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16
CANNON
I’d barely gotten offstage when I’d gotten the text from Flint that Piper had decided our date was going to be on her terms. I couldn’t say I was surprised, but the little brat had ruined the romantic plans I’d made for us for date number two.
Once I got the address to the club, there was no time to waste. I sprinted out of the stadium and jumped into the back of a cab that someone else was about to get into. I yelled for the driver to go even as the couple I’d cut in front of shouted profanity at me from the sidewalk. The guy’s fist came down on the window, and the driver snapped into action, peeling out before any damage was done to his vehicle.
The bouncer at the front door took one look at me, got all wide-eyed and tongue-tied, but he didn’t make me wait in the line to get in. The music hit me as soon as I stepped inside. It was good, and I spotted the DJ on a dais in a corner, surrounded by women dancing. The place was pretty open, and I saw the VIP area near the DJ’s platform. Figuring that was where Piper would be, I pushed through the crowd. Two more bouncers were guarding the entrance and stopped me as I approached.
“Name?” one of them asked, looking down at his list.
“Cannon Cage,” I snapped, trying to glance over their shoulders in search of Piper.
The guy’s head snapped up at my answer, and he squinted at me for a few seconds before nudging his partner to step aside. Giving them each a nod in thanks for not delaying me needlessly, I hurried inside. The place was crowded, but I noted the roped-off area to the back of the VIP section, the other patrons with their phones pointed in that general direction, and I took a guess that I would find her there.
I spotted the member of our security team who had been present on our first date. His back was to the ropes, his eyes scanning the area diligently. But he was blind to what was going on behind him. As I saw it for myself, rage like I’d never felt in my entire life burned through me like a wildfire.
Piper was trapped in the corner of the couch, some perv in a suit boxing her in. I had a moment of bone-crushing jealousy before I registered that the look on her face was anything but interested. She looked as if she was being hunted and was seconds from being caught.
The scene triggered a drunken memory that stopped me in my tracks.
Violet pleading with me to stop as she struggled while I kissed her, taking out my anger and hurt on her, when it was Jagger and Shaw I’d wanted to punish for betraying me. Her tear-streaked face. The blood from where I’d destroyed her mouth with the violent force I’d inflicted upon her.
Nausea churned in my stomach, and I quickly shook the haunting moment from my head as Piper elbowed the guy in the chest. But that only seemed to make the suit more confident. His head lowered, his lips turned up in a smug sneer, and suddenly, I was in front of them, the bastard jerked to his feet. What I was doing to him didn’t register fully in my mind as I looked down at Piper to make sure she was okay.
That she wasn’t crying.
Wasn’t scared.
Wasn’t bleeding.
I would kill anyone who touched Piper without her permission, myself included.
Seeing that she was unharmed and not in distress, I slowly turned my head to look at the suit. When I noticed how purple he was, my fingers only tightened more around his throat. I sensed others moving in around us, vaguely heard someone tell me to release my hold. But there was no stopping me.
He’d nearly forced himself on someone I cared about.
Someone I fucking loved.
There was no saving him.
Soft hands touched my arm and then my face. “Cannon!” Piper’s voice penetrated my rage-filled brain, and I canted my head slightly to look down at her, making sure she was still unharmed and safe.
“Let him go, Cannon,” she urged, her tone soft yet urgent. The fingers on my jaw stroked over my flesh, causing my heart to shudder in my chest. “Please, baby. It’s okay. I’m fine. I promise.”
A strangled sound came from the man I was still holding off his feet by his throat, distracting me from her soothing voice. I started to swivel my head, but Piper cupped both sides of my face, trapping me so that my eyes remained on her alone.
“Cannon.” My gaze dropped to her mouth, and I licked my lips, wanting another taste of her sweetness. “Let him go.”
“I need you to release him, Mr. Cage,” a man commanded from right behind me in a voice that was vaguely familiar.
My anger switched gears, and I released the suit, only to turn and punch the security guard. He stumbled back several steps, rubbing at his jaw. “You’re fucking fired,” I snarled.
“You don’t have the authority to fire me,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“She was seconds away from being assaulted, and you were just standing there.” A rational part of my brain tried to remind me he’d been keeping vigilant for any danger to Piper from around them. But my anger wouldn’t let me accept that when she’d been so close to a person who appeared to be seconds away from forcing himself on my Piper.
“I-I had it handled,” Piper tried to excuse, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “There was no real threat.”
“Bullshit,” I growled. Needing to feel more of her, to reassure myself that she was okay, I wrapped an arm around her tiny waist, anchoring her to me.
That was when I realized we were surrounded by bouncers, but none of them even tried to restrain me, giving me approving smirks instead.
“Told you he would try to pull his shit with the wrong person one day,” the bouncer who had stopped me only minutes before said to his partner. His mouth twitched with a half grin. “Now maybe his daddy will realize that letting him have free rein of this place is bad for business.”
“He’s not the owner?” Piper asked curiously, looking down disparagingly at the suit who was starting to come around. He moaned then slowly blinked his eyes open. When he saw me standing over him, his mouth fell open in a silent scream, and he crab-walked back several feet.
“Nah,” the same bouncer answered, watching the whole thing with disgust. “He likes to tell everyone this place is his, but it belongs to his father. The manager typically runs things, but she’s out sick. We’ve lost a lot of business this week while she’s been recovering and Junior here was running around unchecked.”
“I-I want him arrested,” the suit stuttered after another bouncer helped him to his feet. “He nearly killed me!”
“Too bad he didn’t finish the job,” someone muttered behind us, but the suit didn’t seem to hear it even though the music had stopped sometime during the show I’d given the entire club.
“Call the cops!” he yelled at the guy who’d helped him to his feet. “I want him in a jail cell. Now.”
I felt Piper stiffen, and I glanced down at her in concern. “You okay?” I asked, stroking my hand up and down her back.
“I don’t want you to go to jail,” she whispered with a wobble in her voice.
I touched my lips to the top of her head reassuringly. “Don’t worry, sugar. Even if he does have me arrested, Trinity will get me out by morning.”
“No,” she mouthed and pushed away from me. “I won’t let it happen.”
She turned around. Everyone was so busy watching us that no one was even talking, making the place eerily quiet except for the continued screeching coming from the suit. But every camera was trained on us. Piper pulled something from her back pocket, and seconds later, she lifted a stack of cash over her head. “Five hundred dollars to the first person who shows me the footage of everything that happened from the moment I sat down.”
“Here!” A woman dressed in a short black dress and red heels stepped forward with her phone out. “Keep the cash. He nearly raped me a few days ago.”
Piper paused with her hand lifted to take the phone from her. “Why did you come back, then?”
The woman shrugged. “No one took me seriously when I tried to tell the cops what happened. I’ve been coming back every night to get evidence that he’s a predator.”
“Give me that!” the suit screeched, lunging for the phone.
Both Piper and the woman took a step back, causing the suit to stumble and then fall against a low, glass-topped table. It shattered under his weight, and he screamed in pain.
“Damn it,” Piper muttered as she stared down at the man while he flailed around like a fish out of water. “I’m going to need another phone to show that he did that himself, aren’t I?”
“Nah,” one of the other bouncers said with a nod toward the ceiling. “We’ve got security cameras all over the place.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “But I’m going to have to call my boss and get him down here to clean all this up.”
As I watched Piper dealing with him and the woman who had offered up her phone, my own phone sounded unusually loud as it went off. Keeping my eyes on the suit still moaning and crying in the middle of shattered glass, I pulled it out of my pocket and answered without looking at the screen.
“Yeah?”
“What the fuck did you do?” Shaw hissed in my ear. “You’re on a live feed right now. Please tell me you didn’t crash Piper’s date and start a fight.”
Fuck, of course someone was live on social media, sharing this shit with the world. “No to the former, and no comment to the latter.”
“Idiot!” she cried then quickly lowered her voice. “Are you going to need bail money?”
I caught sight of Trinity, trailed by the new security specialist. The fury on her face was enough to have me breaking a sweat for the first time since all the chaos had started. “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”
