Page 63 of Fight for You
Slowly, hands wrapped around her tiny waist, she turned around. A finger threaded over a single tear. “Nothing.”
The sight of her, that river running down her left cheekbone, broke me. Voice gruff, I asked, “Don’t give me that. What. Is. Wrong?”
“So much crap”—she gestured to her head—“it’s all in here, Jamie.”
In less than sixty seconds, I sat in the recliner, and Jordyn rested on my lap with her legs spilled over the side of the armchair. Jordyn’s cheek lay against my shoulder. My arms wrapped tightly around her while she had a good cry.
In time, Jordyn’s story surfaced amid tears and sniffles. “My second owner. A gift from the good ol’ senator. Rocket had to offload the rest of the kids. Guess I caught his eye, so he got a freebie.”
Rocket? The soon-to-be-dead lad who wished to repurchase her? I’d forgotten about him with all the bullets flying. Could he prove to be a loose end I needed to deal with, similar toAleksandr? Though I wanted more on him, such as location, physical markers, and personality style, Jordyn was telling a story that took a K-Bar knife to my guts and ripped them out.
“I helped him with gun deals.”
Oh. Gun deals. Brody’s friend. I’d get the intel straight from my eldest brother.
“He was young, like me. Twenty. I was fifteen.”
If I had a daughter, my assessment would differ. Dude was too old.
“Despite his corrupt mind, his ambitions soared beyond the stars.” A shaky, fearful exhale slipped past her lips. “By sixteen, I was pregnant, no longer getting the education Hagerty allowed. No longer had doctor appointments. Nothing. Just me and Rocket as he made alliances with gangs.”
Gangs that he allowed to touch her?
“When my stomach got so big, an underboss in a prominent gang in LA wanted …”
For the first time, I cut in. The sound of her breaking down in tears pierced like a dagger to the chest. “What did the guy want? You? Your?—”
“Our baby.”
“Where’s your baby, Jordyn? What’s the gang member’s name? Tell me everything.”
“I ran away, Jamie. The second Rocket threatened to sell my child, I was out. I slipped out of our apartment while he was on a call about moving a big shipment of AK47s. The biggest shipment of his career at that time. It was a Sunday. I ran along Crenshaw Boulevard until I reached a church. That was the most stunning artwork I’d ever encountered before being sold abroad.”
In short order, she shared the hurt she’d felt while stepping into the church for help. Christians. My people. My people should’ve helped her.
“After I met this little girl, Cutie Pie, Rocket came. I’d never runbefore. He caught me in less than an hour. My stomach tightened. Without prenatal care, I didn’t know how many months I was. It-it was too soon. We-we delivered the baby, right there, on the couch.” Her voice broke, a hollow shell. “A dead baby.”
God, how do?—
Jordyn caught my mouth with her own in a kiss that ignited enough passion to move like a radar-guided missile. Every part of my body came alive. She straddled me. I grabbed her face in my hands.
“Though I pray I don’t cross the line, I’m gonna kiss you until you forget every horrible detail from your past, Jordyn.” My declaration came out breathy.
My fingertips ran beneath her shirt, over her spine, and she pressed into me. As I gripped the back of her hair, elongating the kiss, a noise broke into our hot and heavy breathing.
DING.
DONG.
“Don’t get it.” Jordyn panted. “Please don’t get it.”
I planted tiny kisses on her jaw. “They’ll go away. If they don’t, I’ll persuade them.” Lord, how would I get up to confront someone for the interruption? Jordan had me stuck in this position. And I couldn’t help myself. Another mop of my mouth trailed down her neck.
Another ring of the doorbell.
I fell back against the headrest.
Jordyn panted in my lap. A smile on her face. “Okay. We just have to be really quiet. Then I’ll forget everything in my past. Everything from the last day back. I won’t even remember the horrible dream I had last night just?—”
