The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1)

by Leanne Davis

  Jessie didn’t know. But she was sure she’d figure it out. The why. Her father must be after something and he needed her here to get it. Now she was here and she had to make sure she didn’t fall right back into her old patterns.

  She had to survive this. If only because that’s what Will would expect her to do. She had nothing left to do, but make Will Hendricks proud of her. Even if he never knew.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  He cornered her as she was leaving the grocery store three nights later. She went alone, using Lindsey’s car, believing there was no valid reason why she shouldn’t. But, there was the general. He pulled up right beside her, in a scary looking black car, with the door opened. He was in the back, with a driver in the front. Jessie nearly recoiled in fear.

  But wasn’t that what Travis Bains was all about? A bully who used fear and intimidation to destroy and control those weaker than he? Especially her?

  “I have some news about Will.”

  He didn’t. She told herself he did not. Her father was using her greatest weakness just to get her to execute his wishes. She would not fall for it, and definitely not get into his car.

  “Jessie. Do you want to hear this or not? Really, I’m doing you a favor. Now get in.”

  Warning bells rang in Jessie’s head. If he were really doing her a favor, why didn’t he simply come by Lindsey’s place and tell her in front of her sister and Noah? And, if he were really harmless, why did he follow her, approaching her only when she was alone? Alone and vulnerable, in his eyes.

  But still… the allure of learning anything, no matter how minor about Will, was too seductive for Jessie to resist. She got into the car, and her father smiled and nodded, waving his driver on. Then a windowed partition separated them and the driver.

  “Will’s dead.”

  The pain was searing. First through her gut, then her heart, then her head.

  “How did he die?”

  “He was shot. His body is being shipped home as we speak.”

  He was shot. Will was no more than a body. The grinning, serious, quiet, strong man who was with her in every terrible experience she had during the last few years was gone. It didn’t compute, and didn’t begin to seem real.

  “It’s time now, Jessie. This stupid little charade you’ve been playing for the last few years. It’s over now. You’ll hand over the tape, and you’ll stop now. You know it was all Will’s doing. You can’t keep it up.”

  Jessie looked up at her father, suspending her grief long enough for her father’s words to sink into her head. Tape? What tape? What was over?

  “It’s not in any of his things. He gave it to you, didn’t he? I want it now. It’s time you grew up, and came home. You need to give me the tape now, do you understand?”

  “You went through his things? But how? You have no right. You—”

  “I have every right, goddamn it! You’ve had me over a barrel for the past two years. No more, Jessie Bains, no fucking more. Now where is the goddamned tape?”

  Jessie pushed against the car door, and the armrest dug into her back. She froze inside. In an instant, she was back to being fourteen years old, scared, alone, and ready to obey his wishes. Failing him. Fearing him. Jessie shut her eyes and told herself she wasn’t fourteen anymore. She wasn’t under his control, and he couldn’t do anything to her. If he tried? This time, people would care. People would help. People like Noah would care, and Lindsey. It wouldn’t go unpunished. Not like before.

  But what tape was he talking about?

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “You can’t pull your dumb bitch routine with me. Where is the damn tape? So you know I’m not your father. So what? You think that changes anything? I will always have complete and utter control of you! I raised you! Who do you think paid for all your food? The roof over your head? Your mother was a whore, and I still raised you, didn’t I? You still owe me. Now pay up. Give me the tape that Will made.”

  He wasn’t her father. The words reverberated through her brain with pounding regularity. General Travis Bains wasn’t her father. He was not her father. He only abused her and not Lindsey because her mother cheated on him. He loved Lindsey more, because she was his biological daughter and Jessie was not. The shock and wonder dumbfounded Jessie. Every false belief she ever held about herself dissolved with this knowledge. She thought she was unlovable all her life. She thought she was worthless, and rotten to the core, but always, it was simply because her father never loved her. But he wasn’t her father.

  She almost smiled and started laughing with glee. Instead, she turned her eyes to the general. “Then why did you bother to raise me?”

  “Your mother was dead. No one else knew. I could not have it come out that she cheated on me. Me. General Travis Bains. Now how could I let that get out?”

  “So you chose to torment me instead?”

  “I was harsh on you so you wouldn’t turn out like her. But you did. You were even worse than her.”

  “Only because I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved. After all, my own ‘father’ hated me.”

  The general stared at her, and his eyes widened. “You didn’t know? Will didn’t tell you? I assumed, right off, he would have told you that.”

  “No. He never told me. When did he find out?”

  The sense of betrayal ripped through her bruised heart worse than anything the general could have done or said simply because she loved Will.

  “When you left. He confronted me. He figured some things out.”

  “And he recorded it. Made a tape. I don’t have it, General. I promise you, I don’t have it. I didn’t even know he did it. Why? Why did he do it?”

  The general didn’t speak, but looked out the window. Finally, he sighed, “He was blackmailing me with it. If I left you alone, he’d keep it all quiet. If I did anything he didn’t like towards you, however, he’d release it to the press and ruin me.”

  Jessie released a long sigh. He did it all for her in order to protect her. Will made the general pay with his own lies. She nearly giggled with delight at thinking how much the control freak general must have hated having someone, anyone, especially a subordinate like Will, lording power over him, and being at his mercy.

  “I really didn’t know anything about this. He sent me away. He told me to never contact you or return here. So I never did. Other than calling Lindsey.”

  “It’s going to be released. He told me if anything ever happened to him, his lawyer would release it. Tell me you know who that is and stop it. You don’t want this being released anymore than I do. It’s everything, Jessie. Everything is on it. Including Mexico. You don’t really want to relive that in public, do you?”

  She paled. No. She could not live through it again. Not like that. Not alone. Not without Will.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He seemed to think I would actually try and hurt him.”

  She eyed the general and suddenly scooted away. If Will thought that, then it was true. He wasn’t paranoid, like she was. He was the most sane person she ever knew. If Will Hendricks thought General Travis Bains would possibly try to harm, or kill him, then he was right.

  The general noticed her sudden faraway look. He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Get a clue, you stupid, little dolt. I wouldn’t kill my own soldier. Especially one who threatened me with what Will threatened. He secured his own safety. I can’t stop a war, Jessie.”

  “Quit calling me stupid. Quit calling me names. Quit ordering me around. I am not yours to abuse anymore, Travis Bains. I am not your daughter. Remember? I am not yours to hurt. I am Will’s wife. And I will get those tapes. I’ll get everything. Now, I’ll have possession of his secrets. Stop the car. Let me out. And stay out of my life forever because you won’t ever have the chance to hurt me again. If you ever try, I swear to God, it will be me, front and center, at your dishonorable discharge hearing, making sure the entire world knows who and what you are,
General Bains.”

  Like lightning, his hand emerged so quickly, Jessie didn’t get a chance to duck, and he slapped her so hard, her teeth rattled, and the back of her head hit the window. She could taste blood in her mouth.

  “You’ll regret this, you little cunt.”

  Then the car stopped, and he pushed her out like a bag of garbage. She landed on the shoulder of a deserted two-lane road, her arm taking the brunt while breaking her fall. She cried out in pain as she slowly turned onto her butt and sat up. Then agonizingly, she rose to her feet. Her head was all jumbled, and in pain, but still, she could not repress a smile that broke out on her face.

  It was the first time she ever saw General Travis Bains looking afraid of her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Will jumped up quickly with so much power in his well-placed kick, he took his captor by surprise when he decked him in the jaw. Before the man knew what hit him, he was knocked out, falling flat on his face to the floor. Will quickly jumped on his back, and broke the man’s neck, while checking his pockets for the keys. He unlocked the chains on his wrists in less than four seconds flat. Rubbing at his blistered skin, he wasted no time grabbing his stuff.

  After playing ill for several days, Will lay in his cell listlessly, as if wasting away. Until this moment. One moment was all he needed for one of his captors to get a little careless, and a little too close. So close that Will could take him down. And he did with a vengeance he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not since Jessie was in Mexico. This time, however, the only one to save was himself. Just him. Any softness or kindness he had was gone. He had to kill whomever he could, and take no prisoners. He would get out no matter the human cost.

  Ignoring the pain in his head and chest, he pulled the sandals off the now dead guard and put them on his bloody, cracked feet. He dashed away from the tiny, filthy cell he’d been kept in. He knew there were others like him, but he didn’t know their crimes. He only knew he had to get himself out, and he needed a weapon. More than anything else, he needed a gun.

  Coming around a corner, he stopped abruptly. There were four guards up ahead, all holding machine guns. Those would do. Now he just had to figure out how to get the weapons out of their hands. Then he could decide how to get the fuck out of there.

  ****

  Lindsey responded to the loud, urgent thumping on the front door.

  “Lindsey? Open up.” Her father.

  She slowly opened the door, and started to back up when her father tried to step forward. She regained her composure and grabbed the door, and stopped him up short.

  “Get away from me. I saw what you did to her. I saw the bruises on her face. You’re sick, you know that? My biggest mistake was allowing you to turn me against her.”

  “She’s a liar.”

  “Her face doesn’t lie. You hit her.”

  “She threatened to ruin me. You can’t let her, Lindsey. It will ruin all of us. Your husband included.”

  “Don’t you bring us into your sick control games. I’m done. I’m done with you. Get off my property. And quit sneaking up on me and Jessie. Just leave us alone.”

  “Don’t do this. You don’t want to do this.”

  Lindsey gave her father a long, cool look, and finally saw him with her blinders ripped off.

  “I do, General Bains. I do want to do this. Jessie isn’t your daughter, as it turns out. She’s the lucky one. I always thought I was because I was your favorite. Turns out, I’m ashamed to be your real daughter. And Jessie is my sister in every sense of the word. More than you could ever be my father.”

  Lindsey slammed the door on her father, and came face to face with Jessie. Jessie looked outside, and saw the general getting into his black car.

  “What did he want?”

  “More of the same. To intimidate us, and try to ruin us. He won’t do it. Never again will Travis Bains harm us. Hurt us. Separate us. Jessie, I think he was lying. I don’t think Will is dead.”

  Jessie stared at her sister and Lindsey started pacing. “The general is desperate to get the tapes. Will’s supposedly been dead for a week. And nothing. No mysterious lawyer threatening to release tapes. I think Will is just missing, and the general is using it to persuade us to give him the tapes.”

  Jessie shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t say that. I can’t take it. No. He’s dead. And I have to live with that.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. I think the general’s conning us. Using us. To get one of us to panic and turn the tapes over to him. Kowtow like we used to.”

  Jessie stopped dead. “What if he’s making sure Will never gets found? Or released?”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Lindsey said, taking a deep breath. Then she said softly, “Jess, I think we need to find those tapes and release them. Take away all the general’s bluffs. Then make sure we find out where Will is and get him rescued.”

  “Can we do that? Have we that much power? We have no authority over the military. You know that better than anyone.”

  “I think we’ve spent too long listening to Travis Bains. It’s time we listened to our own brains, don’t you think, sis?”

  Jessie hesitated as she thought about the pain it would stir up. She also thought about how long she’d been working to be healed. But if Will was still alive, that was all that mattered.

  “Okay. What do I do?”

  “Who would Will trust with the tapes?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t have any family left. Maybe his best friend, Tony. Or the Clapsmiths. I just don’t get why he didn’t tell me. It hurts. He knew that if I’d known the general wasn’t my real father, it would have made all the difference to me.”

  Lindsey was quiet before she answered. “Would it really, Jessie? At the time he found out, you just finished hitting an emotional rock bottom. I think he was right not to tell you. I think he thought it would send you completely over the edge. Jessie, you were close, too close to the edge. I can’t blame him if his thoughts were to keep you safe.”

  “But later? After he showed back up last year. I am better, Lindsey. I am stronger, rational, and capable. He could have told me then.”

  Lindsey shook her head. “I don’t know that. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “If he’s not dead.”

  “He’s not dead.”

  “What if he is? How will I survive it? I feel like I’m waiting each moment for the phone to ring, or the doorbell to peal and someone, some faceless person who doesn’t know Will, or that he’s the best man alive, will tell me Will is dead. And how can I live after that moment? How could I ever go on?”

  “The same way you did after Mexico.”

  “I only survived that because of Will.”

  “No, you survived because of you. And his help.”

  “Lindsey you don’t understand. What he saw… it was terrible, everyone else would have walked away. Left me. Hated me. But he never did. He was there. Always. He—”

  “And why did you two split up? My God, have you listened to yourself? How could you let him leave you again?”

  “I didn’t let him. He chose to.”

  “Did you fight him?”

  Fight him? No. Of course not. Because Will was right. “No. He knew I couldn’t handle being a military wife.”

  Lindsey let out a hollow laugh. “You lived through the general, through all the men, the sex tape, Mexico, your breakdown, and you think you couldn’t handle being a military wife? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And, Jessie, you’ve done some stupid things in your life, but this, is the stupidest.”

  “Lindsey how can you—?”

  “Say this? Because now I know everything. And you’re right, Will is special. You were special to him. You were everything to him. No other man would leave you because it was the best for you, and then come back. He loves you. Better than anyone ever loved me. Sure he’s probably a little gun-shy at what you can handle, given, you know, your history. But God, not even the shadow of that g
irl exists in you anymore, Jessie. He loved you as that girl, and he loves you much better now. So why didn’t you prove to him what you were now? What you could handle now? What you wanted now?”

  Jessie backed up until the couch bumped behind her knees. She fell onto it in a near stupor. Everything Lindsey said literally flabbergasted her. Stunned her. And all she could think of was that Lindsey was right. Why didn’t she prove herself to Will?

  “Or better yet, why didn’t you make the stupid, stubborn ass compromise with you?”

  “What do you mean, compromise? About what? And he was never a stupid, stubborn ass.”

  Lindsey outright laughed. “Jess, he’s a good guy. He is. But he’s no saint. Nor is he perfect. His strange devotion to the service is a cop out. He was afraid to commit to you. He was the one who was afraid to make a real life. His first wife couldn’t handle it. Neither could he handle real life. He hides in the service. Thousands of men manage to do both. And Will Hendricks isn’t so special that he can’t. He’s been enlisted for years. He could finish his service, and retire. It’s a compromise, Jessie. He got his time, so he gets a little more time, and then he needs to make a life with you. One you both want.”

  “You mean it wasn’t all me?”

  “No. Not all of life is because of you or your failures. So when you find Will, tell him that. Don’t let him feed you the bullshit again.”

  “When? If. It’s if, Lindsey.”

  “No. The guy has too much to live for.”

  “That doesn’t stop a bullet. Or a knife. Or—”