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Me: Asher and Smith showed up at the apartment. They said you were running late, and you asked them to pick Cannon up.
Jags: 1. I didn’t ask either of them to do shit. 2. I haven’t seen them tonight either.
Tossing back the covers, I jumped out of bed and started pacing as I hit connect on Jagger’s name.
As soon as I heard his voice, I was talking in a rush. “Asher and Smith picked him up. He went with them. They said you were running late.”
“Piper, honey, you already told me that. And I explained that it was bullshit,” Jagger’s voice was calm, but I could hear something beneath. Something that made sweat break out across my entire body. “When he called me earlier, he sounded off. His words were slurred, but I just thought he was drunk.”
“Cannon doesn’t get drunk,” I cried, my anxiety spiking higher. “You know he doesn’t, Jagger. And you know why. Something is wrong. He’s not answering my texts, and he always answers me, even when we’ve been arguing. And yes, we did have a huge disagreement before he left earlier, but that wouldn’t keep him from responding. He wouldn’t make me worry.”
I heard Jagger blow out a heavy sigh. “You said Smith and Asher picked him up.”
“Yes. It was weird. Smith, I would believe, but not my brother. There is still too much animosity between the two of them. But part of me hoped he was trying to offer an olive branch or something with the wedding so close. I thought…” Sucking in a deep breath, I shook my head. “I thought my brother was putting everything aside because he realized the wedding was going to happen whether he liked it or not, and he loves me enough to finally accept that Cannon and I are forever.”
“You realize Asher is even more stubborn than you are, right? I bet even when you and Cannon have been married for twenty or thirty years, your brother will still be hostile about it.”
“Ah, God,” I groaned, dropping down onto the edge of the bed. “They did something to him.”
“I don’t doubt Asher did something, but he had Smith with him. Smith and Cannon are friends. He wouldn’t let anything happen…”
The way Jagger trailed off made me tremble. “What?”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling. Smith has been kind of off since Cannon proposed to you. I’ve heard him grumbling a time or two about the wedding plans. He was kind of an ass after Shaw, and I got married. Didn’t like that I was touring with my wife and kid. Over the summer, he bitched a few times about Cannon getting pussy-whipped too.”
“I really don’t care why Smith would help my brother,” I gritted out, my anger pushing down my nervousness. If my brother really had done something to Cannon, I was going to murder him. “I need to go. I have to call my brother.”
“Shaw has his phone connected to her Find My Phone app. I’m going to see if I can locate him on the GPS.”
“Let me know if you learn anything.” Hanging up, I called my brother, but it only rang twice before he sent me to voice mail.
Sucking in a deep breath, I waited for the message to beep before I exploded.
“Where the fuck are you?” I shouted into my phone. “Where is Cannon? I swear to all that you hold holy, Asher Bryant, if you’ve done something to my fiancé, there isn’t anywhere on God’s green earth that you can hide from me!”
Hanging up, I called Hymn.
“Hello?” she answered sleepily.
“Is Asher at your place?” I demanded.
“No, I haven’t seen him in a few days.” I heard a trace of anger and sadness in her voice. “I didn’t tell you at the club tonight because you seemed distracted, but we had a huge argument over the wedding next weekend, and I told him to leave. He stormed out, and I haven’t spoken to him since.”
“Damn, I’m sorry, Hymn.” I chewed on my thumbnail as I paced the bedroom.
“What’s going on? Why are you looking for him?”
I explained how Asher had picked up Cannon with Smith, but none of them had shown up at the club, and now no one could reach Cannon, and Asher wasn’t answering his phone.
“I’ll try calling him. Maybe Asher will pick up for me.”
“Let me know if you hear from him.”
After promising she would, I kept pacing. The only thing left to do was to call my parents, but it was the middle of the night. If I called them and told them what I suspected at two in the morning, a week before my wedding, they would explode. I wasn’t sure they would believe me that I thought Asher had done something nefarious. It was more likely they would assume Cannon had bailed on me.
And while that wasn’t off the list of possibilities, I refused to consider it as an option. Yet. My gut told me my brother had been up to no good, and that didn’t bode well for Cannon’s safety.
Still chewing on my thumbnail, I called Trinity instead.
