Violet at his side.
Crying.
Bleeding.
Rage filled my blood as I unlocked and opened the door before I rushed to where Violet was lying on the floor on the other side of her bed. Still crying, and when someone flipped the overhead light, I realized she was still bleeding.
Her mouth was swollen, already bruised all the way around, making her look like she was five and had been playing with purple lipstick. But it was the blood trickling down from both corners of her lips that had me holding back a gasp.
I heard the two men standing over us suck in harsh breaths when they saw her. “What the fuck happened?” Uncle Shane bit out.
Violet only cried harder, and I wrapped my arms tighter around her. “Shh, shh,” I soothed. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you now. I promise.”
“Who hurt her?” Lyric, crouched down in front of us, heard me, and I lifted my head to meet his dark gaze. When I didn’t immediately tell him, he cupped my jaw and forced me to hold his gaze. “Shaw, tell me who hurt her. Please.”
For half a second, I felt that age-old sisterly loyalty to my brother. Lyric had never liked Cannon. I’d lost count of the times they’d gotten into fights, and every time Lyric had kicked his ass. But then I looked down at Violet’s ravaged mouth, her swollen eyes from all the crying she’d been doing, and what little respect I might have still held for Cannon turned to dust.
“Cannon,” I spat out his name in disgust. “He did this to her.”
“Shane?” Aunt Harper, dressed in pajamas and a robe, appeared in the doorway, sleep still filling her voice as she glanced through slitted eyes at all of us. “What’s going on? Why were you yelling?”
For once, my uncle ignored his beautiful wife, almost as if he didn’t even hear her, and bent to skim his thumb over Vi’s bottom lip. When he wiped away a smear of blood, I watched through a drunken haze as a beast unleashed inside him. “I’ll fucking kill him!” he roared, causing Violet to flinch.
He was at the door in the next blink of my eyes, but Aunt Harper stood in his way. Pushing on his chest to keep him in the bedroom, she demanded to know what was going on. Her pretty purple eyes fell on her daughter, and I watched as she swallowed hard a few times. “I want to know everything. Right now.”
Lyric sighed and, after carefully untangling my arms from around my best friend, lifted her off the floor and placed her on the bed. “Shaw, get me a washcloth,” he commanded.
I hurried into the bathroom to grab the washcloth and dampen it with cool water. Grabbing a hand towel as well, I returned to him just as Aunt Harper was pushing Uncle Shane into the desk chair closest to the window.
Taking the cloth from me, Lyric gently wiped at Violet’s bloody mouth. She whimpered at the first graze of the soft material over her abused flesh, and more tears spilled from her eyes. Her father was shaking across the room, and she visibly tried to control herself, but she was too upset.
Too scared.
Once Lyric had her cleaned up, he folded the stained washcloth and then took her hands into his own. “I need you to tell us what happened, Vi.”
“He didn’t believe me,” she whispered.
“Who?” he murmured softly.
“L-Luca,” she stammered, and I realized she was shivering. “I told him…everything. And he thought… Oh God, Ric, he thought I kissed Cannon on purpose.”
“He’s a dumbass,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry about my idiot brother right now. I’m more interested in how your poor mouth got so torn up.”
Her fingers tightened around Lyric’s. “Cannon,” she said his name and then stopped, shuddering. “We…Shaw and I, we went to a party tonight. Jagger was there, and he was kissing some girl.”
My stomach twisted at the memory, and I pressed a fist to my chest, willing the pain there to disappear. I’d started drinking to get the image of him with that girl out of my head, but all it had done was make the tidal wave of misery pushing against my insides that much more intense.
“Shaw was upset, and she and Cannon got into an argument…” She glanced at me. I knew she was skipping over the stuff she thought I wouldn’t want them to know, protecting me so I wouldn’t get in trouble, but they needed to hear it all.
“Jagger and I kissed last weekend,” I explained, but no one seemed surprised by my announcement. I guess I hadn’t exactly hidden how I felt about Jagger as well as I thought I had. “But tonight, Jags set it up for me to catch him kissing someone else.”
“Dumbass,” Lyric muttered under his breath.
“Cannon showed up, and he and I got into an argument.” I flexed my swollen left hand. “I punched him… And then I got drunk.”
“Aw, Shaw,” Aunt Harper said with a disappointed shake of her head. “Honey…”
“Later, as I was coming out of the bathroom, Cannon cornered me,” Violet took over the story again. “He said…” She gulped, and her hold on Lyric tightened until her knuckles were bloodless. “He said that since Shaw kissed his best friend, he got to kiss hers. He was drunk. He kissed me. I fought against him, Ric, but he was so strong like that, it was scary. And he…” The sob that left her tore at something inside me, and I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around her, needing to hold on to my best friend. “He hurt me,” she choked out before burying her face in my chest.
“Wait!” Aunt Harper was trying to block Uncle Shane from leaving. “Just take a deep breath. We’ll take care of this, but killing him isn’t the answer.”
“Get out of my way, beautiful,” he seethed.
“Shane, please,” she begged him, pushing at his chest as tears spilled down her pale face. “I’m just as pissed as you are right now, but it’s not our place to deal with him. Let me call Dallas. She’ll handle this better than anyone else. I promise.”
“He touched our baby,” he growled menacingly. “He hurt her, Harper!”
Tears fell faster from her eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “And I want to strangle him. But…please, Shane. Please don’t do this. Let Dallas handle him first.”
“Please, Daddy,” Violet said as she lifted her head. “M-Mom’s right.”
Frustrated, he scrubbed his hands over his face. “Call her,” he gritted out. “Now.”
I bit my lip as she dialed my mom’s number. I wasn’t sure yet what time it was in Knoxville. That part of Tennessee was on East Coast time, and a glance at the clock on the bedside table told me it was 2:13 a.m. Pacific time, which meant it was 5:13 where my parents were.
They’d gone to Knoxville for the weekend to visit my adopted sister, Kenzie, and her husband. Dad adopted Kenzie right before she aged out of the foster care system back when he and Mom were still dating. She’d moved to Knoxville for college and then ended up staying when she got married before I was even born. Her eldest was less than two years younger than me, so it was beyond weird when he called my parents Grams and Grampy.
My uncle Linc and his husband Rhett lived in the same suburb as Kenzie and her husband. When I was eight, Kenzie had offered to be Linc and Rhett’s gestational host. They got two separate eggs from the same donor, used both their sperm, and Kenzie had their twins. Ripley was biologically Linc’s son, and Lennon was biologically Rhett’s daughter. Kenzie and her husband Bishop were big parts of the twins’ lives, and I was sure it would physically hurt my adopted sister if they ever moved away from each other.
The call to my mother didn’t take long. Aunt Harper gave her a quick rundown of what was going on, leaving out the part where I was still drunk, but I knew it would only be a short reprieve. Whatever punishment I got, however, I would take without complaint.
I would own up to my mistakes, but I knew whatever I was given, it wouldn’t even be close to what they would do to my brother.
Chapter 8
Jagger
After dropping off Gretchen at her house, I drove around for a while, trying to clear my head. I wanted to go back to the party and make Shaw talk to me, but whe
n I pulled up outside the house in Santa Monica, I saw Cannon’s car was still there and figured it was better to wait.
I got home a little after one and dropped down onto my bed. I typed out a text to Shaw at least fifty different times, but I ended up erasing it every single time because whatever I wrote seemed like pure bullshit.
I was sorry…for being a pussy. For not having the balls to pick her over her brother because I was scared—of losing them both. I should have manned up and told her what was in my heart.
A week ago, she would have taken my words and given them back to me. Now, she would probably laugh in my face. I could easily picture her FaceTiming me just so she could laugh hysterically before flipping me off and telling me to go fuck myself.
No, whatever I told her needed to be said face-to-face so she would know how sincere I was. That I wasn’t going to let anyone stand in my way this time. All that mattered was her. No one, not a godsdamn person, was going to stand in my way of winning her back.
A knock on my door was quickly followed by Ma barging into my room. The look on her face told me she was pissed, and I instantly went on alert, wondering if I was the one she was mad at. Hands on her hips, she stopped at the foot of my bed and glared down at me. “Tell me about this fucking party tonight.”
Swallowing a groan, I slowly sat up, knowing that I had to approach this—and her—with caution. “Maybe you should tell me what you know, Ma. And then I’ll fill in the blanks.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” she snapped and showed me her phone. With a tap of her finger over the screen, a video started playing.
The video was of me making out with Gretchen and then Shaw pouring beer over my head, followed by everything else, all the way up until Shaw punched Cannon and stormed away before abruptly cutting off.
“That about sums up the party,” I assured her.
“Yeah?” She lowered her phone, but her voice got even frostier. “That about sums up the party because you left after that, or it about sums it up because you want to protect Cannon?”
“I left,” I told her. “My date wanted to leave, and you taught me to always take care of the woman I’m with. It was my responsibility to make sure she got home safely.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I also trust you to take care of your cousins and keep them safe. Which is why I’m holding you responsible for what happened to Violet after you fucking left her and Shaw at that party, knowing Cannon was drunk and unstable.” She turned to go, calling over her shoulder, “You’re grounded until I say otherwise.”
“Wait!” I jumped out of bed and followed after her. “What happened to Violet?”
She stopped outside my room and glared at me. “Cannon hurt her.” She held up her phone again, and the picture that appeared had my stomach turning.
It was Violet, sitting on her bed at home with tears still rolling down her face. Her mouth looked swollen, bruised, and bleeding. “If you’d stayed like you should have, or at least gone back after taking your date home, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”
I took the phone from her, looking closer at my sweet little cousin. “Cannon did this to her?” I gritted out.
“That’s what she told Shane, and knowing Cannon, I believe her.” She snatched her phone back. “Dallas and Ax are on their way home from Tennessee as we speak to deal with that little shit. Now get back to your room before I decide you’re grounded until you’re thirty.”
She stomped down the stairs, and I waited until I heard the back door slam shut before I moved.
Turning, I walked back into my room. Grabbing my keys and wallet, I left my phone on the nightstand, knowing Ma would most likely track the damn thing to make sure I was still home.
Rage like I’d never felt before was rolling off me, making my hands shake as I jogged downstairs and out to the driveway. Mom’s SUV was already gone, and I figured she was on her way to Santa Monica to check on Violet.
Remembering the pain and fear in Vi’s eyes from that picture, I got behind the wheel and headed for Santa Monica again. If Cannon had been drinking, he wasn’t likely to go home, especially if he knew he was going to get in trouble for something. And unless he was completely out of it, he would sure as fuck know that what he’d done would get him killed. Knowing my best friend—now my ex-best friend—I knew where he would probably go, while everyone else would be searching for days without being able to find him.
Guilt ate at me the entire drive. I should have gone back in when I returned to the party. I should have dealt with Cannon then and there before taking Violet and Shaw home, or at least followed them home. The girls had been there because of me, and I should have made sure they were safe the entire time.
Instead, I’d left them there, thinking Cannon would take care of them. Like he should have done.
And what had he done?
Hurt Violet.
I was going to kill him.
As soon as I got my hands on him, he was dead. There would be no saving him. Any hope I might have held on to that we could at least be friends had turned to dust the second I’d seen what he’d done to Vi. I didn’t want a friend who could so easily hurt someone so sweet and innocent. All our lives, it was drilled into our heads that we took care of and protected the ones who mattered. No matter what.
I would have given my life for anyone in my family because I loved them. Now, I realized that Cannon wouldn’t do the same. As my sister said, he was an entitled asshole. He thought the world owed him something. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and didn’t care who got hurt in the process.
And I was going to show him that the world didn’t work like that.
I finally pulled into the parking lot of the park. I spotted his car before I even parked, so I knew he was there. That he’d driven there drunk only pissed me off more. Again, I was faced with just how selfish my one-time best friend actually was.
At the back of the park was a tree house our parents had helped build for the community when we were little more than eight. From the time it was completed, the two of us would come here. We had our own padlocks that we kept in our vehicles, and when we needed to hide from the world and just decompress, we’d come here and lock ourselves in. A few times in the last few years, I had snuck out of the house to come here and work on song material for hours.
Neither his parents nor mine knew we still came here, for which I was thankful. Because I didn’t want them to get to him before I did.
Climbing the ladder, I stepped onto the wraparound porch-like area outside the tree house. A shake of the door handle told me Cannon had used his padlock. Stepping back, I lifted my leg and kicked it three times before the door completely splintered open.
The light on his phone illuminated the inside, showing me that Cannon was in the far corner, sleeping off his drunken night. He’d left the flashlight on because he’d always hated being in the dark when he was drunk. He was so out of it, my breaking down the door hadn’t even roused him.
“You motherfucker,” I growled and grabbed him by his shirt.
The movement made him groan, and his eyes slowly lifted. “Jags?” He rasped my name then tried to swallow. Whatever had been his drink of choice earlier had apparently left him with cotton mouth.
He blinked a few times before his mind caught up to him, and then he paled. “Oh God. I think I fucked up. I—”
He didn’t finish because my fist to his face shut him up. “Yeah,” I told him as I punched him again. “You did.”
I hit him over and over again until both my hands were throbbing. I might have still been hitting him if strong arms hadn’t wrapped around my chest, locking my arms to my sides and pulling me off him.
“Let me go, man!” I struggled to get free, wanting to finish what I’d started.
“He’s out, Jags. Fuck, man. He’s out!”
When I heard my brother-in-law’s voice, I went still. Breathing hard, I looked down at Cannon, who was a bloody mess on the floor of the tree house.
&n
bsp; “What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded, trying to shrug him off me.
Barrick’s hold only tightened. “Emmie called and said she didn’t trust you to stay home. Told me to watch the GPS on your car, and if you left the house, to do what I needed to in order to return you home. By that time, you were already driving.” He pulled me outside and then blocked the door before releasing me. “I don’t know what’s going on or why you just beat the fuck out of your best friend, but I have to call your mom.”
I shook out my throbbing hands, not even looking to see how torn up the knuckles were in the streetlights surrounding the park. “Do what you have to. Just let me finish what I came here to do.”
He crossed his massive arms over his chest. “I can’t do that, little bro. Mia will kick my ass if I let you commit murder.”
“So leave and say you didn’t find me until after I killed him.” I tried to push him out of my way, but Barrick was unmovable. The guy was not only a security expert but a Marine vet and an underground cage fighter. There was a reason my dad had chosen him to protect Mia when he’d needed someone to watch over her while she was at college.
Part of me was glad Mia fell for him. She would always be safe as long as he was still breathing. But right then, a part of me wished she hadn’t forgiven him for hiding his identity from her, because he wouldn’t have been there to stand in my way if not.
“It’s over, Jagger.” Barrick’s deep voice was full of regret, but he didn’t move so much as an inch. “He’s going to be feeling that beating for a hell of a long time. Go home, and I’ll clean this up. Maybe Emmie won’t lose her mind too bad when she sees him if you go now.”
“No.” I flexed my fingers, grimacing when I felt blood dripping from my knuckles. “I’ll take whatever she throws at me. I’m not a pussy like that piece of shit in there. I won’t run away and hide when I know I did something wrong. Call Ma. I’ll stay right here and let her see exactly what I did.”
Wanting Shaw Page 5
