After Us (Next Generation #6) - J.M. Walker Page 0,105
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.
***
(Piper)
I no longer had a sense of time. When I saw the look of agony on Jaron’s face after I demanded to know why he never brought Brynlee and me to his parents to keep us safe, I knew that I had fucked up. My mouth had gotten the better of me and made it seem like I blamed him. Did I? No. Not really. I couldn’t even be sure anymore. But what I did know was that I needed him. I needed our daughter. I just needed us to go home and move on. I knew the mayor had it out for Jaron, but I never expected him to go this far.