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She blamed me.
I got it. I did. I would probably blame me too. Maybe I wanted to call the mayor’s bluff.
After Piper demanded to know why I never took the mayor seriously and brought both her and Brynn to safety, I left the room. I couldn’t look at her for fear that I would do something both of us would regret.
As much as I wanted to dive deep inside her and never come out, I didn’t and left her alone to her cries of anger.
Price didn’t call again but as I neared the entrance to the house, I was stopped short by my dad approaching me. “I’m leaving,” I told him.
“He’s moving but the video footage that I’ve been sent, shows that Brynlee is unharmed.”
That didn’t make me feel better. I wouldn’t be satisfied that she was in fact fine until she was back in Piper’s arms. “Where is she now?” I asked, stepping around him.
“Jersey,” was all Dad said. “If you go after him alone, you have to remember that it could very well end what you and Piper have.” His eyes burned into the side of my head. “She needs you. I get your rage. I’ve been there. But if you were taken and your mom wasn’t...”
“You still would have gone after me whether it tore you and Mom apart or not,” I answered for him and walked away.
I knew what I had to do, and if things ended between Piper and me as a result of it, as long as our daughter was home and safe, that was all that I cared about.
Jaron
I thought back to before Brynn was taken and how I took everything for granted. How I assumed that Piper loved me before we even uttered those words to each other. Or how I assumed that she would always be there when she had waited for me to come home. Nothing that happened to me while I was in jail was like the pain I was currently feeling. Her love was there but it was mixed with something else just the same.
Pain. Hate. Agony.
I couldn’t be sure but what I did know was that I needed to move fast. I walked around the house like a damn zombie, trying to soak up every single piece of information that I could. I needed to make my escape to go find our daughter and bring her home to her mama.
It was late in the morning and I had just checked on Piper. She was finally sleeping, although I was sure her mind was racked with nightmares that she would never see her daughter again.
The house was quiet except for the gentle murmurs of my father and a few of the other guys in the meeting room. They were still trying to figure out where the mayor was now. While I appreciated their help and what Lucas Crane, a friend of the family had done for my dad, I had a little contact of my own.
Thanks to Cyrus, Rowan Crane dug a little deeper than his father had and gave me the current whereabouts of the mayor. Not that Lucas wasn’t good at what he did, but Rowan didn’t fear getting caught by the law like his dad had. His words. I wasn’t one to ask questions, so I took the help where I could get it.
Making my way to the back of the house, I texted Cyrus and Sammy and asked them to meet me. I knew this meeting wasn’t going to end well. Sammy and I would probably get in a fight again. But it needed to happen. I couldn’t sit around anymore. Not when Piper looked at me like it was my fault this happened. Maybe it was.
Stepping out into the large backyard, I let out a heavy sigh. There was a swing set that sat in the far back corner. A little house sat to the right. It was my parents’ reading nook and a shed to get away when needed, so they wouldn’t have to go far. That was what they said anyway but I knew that it was so they could have some privacy.
“Jaron.”
My back stiffened at the sound of Cyrus and Sammy joining me in the backyard. I knew this conversation wasn’t going to go over well, so I had to prepare myself for the fallout. But as much as I tried, I knew I wasn’t ready.
“What’s going on?” Sammy asked, walking up to an ashtray that sat in the middle of the patio table. It was a ceramic frog holding a turtle and the shell was hollowed out for the butts. It was an ugly thing, but Piper had seen two of them at a yard sale. She picked up both, gave one to my parents and kept one for herself. I only knew of this because Sammy had mentioned how ugly it was when they had come to see me in jail. It was a small thing, but I had appreciated at the time that little tidbit into my girl’s life while I couldn’t be with her.
“Jaron, what’s up?” Cyrus came up to my side, while Sammy stood by the ashtray and lit up a smoke. He had been trying to quit, both of them had been, but we all knew it would never happen.
I had no idea what I wanted to say, let alone tell them that I was leaving. It wouldn’t be for good. But it would be until I could get Brynlee and bring her home to Piper. The longer she was gone, the further Piper and I grew apart. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I needed my girl. I needed both of them. Along with the baby currently growing inside of Piper.
I caught Sammy’s gaze.
He leaned against the fence, puffing on that damn cigarette.
“Jaron,” Cyrus barked, pulling me back to him.
“I need you to watch Piper,” I told Cyrus finally.
“The fuck?” He stiffened.
I could feel Sammy’s gaze burning into me but instead of looking his way, I stared his twin down.
“Where are you going that you can’t watch her yourself?” Cyrus’s brows narrowed in the center. “What’s going on?”
“I need to leave for a little bit.” Fuck, I was thankful that Piper wasn’t around. There would be no way that I could do this if she was.
“Leave. Why?” Sammy butted out his smoke and came toward us.
“I just have to.” I went to walk back into the large house when a heavy hand cupped my shoulder.
“You’re not leaving without explaining what the fuck’s going on.”
I glanced at Cyrus’s hand on my shoulder, met his gaze, and waited. But he didn’t budge. I knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t one who backed down easily. I had learned that he got that trait from his father.
Cyrus’s jaw clenched. “Explain.”
“I need to find Brynlee and bring her home to her mama before I lose Piper for good.” I shrugged him off. “Not that I have to explain shit to you.”
“Not that you have to...” Cyrus’s lips pressed into a firm line. “Listen here, Kid.”
The hackles on the back of my neck rose, knowing he only referred to me as kid whenever he was pissed at me. It didn’t happen often and when it did, it was usually warranted on my part.
“Kid.” I shoved him back. “I’m your fucking VP.”
“Then fucking act like it.” Cyrus gripped the collar of my jacket, lifting me onto my tiptoes. “You have no idea what she went through. The screams we had to hear. The crying. The anguish. Those walls bled with her tears. Still do. And you’re so damn selfish, you’re going to leave because you’re a fucking pussy.”
“I am not a fucking pussy. I’m going to find my daughter.” I waited for Sammy to step in. Cyrus was usually the levelheaded one. He kept his brother calm but when Sammy just stood back and watched, I knew that I had overstepped.
“You think going after Brynn yourself is going to make this shit better?” Cyrus shoved me back, roughly releasing me. “This will kill Piper.”
“She already blames me,” I confessed, not liking the bitter taste of pain on my tongue.
“She doesn’t blame you.” Cyrus shook his head. “For a smart guy, you’re acting fucking dumb right now.”
My stomach twisted.
“She’s upset. Should you have brought them here when you had the first run-in with the mayor? Maybe. But you also had Sammy and I watch the house. Someone was always watching. Add to the fact that you were run off the damn road and your daughter was taken then. That is not your fault.” Cyrus took a step toward me, the hard lines on his face softening. “You can’t leave. Let the authorities do their job.”
I scoffed. “Right. And both of us know how reliable the cops are.”
“The mayor doesn’t have everyone paid off,” Sammy interjected. “Let your dad, Lucas, us, and everyone else help.”
“They’re taking too fucking long!” I yelled.
“How are you going to find Brynn?” Cyrus asked, his brows narrowing in the center.
“I’ve been in touch with Rowan,” I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. My dad had been friends with Rowan’s parents since before I was born. But living in different cities, we just never saw each other much over the years.
Sammy laughed, shaking his head and walking away.
Cyrus glared at his brother before meeting my gaze. “Rowan will take payment. He had a good life but is still shady as fuck.”
I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about that.” I would never classify Rowan as being shady. He just did whatever he could to make ends meet. Couldn’t fault the guy for that.
“Fine, then we’ll go with you,” Cyrus said, crossing his arms under his chest.
“No.” The people in this club had already lost their parents. It would kill the club if something happened to Cyrus and Sammy.
“No?” Cyrus scratched his jaw. “Yeah, you see, you don’t get a say in—”
“I need you to watch over Piper and our unborn baby,” I told him.
“Unborn...” Cyrus sighed. “Fucking hell.”
“You can’t go after these fuckers by yourself,” Sammy added.
“I can. I handled it on my own in jail, I’ll handle it on my own outside of it.” I wasn’t taking no for an answer. They could fight me all they wanted.
“We wouldn’t know, Jaron. You haven’t told us shit about your time in jail. Whenever we went to see you, you redirected the conversations to Piper.” Cyrus raked a hand through his jet-black hair. “You haven’t said shit since you’ve been back, and you’ve been back for weeks. Hell, Brynn is almost a year old. If I was Piper, I would have left your ass long ago.”
“Fuck you.” I charged for him, getting in his face. “You don’t know what I had to do to survive. She’s safer without me here anyway. The mayor—”
“You leaving is not going to keep her safe. It’s what they want.” Cyrus tapped my temple. “Use your damn head, Jaron.”
I slapped his hand away, pushing him back. “Doesn’t matter. You can say whatever you want but it’s not stopping me.” I went to walk by him when his next words stopped me.
“So this is it.”
I paused, slowly turning back around. “She deserves better. You have to know that.”
“No.” Sammy stepped in front of his brother. “We don’t because all we see is how she looks at you. We heard her cry herself to sleep. You don’t know the pain she went through. And when she found out she was pregnant. Jaron, that pain was raw. She was alone even though she had all of us.”
Guilt resonated on my shoulders over everything that I had done but it didn’t matter. I needed to find Brynn and if something happened to me, Piper would be better off anyway. She would be safer.
“Piper needs you. This unborn baby needs you,” Cyrus added. “We didn’t grow up with parents. Look at how we turned out.”
“Hey.” Sammy smacked his brother’s shoulder. “I turned out just fine.”
“Brynlee needs me too.” I wouldn’t rest until I had her back in Piper’s arms. Even if I died trying, knowing that my daughter was safe was all that mattered. . Piper would be pissed, angry, hurt, enraged. So many different feelings would course through her. I knew because I felt them too. But she would get over it. She had to. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
***
