by Peak, Renna
“We’d all end up dead.” The man driving glanced over his shoulder at Marty. “I can’t believe you’re even thinking of double-crossing him.”
Marty shook his head. “Not double crossing. Triple crossing. And actually…” He rubbed at his chin, staring out the window as though he was lost in thought. “Actually, we’d be doing him a favor. We could take out Richardson for good.”
“This is going to take Richardson out for good.” The driver didn’t even glance behind him this time. The air he had about him told me that he had to be the leader of this particular group of men. “We stick to the plan. We deliver the target as instructed and let him do whatever he wants with her. Because that is what we do. We do what we’re told—we’ve all seen what happens to guys when they don’t. You need to drop it, Marty.”
The other man in the front seat turned to the driver, a look of near panic in his eyes. “It was too easy. Didn’t I say it was too easy? Richardson knows. He has to. We’re going to end up dead, anyway. You know his track record. He knows.”
“He doesn’t know.” The driver shook his head. “It was easy because he didn’t know. If he had known, you two wouldn’t have walked out of the airport with her.”
Marty and the other man nodded, the driver’s answer seeming to satisfy their momentary doubt.
“We get her to the checkpoint, collect our payment and then we’re done. We don’t have to think about Brandon Richardson again. No one will.”
“Dave has a point. It was a little too easy. Even if he bought the arrest thing, he should have fought it—he knows the Amanda thing is just a line of bullshit. I say we see who else wants her. See if we can get Richardson to bite. We can double our profits if we ransom her.”
My head started to spin and it was hard to breathe again. I had no clue who these guys were or who they worked for, but the man sitting next to me was right. Brandon had been there the night Amanda was killed. He had been in the room when she died. I hadn’t thought about it in so long—that night was still too much for me to think about. Too much for anyone to think about, but I believed Brandon. I wanted to believe that he hadn’t been the one who had killed her. She had been a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die. And she was my half-sister, something I hadn’t known about at the time. Something that I hadn’t even had the opportunity to talk about with her.
Thinking about that brought a wave of sadness over me, my chest suddenly heavy with an ache I hadn’t felt before. Not about Amanda, anyway. She had been nothing but nasty to me when she was alive, but maybe it was her way of trying. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it would have been for her, knowing the truth about how we were related and not being able to say anything. I wasn’t sure if it would have even made a difference—if my knowing the truth would have done anything for us. But I had never even had the chance.
I had to close my eyes for a moment, the memory of seeing the woman hanging by her neck in her son’s bathroom made me so dizzy I thought I might vomit.
I blinked a few times, trying to stop the spinning in my head and attempting to remember what one of the men had just said.
He should have fought. He should have fought for me…
He should have fought for me. He did know that I had nothing to do with Amanda’s death. But he let these men put handcuffs on me and take me to their waiting car. And he didn’t fight for me.
There was something wrong here—something terribly wrong, but I had no idea what it might be. These men didn’t work for my father. My father wouldn’t have any interest in having me kidnapped and taken away from Brandon—not now that they were best pals and Brandon seemed to be working for him again. I hadn’t really let myself think about it too much. So many other things were happening and I had been so wrapped up in protecting myself that it hadn’t really seemed to matter.
Ryan. Maybe they worked for Ryan—that would make more sense. Maybe Brandon had contacted Ryan and told him that we were coming to Vegas and it had been Ryan who had double-crossed him…
The reality of what had happened hit me over the head like someone had smashed a brick into my skull. Maybe Ryan had fooled him, maybe he hadn’t. But Ryan wasn’t the one at the airport. Ryan hadn’t been there to meet us after we got off the plane. Ryan hadn’t been the one who had pointed at me and told these men who I was.
It was Melissa.
I hadn’t even seen the woman in nine months. The one person who I had thought had been the only real friend I had ever had. If anyone had done some double crossing, it was Melissa.
I felt my pulse rising, pounding in my ears as I closed my eyes to temper the sudden rage I was feeling. I had never been a violent person, but I wished her harm at that moment, fantasizing about the easiest way to cause her pain, pregnant or not.
I hadn’t even had time to say hello to her—ask her what in the hell that belly was about. Or if Ryan was the father. Or if she had been smart and met someone else—
A new thought flashed in my mind, overtaking every other thing that had been there only a split second earlier. If she had left Ryan … if she wasn’t with Ryan … if she really had been helping Brandon try to find me all those months…
I couldn’t breathe. The sharp pain in my chest made it impossible for any air to enter and I sat there with my mouth gaping as I tried to tell myself that what I was thinking was impossible. That there was no way in hell that it could be true. That he would have told me … that he would have at least mentioned that he had been with someone else.
But it was too late. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen getting to my brain from being unable to breathe. Or perhaps it was the way my arms were pinned behind me because of the handcuffs, cutting off my ability to reason. But at that moment, I was so sure, so absolutely positive—I knew Brandon had betrayed me.
I was sure of it. I knew with every fiber of my being that the baby—that maternal bump on Melissa’s belly—belonged to Brandon.
2
I had been distracted.
That was the only explanation I had for what had happened. I had been so caught up in making that day perfect for Jen that I wasn’t thinking clearly. Before that day, I had never had a single thought about planning a wedding. Men like me didn’t plan weddings—I knew that. But I also knew that I didn’t want some cheesy Vegas wedding. There would be no drive-through, Elvis-impersonator bullshit wedding for me. I wanted it to be something we could tell our grandchildren about. Something we could show pictures of to the friends I knew we would make as soon as I got Jen to Costa Rica. It would be something to be proud of—definitely not something to laugh about.
It had been the only reason I had called on Melissa for help. Well, that and the fact that I had felt somewhat responsible for what had happened between the two of them. I knew that my actions—things that had happened in the past were the reason that their friendship wasn’t what it had once been. As far as I was aware, Jen hadn’t even contacted Melissa after she had come out of hiding. I had always seen Melissa as something of a dimwit, but Jen loved her, so I knew I needed to love her by default.
Vows. That was what I had been thinking about when the two cops approached us. Two men and Melissa, who didn’t seem the least bit concerned about Jen being her friend or even anyone she had once cared about. There was something in her eyes that was almost ugly. Malice was the only word to describe it.
I had been so worried about not wanting to just parrot what some officiant at the chapel told me to say that I hadn’t been prepared for what had happened at the airport. I was stuck on some replacement for to have and to hold—I just hadn’t been able to think of anything else. And those words—that phrase—had me almost fantasizing about how Jen had fallen asleep in my arms on the plane only a few hours ago. To have and to hold. Maybe that phrase wasn’t so bad after all. Everything had been so perfect at that moment—holding her. Having her. Watching her sleep. Knowing that everything was somehow going to be okay.
And the Melissa thing was going to be a surprise for
her. I hadn’t considered that I was self-serving, wanting the two of them to magically repair whatever had gone wrong between the two of them. I had thought that I knew that Jen would have wanted her there, standing next to her at her wedding. Helping her with the dress that I had told Melissa to go buy. Holding her flowers while I held her hands as we took our vows.
I shook my head, trying to erase the fantasies from my brain. There wasn’t going to be a wedding today. Melissa had seen to that. And Jen had just been arrested for something she hadn’t done, and I had watched them lead her away while my mind was still foggy with the fantasy of our perfect wedding.
I turned to her, my eyes widening with the realization that whatever this was—the arrest of the woman I loved—was because of Melissa. No one else knew we were coming here. She had been the only one I had told.
I shook my head in disbelief. “What the hell did you just do?”
The hard glare in her eyes melted away and I was sure I saw her gulp as her gaze moved to the floor. She had smoothed her shirt over her belly before her eyes met mine again. “Brandon—“
“No. I told you to get her a dress. Not have her arrested. You’re not really that stupid, are you?” I had to raise my voice to hear it over the pounding of my heart in my ears. “I swear to God, Melissa, if you weren’t a woman…” I stopped myself. I wasn’t that man anymore. I was no longer the guy who would pound someone to a pulp if I didn’t get my way.
I could get out of this. I could figure out a way to get Jen out of jail and we could still have our wedding today. Having her out on bail would make things more complicated as far as getting her out of the country went. But I knew there would be something that turned up—some path forward that I just couldn’t see yet. This was a mistake, anyway. I had to remind myself of that—Jen hadn’t been anywhere near that room when Amanda died. And Melissa and I both knew who had really killed her. That was why none of this made any sense.
I blinked a few times, almost stunned that I hadn’t seen it before. I looked down the corridor, trying to see if I could still see Jen. If I could catch up—if I ran after her now I could still catch up with them.
But I was frozen, almost unable to breathe. I just stood there, staring at Melissa as the realization of what had really just happened washed over me like a waking nightmare. That was no arrest. That was someone walking up to me and taking what was mine while I watched. While I let them. While I didn’t fight back at all.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“They aren’t going to hurt her. Ryan promised me…”
Hearing Melissa’s voice snapped me out of the bad dream in an instant. I spun around to face her, stepping forward so that I was close enough for her to feel my breath on her face. I forced my words through my clenched teeth. “What did you do?”
She began to tremble, clutching her expanding waistline. “I… I…” She took a step back, steeling herself as she looked into my eyes again. “I did what I had to do, Brandon. When you said you were marrying her…” She took a few shallow breaths to try to cover the tears I could hear in her voice. “I thought… You said you’d help. And I thought if you married her. If she knew—“
“If she knew WHAT?” I had to clench my fists, my fingernails digging into my palms. I tried to keep my voice to an appropriate tone for the very public place where we stood. I spoke again through my tightened jaw, keeping the volume to a lowered growl. “If she knew what?”
She glanced a few times at her belly before returning her eyes to mine, and I knew exactly what she was suggesting.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment so that she wouldn’t see me roll them at her ridiculous assumption. I took a few more breaths, trying to calm myself. I finally opened them and spun to walk to the luggage carousel to grab Jen’s bags. I lifted them, shaking my head to myself a few times before turning back to Melissa.
This was my fault. All of it was my fault, but this in particular … I was the only one to blame. Letting it get this far. Allowing her to believe that I bore some responsibility for the child she was carrying. It was ridiculous, having her thinking that the kid was mine, but I had allowed it to happen. I hadn’t thought—I hadn’t even considered that she would be this desperate. I suppose I had no idea what the hormones of pregnancy did to a woman’s brain, but I hadn’t expected this. And it wasn’t as though Melissa and I had ever had more than a platonic relationship, but I had felt responsible for her—I had been the one who had asked her to help me. To help me find Jen. And she had agreed, even though it meant the end of her relationship with Ryan.
The last nine months felt like they had happened years ago. Getting Jen back had made everything else seem so long ago—my sense of time had warped itself and what had happened last week seemed like forever ago compared to what was happening now. And that was exactly how I wanted it. I wanted to keep the past in the past, never thinking about it again. I would have kept my word to Melissa—I would have helped her. I would have made sure her child was cared for, the same way I had with Polly, but I damned well wasn’t going to be the kid’s father. But I was going to wait until after it was born to tell her the truth—I hadn’t wanted her to feel guilty about it while she was pregnant. I was no expert in maternal care, but I had an inkling that the stress of the truth would have hurt Melissa a hell of a lot more than allowing her to believe I was somehow responsible for her mess.
This is what being the good guy gets you. I knew that voice in my head wasn’t wrong. My years of playing the bad guy—all that time spent manipulating people and blackmailing them to get what I wanted, nothing had ever ended like this. And playing nice hadn’t won me any friends, either. If anything, it had lost me every person I had considered important in my life up to this point. Every single goddamned person in my life was gone, and it was my fault because I left the dark side. No one I had ever known was even remotely interested in my new desire to play the game of life differently—to play by the rules. No one cared about good guys. And no one cared about me now.
Except for Jen.
I knew I had to end my little pity party because Jen was what mattered. I could fix this Melissa bullshit with an explanation and a paternity test. But if Jen was gone, I couldn’t fix that. And getting her back and away from this was the only thing that mattered.
“Where’s your car?” I started walking through the luggage claim to the exit sign. Melissa had created this mess—she had roped Jen into this—and she was damned well going to get us out of it. Jen hadn’t done a single thing to Melissa, and this wasn’t fair. Jen didn’t deserve to pay for my mistakes, but knowing Melissa, whatever it was she had done was poorly planned and wouldn’t be executed well. It wouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to figure out where they were taking her and what they wanted. Even if these guys were working for the Agostinos, they had only had a few hours of planning time. I called Melissa from the airport in D.C.—they couldn’t have had more than four or five hours of time to get something together. And I knew I had the advantage of working smarter—and that I knew how Ryan operated in the first place.
“I don’t have a car.” Her voice was meek, almost as though she was starting to feel guilty about what she had done. She caught up, trying to keep stride beside me. “Brandon, slow down. I’m a slow moving barge, here.”
I stifled the urge to look at her, instead going through the mental list of what I needed to do. I wove my way through the people milling about, making my way over to the car rental counters.
The rental process was slow—too slow. But given that I had been renting cars all too frequently in the past nine months chasing lead after lead to try to find Jen, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Everything seemed too slow when I needed to find Jen now. I had half a thought to call a cab while I was waiting in the endless line, but I knew I might need a car. I might need to get to her quickly if I could figure out where she was at all.
I tried to ignore Melissa, but she was trailing me like a lo
st puppy and I knew she wasn’t going to go away. It was only going to make everything that much harder if she insisted on playing the girlfriend that she wasn’t—that she had never been. At least not to me.
They finally brought the car I had rented to the door, and we walked out. It had to have been over a hundred degrees—the heat was almost like walking into an oven. I felt a twinge of guilt for a moment, thinking of how uncomfortable it must be for a pregnant woman, and I opened the passenger door for Melissa despite my underlying disgust at her actions.
She climbed in the car and I closed the door behind her, dropping the bags in the trunk before walking around to the driver’s side. I sat behind the wheel, started the ignition and reached to put the car in gear. I paused, realizing I had no idea of where to go.
“Where are we going?” Melissa seemed to be reading my mind.
I turned to her, trying again to keep my voice calm. There would be plenty of time to be upset with her later—and I knew she was going to feel the full effect of my wrath if we didn’t find Jen as soon as was humanly possible. “I don’t suppose you know where they were taking her?” I had to force my jaw to slacken—something about Melissa made my teeth almost grind together at the thought of her. “I guess you made the call to those two men. Any ideas? Any at all?”
She tilted her head, her eyes taking on that puppy dog quality again. “Brandon, they only wanted me here so that I could point her out to them. No one told me anything.”
I took my hands off the steering wheel, instead pulling my phone out of my pocket. I dialed the first person I could think of—the only person I thought might still be willing to help me.
I touched his name on the screen and lifted the phone to my ear, waiting for him to answer. The phone rang several times before going to voicemail.
I cleared my throat before leaving my message. “Cade, it’s me. Jen’s in trouble. I need your help. I need to get her back.” I clicked the phone off, closing my eyes, my chest almost caving under my embarrassment. There was something that was screaming inside of me that I shouldn’t need to ask for help—at least not as far as Jen was concerned. And I damned well shouldn’t have to ask Cade to help me. And he was probably in D.C., anyway—too far away to be of any use in this particular situation. But he might know where they would have taken her. He might have some idea. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but he was my only hope.
