And even if Bree left him again, which was probably going to happen, Adrienne wasn't the right person for him. He knew that now. He had to be with someone he really connected with, someone he could talk to about anything and everything, and Adrienne wasn't that person. She was great; she just wasn't great for him.
"Nathan," she pressed. "Just talk to me."
"You deserve someone who really loves you, Adrienne."
"And you don't?"
"I care about you—"
"Oh, please, caring is an insulting word in this context."
"I'm not trying to insult you. It's complicated."
"It's not complicated, Nathan. At the end of the day, you either want to be with someone or you don't."
She made a good point. "I am sorry. I should have said something sooner."
"I'm sorry, too. Good-bye, Nathan."
"Good-bye."
He felt both relieved that the relationship was over and angry with himself for letting it go on as long as it had. He'd thought it was enough that they had fun together, and maybe it would grow into something, but if it didn't, it didn't. That's why he'd never opened up with Adrienne. Instinctively, he'd known it wasn't going to last. It wasn't that he hadn't trusted her; it was that he hadn't cared enough.
He hadn't cared about anyone the way he cared about Bree. She'd taken his heart a long, long time ago.
For so many years, he'd hidden his feelings away, but last night, he'd laid himself bare. He'd opened up and made himself vulnerable. In doing so, he'd woken himself up from the numb fog he'd put his heart and his emotions into when she got on that bus eleven years ago. Now, he was living again. He was feeling things. He was in love.
He sucked in a breath at that thought.
Bree could very, very easily break his heart again. But he wasn't going to regret taking the risk. This time he'd left everything on the field. If he lost, it wouldn't be because he hadn't tried. Because he hadn't told her how he felt. It was up to her now.
Tapping his fingers against the steering wheel again, he checked his watch. It had been almost thirty minutes since Bree had left.
A bad feeling shot through him. That was way too long.
Jumping out of the truck, he ran down the street and into the salon, raising a lot of questioning looks by his sudden appearance. His gaze swept the room, but he didn't see Sierra or Bree.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked.
"Where's Sierra?"
"She's in the back. Do you have an appointment?"
"No, but she'll want to see me," he said, striding through the salon.
Sierra was standing by a back door that led into a parking lot.
"Sierra," he said sharply.
She whirled around at his approach, her gaze widening. "Nathan Bishop? What are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for Bree."
"Well, that hasn't changed, has it? You were always looking for Bree."
"Where is she?" he demanded. He pushed open a nearby door and found himself looking at an empty office.
"Is everything all right, Sierra?" the receptionist asked, coming down the hall, her phone in hand, ready to dial 911.
"It's fine," Sierra said shortly. "Go back to the desk."
"Where is Bree?" he repeated, his hands knotting into fists to prevent himself from shaking the truth out of Sierra.
"I don't know. She was waiting for me in the office. I had to fix someone's color, and when I came back, she was gone, and this door was open. I assume she left."
He didn't assume that at all. "You're lying. Someone took her. Who? Johnny?"
"Johnny would not take Bree back in a million years. He has me now."
"But Bree had his baby, and you know that. What did you do? Did you tell her where Johnny is? Did you call Johnny?"
"I didn't tell her anything, and I didn't call Johnny. I also don't know anything about this girl that Johnny supposedly took. He's been with me every day, every night, the past week. I think you're both lying. And I want you out of my salon."
"Not until you tell me where she is."
"I have no idea."
"She wouldn't go out the back door when I was waiting in the front."
"Don't you ever get tired of waiting for Bree?"
"No, I don't. I love her. I always have."
"You think that's a surprise to me?" she asked harshly. "But she doesn't love you. And she never has. If she's with you, it's because she needs something. She always used you, and you always came running."
"Johnny went running to her, too. You had to wait until Bree was gone before you could get him. But you're going to lose him, Sierra. Because he's in deep shit. He kidnapped a kid. He's going down for that, and you're going to go with him, if you don't help me. Tell me where Johnny is."
"If you go looking for Johnny, he'll kill you this time. He won't let you make it to the hospital."
"You knew what he did to me?" he asked, shocked by her words.
"Yes. I was the one who called the fire department. I told them the old school was on fire. I figured they'd send a truck to check it out."
"That was you?" he asked in astonishment, remembering the sirens that had made Johnny leave him with breath still left in his body.
"Yes. Because believe it or not I didn't want him to kill you."
Sierra had saved his life and risked her own at the same time. "Why would you have done that for me?"
"I honestly don't know. Luckily, Johnny never found out."
He gave her a long stare. "Thank you."
She shifted her feet and gave a shrug.
He glanced beyond Sierra, seeing something glittering in the sunlight beyond the door. He walked outside to get it. It was Bree's phone. There was no way she'd left of her own free will. She'd ditched it on purpose, so he would know she was in trouble. He looked back at Sierra. "Someone grabbed her."
"I don't know who."
"You have an idea. Help me, Sierra. You're not like Johnny. You don't want Bree to die. She was your friend once."
"I can't remember that."
"Yes, you can. We were all the same, Sierra. We were all wounded, struggling to survive. We helped each other. And Bree helped you."
"That was a long time ago."
"You remember."
"I'm with Johnny now," she said, a note of worry in her voice. "I love him. He loves me."
"Then save him from himself."
Her lips drew into a taut line. "If he ever finds out…"
"He won't."
"He might. He had to have had people following Bree, because I didn't call him. I didn't call anyone."
If that were true, then maybe he was putting Sierra's life in danger. "I'll tell him I was following Bree. I saw her get grabbed. Your name won't come up."
She stared back at him. "Howie's Automotive on Hudson. Johnny has an office on the second floor. There's a fire escape on the side of the building. It goes into the storage room. There will be a guard in the hallway."
He was surprised at the level of detail in her answer. But then Sierra had always noted everything when it came to Johnny. "Thanks."
"I'm not helping you, Nathan. If Johnny sees you, he'll kill you. I'm probably sending you to your death. Are you willing to die for Bree? Because that's what it's going to take to save her."
He saw the cold truth in her eyes. He also knew the answer to that question. "Yes, I am." He paused. "Don't go home tonight, Sierra. Stay with a friend."
"Now you're worried about me?"
"I'm worried about everyone."
"Johnny would never hurt me."
"Don't bet your life on that."
* * *
Bree winced as the car she was in hit a pothole. She couldn't see anything with the hood that had been thrown over her head and tied around her neck so tight she could barely breathe. A zip tie had also fastened her hands behind her back.
She'd only seen one of the men who'd grabbed her out of Sierra's office, but there were at least two.
They hadn't said anything to her; they'd just thrown her into a car and taken off.
Sierra must have called in Johnny's guards. Which meant they were taking her to Johnny.
Her heart raced at the thought of seeing him again. By now he knew she'd stolen his child, his blood, his heir. She'd told Nathan that Johnny had never gotten physical with her, and that had been the truth, but she knew now there was violence in Johnny's soul. What he'd done to Nathan after she left—what he'd probably done to a lot of other people—showed who he really was. And she'd hurt him in a way that no one else had. There was a good chance he was going to kill her. She'd known going to Sierra was a risk, but for a moment there, she'd really thought that Sierra might help her.
She'd been wrong.
Nathan had been right. He'd told her she was taking a huge risk.
It was one she'd thought she'd had to take, but now a terrible despair ran through her. If she'd blown this, Hayley might never be found.
She tried to reassure herself that no matter what happened to her, Nathan would keep looking. He'd make sure the agency continued to go after Johnny. He'd find her daughter.
Her heart filled with so much pain she almost couldn't handle it. She wanted to see Hayley in person. She wanted to look into her daughter's eyes. She'd been denied that opportunity when Hayley was born, but she wanted it now, wanted it with a fierce sense of desperation.
The car came to an abrupt stop and she hit the side of the door with her shoulder. A moment later, that same door opened, and she was hauled out, a gun pressing into her back, as a low voice ordered her to move.
A man had a tight grip on her arm, so there was no chance of escape, not that she could go anywhere in her current state. She didn't think she was outside. They must have pulled into a garage. She smelled gasoline, and the floor was hard, probably concrete.
"Up," the man said. "Stairs."
She stumbled up the steps as he dragged her along. In the distance, she could hear a clanging—metal on metal. She heard the roar of an engine.
Was she in an auto shop?
But why were there stairs?
She tried to make a mental note of everything. When they reached the landing, they turned to the right. The light brightened behind her hood. There was daylight coming in from somewhere. A door opened.
She was shoved inside another room. This room felt darker.
Someone undid the tie around her hood, and it was yanked off her head.
She blinked in the shadowy room, trying to see who was there. A door closed behind her.
The man sitting behind a desk got up and came around, stopping in front of her. He had brown hair and dark-brown eyes and a ruthless, hateful look on his face.
Johnny!
"Bree," he murmured. "As pretty as ever." He set the gun in his hand down on the desk, but close enough to reach if he needed it.
"Johnny," she said, a lump growing in her throat.
Eleven years had passed since she'd run for her life, but now it felt like yesterday.
Johnny had aged, but unlike Nathan, he hadn't gotten more attractive with time. She'd once thought of Johnny as darkly handsome. Now, his thick hair had thinned, receding off his square forehead. There were numerous lines around his eyes and mouth—hard, bitter, angry lines. There were scars on his cheek, his jaw, and a long one down his neck.
There was no hint of the boy who had been funny and charming. That kid had completely disappeared. Johnny had become a man—a man who had clearly lived a life of violence, and she was even more glad she'd taken Hayley out of his reach.
She looked over her shoulder. Whoever had brought her here was gone. She was fine with that. One less person to take down. Although, taking Johnny down with her hands tied behind her back was probably optimistic.
"It's just us," Johnny said, drawing her gaze back to his.
Despite the situation, she refused to be intimidated by him. Straightening her shoulders, lifting her chin, she said, "Were you following me?"
"I didn't have to. After my conversation with the FBI last night, I figured you'd go find Sierra."
"If you wanted to see me, you didn't need to kidnap me. You could have just called—like you've been doing all along—and told me where to go."
His gaze narrowed. "I haven't been calling you."
"Oh, come on. Isn't the game over now? You're here. I'm here. Tell me what you want."
"I want to know where our daughter is."
Her jaw slackened in shock at his words. "You know where she is. You have her."
What kind of sick game was he playing with her?
"I don't have her," he said harshly. "I didn't even know about her until yesterday when the feds showed up, telling me the daughter I had with you was missing. They accused me of kidnapping her. Are you setting me up, Bree?"
"Setting you up? No. You're the one who took Hayley and lured me to Chicago by pretending to be the White Rose Kidnapper. You sent Calvin Baker to shake down Hayley's adoptive father for ransom. And then you killed Cal."
The expression in Johnny's gaze grew more incredulous with each word.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. "I didn't kidnap anyone. I've never heard of this White Rose Kidnapper. And I haven't seen Baker in years."
A tiny seed of doubt took root in her mind. Why was he lying? What did he have to gain by trying to maintain the pretense?
"Do you think I'm just going to go away if you deny it?" she asked. "Because I can assure you that won't happen. I'm a federal agent, Johnny. I'm not the shy, insecure girl I used to be."
"I can see that." He gave her a long, harsh stare. "You're FBI now, and you want to take me down, so you made up this story about a kid. But you wouldn't have left town, pregnant with my child. You wouldn't have stolen her from me. You loved me."
The anger in his eyes burned through her. "I did love you then. But I loved my daughter more."
"There really was a child?"
"You know there was. You took her," she said again. "Did Detective Benedict help you? Is he involved in this, too? Did he get you my phone number? Did he help you dig up my past? I know you had to have had help from someone in law enforcement."
"Benedict?" he echoed. "I haven't talked to him in years."
"He was your father's friend."
"Not mine. I have my own allies in the CPD."
"Someone helped you."
"No one helped me, because I didn't do anything." He paused. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"
"I was scared."
"I never hurt you. I treated you like gold. I gave you everything you could want. I was your knight in shining armor. That's what you used to tell me."
She had told him that. But those had been the words of a teenage girl, who'd thought Johnny was the answer to her sad, hard life. "You didn't hurt me, but you hurt other people."
"Not women—or children."
She couldn't help noticing he'd left men out of his answer. "I was a young, stupid girl when we were together. I was naïve to think you could be better than your parents, your brothers. I thought you had more good in you than you did. But I gradually came to see the truth. You were going down a dangerous, terrifying path, and I couldn't go with you. I didn't want my baby to live your life, to be in your family, to have bodyguards, to be constantly questioned by the police just because of her last name."
"My life is great. I run a lucrative business. I take incredible vacations. I have more money than you could dream of."
"Blood money. You run a criminal enterprise."
He shrugged. "I'm a businessman and a capitalist. Let's get back to you. You stole my child from me. I was her father. I had a right to see her, to raise her. It wasn't your decision."
"I made it my decision," she said forcefully. "And, to be honest, I wasn't just protecting her from you but also from me. I didn't want her to live my life, either. I wanted her to have two parents who were in love with each other, who adored her, and who could give h
er a safe, happy life."
"We were in love with each other."
"Infatuated, maybe, but it wasn't love. Because we didn't know what love was."
"You can't deny what we had."
"I was desperate for someone to love me, to protect me, so I saw in you what I wanted to see."
"Nathan helped you leave. He knew where you went, didn't he?"
She didn't answer, not wanting to bring Nathan into it.
"I almost killed him, you know," Johnny said in a conversational tone.
She shook her head. "Nathan was your friend once."
"Was he?" Johnny asked scornfully. "He'd been trying to get me away from you since we first met. And he finally did it. My only satisfaction was that you left him, too. That's the only reason I let him live."
"See, right there, you just showed me who you really are. You almost killed Nathan, and you act like it's no big deal. Whatever good I saw in you was just in my imagination. And none of this even matters because all that's important right now is our daughter." It killed her to include him in the relationship with Hayley, but it was looking more and more like he hadn't taken Hayley. And if he hadn't, she was going to need his help.
"Our daughter," he echoed, as if he was still getting used to that thought. He folded his arms across his chest as he perched on the front edge of his desk. "Did you name her Hayley?"
"No. I didn't name her. I didn't hold her. I didn't even see her eyes. They took her away right after she was born. I thought it would be easier if I didn't bond with her, but it wasn't." A torrent of emotion rose within her. "Sending her away broke my heart. I gave away a piece of myself."
"And you gave away a piece of me," he said sharply. "How could you deprive me of my own child? What gave you the right?"
"I just wanted what was best for her. And it was a good decision. Hayley has a great life now. You should see her bedroom. It's like a princess lives there. She has books and games and stuffed animals. She has a brother and a sister, grandparents."
"She would have had all that with me."
"Maybe you would have given her those things. But she would have also grown up with guns, with thugs, with drug deals and gamblers and addicts. She would have never been free. She would have always been looking over her shoulder, wondering if someone her father had crossed would come after her. I didn't want that life for her. You told me once that you sometimes wished you'd been born into another family. Maybe you don’t remember that now. But I do."
Reckless Whisper KO PL B Page 20
