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I wrapped my arms around her as I moved us into the apartment and kicked the door shut. As the lock clicked, she lifted her head. “You are okay, right?” she demanded as the tears poured down her beautiful face. “No one hurt you?”
“Sugar, the only thing that hurt was being away from you for so long.” Holding her in place with one hand, I tangled the other in her hair. “I missed you so damn much, baby.”
“Missed you too,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. About the argument. About my brother. About not being able to find you sooner. I—”
I couldn’t bear to hear her apologize for another thing. None of it was her fault, and it killed me that she thought she needed to say she was sorry. Capturing her lips, I turned so I had her pressed up against the closed door. Holding her, finally kissing her after being away from her for so many days—it had felt like a lifetime since I’d last touched her—the tension finally eased from my muscles, and I melted into her just as she did into me.
Lifting my head, I pressed a tender kiss to her forehead. “I need a shower, and then we can talk. Okay?”
“Can I…join you?” she asked hesitantly.
I tipped her chin up so I could look into her eyes. “You never have to ask me that, Pipes. The answer is always going to be ‘Hell yeah, baby.’ And if it’s not, then you know I’ve been abducted by aliens and replaced by some tentacled clone.”
Her soft giggle eased any lingering sickness I felt in my gut.
With my hands full of her perfect ass, I walked toward our bedroom, only to hear her cell phone going off before I could pass the bed. Biting her lip, she wiggled free, and I reluctantly released her so she could answer it.
“Hello?” I stood there waiting for her to finish the conversation so we could get clean together. But as I watched her, I could see the distress on her face. “I made my decision. If he can’t live up to my demands, then I have no problem following through with my promise… Yes. Promise. Threats mean nothing, Mom… I don’t care if he’s my brother. And how can you even allow him to get away with any of this? Asher is a grown man, not a child. He made adult decisions that have adult consequences. I would think that you and Dad, of all people, would want him to learn from this.”
Piper listened for a long moment, her face twisting with disgust and hurt before she laughed dryly. “You know what, here’s another promise for you, Mom. If he doesn’t do what he said he was going to do, and you support that—if you and Dad both support his pussified decision—then I promise there is no reason for either of my parents to show up at my wedding Saturday. I’ll walk myself down the aisle. Make your choice. Force Asher to live up to his responsibilities or lose me. I. Don’t. Fucking. Care!”
Breathing hard, she threw the phone back onto the bed and then sank to her knees beside it, pressing her face into the comforter. Her muffled, gut-wrenching sounds hurt me in places I didn’t know could feel pain.
“Pipes?” I murmured her name cautiously as I crouched down beside her.
Still crying, she slowly lifted her head and met my gaze for a moment before lowering it back to the bed. “Asher doesn’t want to follow through with our agreement. The Feds and the attorney general think he should be held more accountable for his actions. They offered him a deal of six months of probation and six hundred hours of community service. He doesn’t want to take the deal, and my mom wants me to change my mind. If I back off, the attorney general won’t follow through. But then there would be no proof of the kind of monster Smith is other than the digital evidence Mieke was able to dig up. Which wasn’t legally obtained, so it can’t be used against him.”
Stroking my hand over her hair, I turned her head, willing her to look at me. “I don’t care if Smith goes to jail. Actually, I would prefer to take care of him myself.” I wanted to put my fist through his face over and over and over again. And then I would bury him in a hole somewhere in the desert. Jarrett had casually told me there were plenty of places I could bury a body where it would never be found.
“I know,” she cried. “I know you would, and you deserve your pound of flesh. Deserve to even kill him. But there are so many victims, Cannon. Mieke found at least ten women on the apartment security footage who he brought back to his place. And they were stumbling around when he brought them home with him, and then the next day… Oh God, sometimes several days later, they would be spotted on the same cameras, running from the apartment. They looked scared and disoriented. While Barrick and Jarrett were looking for you, Mieke was able to do facial recognition on some of the women, and Braxton tracked them down. He took a cop buddy and got a few of them to give reports, but without Asher’s testimony, it could turn into he-said, she-said bullshit because Mieke hacked the apartment security footage, so it’s inadmissible.”
“Jarrett and Barrick brought Erica back with them. She’s going to testify against Smith about supplying him the drugs and take a plea deal for the case she was hiding in Mexico over. Her testimony against Smith will be enough. Asher doesn’t have to—”
“Yes, he does!” Her fist hit the bed. “He tried to take you away from me. He got a kick out of what he did. His attempt to break us up hurt you, but it destroyed me, Cannon. My brother broke my fucking heart. And he deserves everything bad that happens to him from here out.”
Dropping to my ass on the floor, I pulled her onto my lap. “I don’t want any of this to hurt you more than it already has.”
“They are the ones hurting me. Asher. My parents. They’re treating him like a misdirected kid, not the grown-ass man he is.” She pressed her forehead to my chest. “I can’t accept that. I won’t.”
Her voice broke, and she began to sob again. The sounds destroyed me, but I was helpless to do anything but hold her. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, rubbing her back, just letting her cry. Time was meaningless as I let her get her pain out. But eventually, what seemed like hours later, her phone rang again. She tensed but curled herself against me more. Kissing the top of her head, I blindly reached over my head and fumbled around on the bed until I found her phone.
Seeing it was her mom, I answered it and put it to my ear, knowing Piper would be able to hear it too. “Hello?”
“Cannon,” Gabriella greeted in surprise. “How are you doing, honey?”
“I’m currently holding my emotionally distressed fiancée. How the fuck do you think I am?” I gritted out.
She inhaled sharply. “I can hear her crying,” she said with regret. “Look, the past few days have been crazy. I didn’t have the full story. Asher didn’t tell us everything, and I just realized the extent of his involvement in…all of it.”
“He finally told you everything?” I asked skeptically.
“No, Hymn did,” she murmured. “What my son told me was a very watered-down version of the events. What with him having to get twelve staples in the back of his scalp after Piper cracked him in the head, I thought everyone was just overreacting. Her temper can be combustible at times, and I thought it was just my kids being kids. But Hymn showed up and told us everything. I’m so sorry Asher had any part in what Smith did to you.”
“It was his fucking idea!” I shouted, only to feel Piper flinch. I sucked in a calming breath. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. “If you’re calling, then I’m going to assume that means you’re going to make Asher take the deal?”
“He’s been given his options,” she said, her voice growing hard. “Liam told him to either accept the deal and testify to everything he knows regarding Smith, or we will completely cut him off. As it stands, even if he does take the deal, things have changed for all of us. I can no longer trust my son’s judgment. I may never fully trust him again. Liam is… He sees more of himself in our son than he ever hoped to see, and that scares him.”
“I’m sorry.”
