still ready to kill Emmy or me. It may seem heartless, but the truth is that until the threat was eliminated nobody else was safe. So no, I didn’t rush to Angela’s side just then. That wouldn’t have done Angela any good, and would have meant Emmy or I, or possibly both, would have been killed, too. I did what I had to.”
I took another calming breath and said, “Of all of the mistakes that I made last night, that wasn’t one of them. I wish more than anything that I could rewind time to back before the attack- believe me, I do. But nobody can do that.”
“What do you think of The Downfall continuing their tour after this?” asked the next reporter I called on.
“Honestly? I wish I could take Emmy home and the two of us could mourn our babies and our wife together privately. But I think Emmy is right. These people, whoever they were, wanted to end Emmy for some reason, and the only reason any of us can think of is because of her music. Emmy… Emmy is not one to retreat from any kind of adversity, or to let herself be bullied. So I support her decision, and I’ll do whatever I can so the two of us can work through our loss together.”
“So you think she should proceed with the tour, then?”
“I think Emmy’s right in not giving these people, whoever they are, a win. Obviously this is an unbelievably difficult time for us. We’re completely devastated, and the natural instinct is to pull back and grieve. But if Emmy does that, the goal of silencing her becomes reality. So yeah, I do think it’s the right thing to do, as painful as it’s going to be,” I said.
“One more question,” I announced, indicating another reporter who had her hand up.
“How much money would you have lost if the tour had been canceled?” she asked.
I gave her a long, level stare, internally debating whether I could get away with punching her smug face in, but eventually decided against it.
“The only reason I’m even going to dignify that question with an answer is to point out that Emmy has always, from the very first, given every single penny she’s earned from her music to charity. Not gross, but net. You know what that means? That means this tour is costing our family hundreds of thousands of dollars in transportation and lodging costs. That’s right- Emmy’s costs are all paid for by us, personally. So, in other words, ending the tour early would actually save us money.”
Giving the reporter another long look, I said, “What you meant to ask is how much less would we be able to contribute to women’s shelters across the country? How much less would we be able to give to support homeless addiction treatment programs? How much less would we be able to give to help the most helpless in our society? Because that’s where all of Emmy’s share goes. All. Of. It.
“That’s enough questions. I’d like to finish off by asking that you, and by that I mean the press collectively, please give us some space for a while. Contact our attorney if you feel you need to, but please, let Emmy and me mourn our losses in private.”
When I got back to Emmy’s private room I found Grant sitting in a chair outside the door.
“I’ve called up some of the guys,” he said. “We’re going to have a full detail from now on.”
“All Night Children?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Mia’s coming, and I called up a couple of guys from my protective detail days, to help protect, of course, but also train Eddie and the others. Really, there’s no way we should have gotten so lax as to let this happen,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. “We just got complacent.”
“Yeah, well, I know it’s a day late and a dollar short, but…” Grant said.
“When will Jeremy be able to fly back home to LA?” I asked.
“It’ll be a few days,” Grant said. “You know, he was afraid you’d be angry with him. But when you told him that you were proud of him and thanked him for throwing himself between Emmy and the attackers, that really helped him a lot. When you told him that you wanted to keep him on as Emmy’s bodyguard when he recovers, well, you earned yourself his loyalty for the rest of his life.”
“He almost died defending Emmy. That, to me, is a sign of utmost dedication. That’s worthy of reward,” I told Grant. “I just want him to rest and heal up for now. I’ll tell him to take care of himself and not to worry about rushing things.”
“Thanks for that,” Grant said. “He’s a good man.”
Inside, Emmy was on the phone with her parents. It was clear that she’d been crying again, so I sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped her in my arms.
“They want to speak with you,” Emmy said, handing me the phone.
I talked to the two of them for a while, and it seemed as if Emmy’s parents were saddened more by Angela’s death than the loss of the two babies. I’d certainly believed they’d come to care for her, but then, everybody did.
I told Emmy's dad that I had a lead on who might have sent the attackers and I was going to make sure that Angela and the babies were avenged. He said that he had plenty of resources and they were at my disposal, but I told him that I thought we could take care of it. I’d let him know how things developed.
“Leah,” Mme De Lascaux said before we hung up, “Please be there for the princess, too. Don’t get so wrapped up in revenge that you forget to show your love to our Êmeraude. She needs you now more than ever.”
“I need her more than ever, too,” I said. “More than ever.”