by Peak, Renna
I had to be hallucinating. I shook my head a little, trying to clear the fog that I knew must be there in my brain. There was no way that Daniel was embarrassed about anything. For as many times as he had tried to hurt me since I found out he wasn’t dead, I knew there was no way that this was real. It couldn’t be. I was either imagining it or he had become a very good actor.
I knew I had to be misreading him. I probably wanted to see something good in him—I had loved him once. It only made sense that I would want to believe that he wasn’t the horrible man that I had come to know. My brain must have been projecting the person that I wished he was—and to say this day had been stressful would have been an understatement. No, I had to be projecting this as some kind of response to the stress. To make some meaning out of allowing something to happen to me again.
I fixed my gaze on the structure up ahead and waited for it to come into view. Several more minutes had passed before I was finally able to make out the small house, sitting in the middle of nowhere.
We pulled into the driveway and Daniel stopped the car before turning to me. “It’s not much, but I’ve been calling it home for the last nine months or so. It beats the hell out of trying to live in Japan. Mostly.”
I turned to face him and saw him smiling, gazing at me. I still hadn’t said a word to him, but there was no anger in his voice. No hatred. I wanted to believe I imagined it, but I hadn’t. There really was kindness there. Caring, maybe. It was like I had entered an alternate universe or something—some place where Daniel had never hated me. It made no sense at all, but there was a part of me that wanted whatever Kool-Aid he had been drinking. I wanted to get to that place myself, whatever it took to get there. Some reality where I didn’t have to feel angry about my circumstances and where I could feel like the person I knew still lived inside of me. A woman who mattered, who wasn’t defined by what other people thought of her and expected of her.
He opened his door and got out, scurrying around the car to open my door.
I stared at the garage door straight ahead, trying to gather my wits about me. I was trying to make sense of anything. I just couldn’t stop flashing back between the moment I saw him standing there in the distance at the abandoned gas station and the last time he had spoken to me in any sort of purposeful way—the night he had kidnapped me from the nightclub. There was a mismatch that I couldn’t wrap my head around—I couldn’t make my mind accept that he wasn’t trying to hurt me now. I had no evidence to support that theory, other than how he had treated me for the past thirty minutes. But he’d had every chance to hurt me. He could have pulled the car over and done whatever he wanted—I would have fought him, but he was bigger than me. Stronger than me. I wouldn’t have stood a chance, and if he had wanted to hurt me, I knew he would have done it sooner rather than later. Waiting until we were at his house in the middle of the desert made no sense.
He opened my door and I looked up at him, my gaze clouded with my confusion. I could hear the uncertainty in my voice when I finally found the ability to speak. “What do you want?”
His eyebrows mashed together and he tilted his head. He blinked a few times and frowned. “I just want to help, Jenna.” He extended his hand, offering to help me out of the car.
I shook my head, edging myself off the seat, not accepting his offer of assistance. Helping wasn’t in his vocabulary. Not the one I remembered, anyway. If there wasn’t something in it for Daniel, he wasn’t about to help anyone.
But I knew I had a choice to make. I could run, even though at that moment he certainly would have caught me. Or I could wait—he would have to fall asleep sometime. I might be able to steal his car or find a phone to call for help. Waiting had its drawbacks, though—it would give him time to hurt me. And it would give him the opportunity to make sure I didn’t run. I was overcome with the realization that I was about to be tied up or locked away in a closet somewhere. That he was going to do what he wanted—he was never going to allow me to do what I wanted, no matter what he had said a few minutes ago.
I tried to command my legs to take off—to run as fast as they could carry me, but I didn’t move. I stood there frozen, staring into the eyes of a man I feared almost as much as my father. I tried to read some kind of benevolence or compassion in those eyes—things that I knew weren’t really there, no matter what he was trying to telegraph to me. This was an act. This was a performance designed to get me to do what he wanted. I somehow knew that he wanted to trade me in for some advantage or to hold me hostage so that he could get to the man I knew he truly saw as his enemy. This had nothing to do with the senator and his taking me to this place in the middle of nowhere had nothing to do with me, either.
I knew it with every beat of my heart. Daniel may have been attempting a new tactic with me—being the good guy—but this latest situation had nothing to do with him showing me any kindness. Daniel operated on vengeance now, and I knew there was only one person he wanted to exact his revenge on. I knew there was only one person he blamed for everything that had gone wrong in his life.
And if I was right about Melissa—if the father of her child was the person I knew in my heart it was, I had a pretty good reason to blame the same person for everything that had gone wrong in my life. Maybe Daniel wasn’t a hero—maybe he never would be.
But maybe I didn’t have to be, either.
7
I didn’t see where I had much of a choice but to follow Daniel into his house. Miles of deserted nothingness stretched out around it, and I knew my sense of direction was skewed. Even if I did know where I was, I knew I had no prayer of getting back to Vegas without a vehicle. And even if I was able to manage to steal Daniel’s car, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go back to Brandon.
“It isn’t much, but it’s been home for a while now.” Daniel motioned with his arm into the entryway.
I walked in, unsure of what to expect. Part of me thought it would be some sort of dungeon of horrors—a perfect place to torture me for whatever it was he was hoping to get out of this latest kidnapping effort. But it didn’t look like a torture chamber at all—not that it meant anything.
The simple furnishings in the small house were a surprise—it wasn’t even the bachelor pad that I would have expected of him. The house was small—there was only a tiny living area with a small dining area off to the side near the kitchen. There were rooms in the back, but I could tell that the entire house was smaller than the bedroom I had grown up in back in Virginia.
There was something very not Daniel about the place. The lack of decorations—the stark plainness of the house wasn’t anything I would have expected, especially if he had been living here for as long as he said he had.
“I came out here after you left D.C. I lived in Vegas for a few weeks until I found this place. Vegas was too noisy, and I just needed some time alone. Some space to think.” He walked into the small kitchen, calling over to me. “Can I get you something to drink?”
I shook my head, still not really able to find the words to communicate. And even though I could have really used a glass of water—the hard knot in my throat would have given away the fear I was desperately trying to hide from him—there was no way I was going to eat or drink anything he gave me. Not if I didn’t want to wake up sometime tomorrow, probably without clothes and most likely chained to some bed that I knew had to be hiding in the back of the house.
He must have been able to read my mind—sense what I was really thinking, anyway. He took a few steps toward me, standing next to the dining table that had been between us. “Jenna, do you want me to pour a bottle of water into a glass? I’ll take a drink from it first.” He frowned, his shoulders dropping. “I know you don’t trust me. You have no reason to—I get that.” He motioned behind him, to the sink in the kitchen. “You can get it yourself if you want—right from the tap.”
I narrowed my gaze, blinking a few times. Trust was not something I thought I would ever be able to have for Daniel. Never again. He had betr
ayed any small amount of faith I might have still had when he had taken me last year. And now I was in the same boat—alone and exposed. At his mercy, really.
I scanned the room for anything I might have been able to use as a weapon. My brain still wasn’t thinking very clearly, but I had some inkling that I might be able to knock him out and take his car at the very least. He was bigger than me, but if I could grab something—take him by surprise—I might have a chance at a getaway.
“Jenna, I’m not going to hurt you. I never had any intention of physically harming you before. Mentally…” He looked down at the floor, frowning again before lifting his gaze to meet mine. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I definitely intended to cause you mental pain and misery. And I’m sorry.”
I had to close my eyes for a moment, shaking my head slightly. He’s lying. I know my brain was trying to protect my body, but there was something sincere about his apology. I still didn’t want to believe it, but I could hear what almost sounded like anguish in his voice. There was nothing familiar about the way he was acting—I hadn’t ever known Daniel to be apologetic for anything he had done—for any of the choices he had made. But I didn’t trust my own judgement of anyone’s character anymore. I had made too many mistakes already. I had already trusted too much.
“You don’t have to accept my apology. I just wanted you to know that. If I could go back and change things, I would.” He looked up at me again, still rubbing the back of his neck. His chin dipped to his chest—he was almost slumped over. “I made a lot of mistakes, Jenna. Too many. And I don’t expect you to forgive me—I’m having a hard enough time trying to forgive myself.”
My brow furrowed and I tilted my head, sure I had misheard him. None of this made any sense—the apologies, the guilt I could feel emanating from him. There was a part of me that would have loved to have believed that he had truly changed for the better. That he was repentant—at least a little—for his past actions. But this was all too perfect—too good to not be an act. That had to be what this was—some kind of facade that he was putting on with the expectation of … what? Getting me to go along with some plan? Getting me to do some kind of work for him and Ryan? I had no idea, I just knew that I still couldn’t even find my voice to even ask.
“The first mistake I made was taking you for granted. I didn’t realize what I had in you until you were gone.” His voice lowered, almost muttering. “Until I was gone.”
I felt my brows knit together again and I took a few steps to my left, into the small living room. I slumped into the nearest chair. My chest ached, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the continuing fear of what I thought he was about to do to me or if it was from the anger I could feel rising from my belly. Anger that was threatening to turn to rage.
He sat down in the chair across from me, perching on the edge. He bent his arms to rest his elbows on his knees, tenting his fingers in front of him. “Jenna, I really never meant to hurt anyone—“
“You just killed two men.” My words were clipped, and I dug my fingernails into the cushion of the chair, my body tensing more with each passing moment. I had no idea where my sudden bravado had come from, and I felt as sure as I ever had that it was going to end up getting me killed.
“No.” His expression softened, and he looked at me with an almost watery gaze. “It was one man, and I didn’t pull the trigger, Jenna. That wasn’t my call—I didn’t give the order. But that’s how it goes.” He ran a hand through his hair, tearing his gaze from mine. “I could write the book about what happens when you talk about double-crossing the Agostinos. That guy back there just didn’t have a father who was owed a favor and didn’t have anywhere to be banished.” He turned back to me, locking his gaze with mine. “I should have ended up just like that guy, whoever he was. I was lucky, and I didn’t realize it until about nine months ago. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been on the straight and narrow ever since you left me that day. That day in D.C.”
“He had a family. He had a wife and kids and…” The ache in my chest from the fear and anger that I had been feeling for my own predicament was melting into a different kind of pain. It was more of a breaking heart than an ache in my chest—and I could feel myself almost bleeding for the children of the man who had been sitting next to me.
I couldn’t live like this—knowing that this was my future. That this was the world I had somehow been sucked into, all because of the man I had chosen to love. I didn’t want to think about a future where I would have to worry constantly about the father of my children never coming home. I didn’t want to have to fear that Brandon was dead if he was a few minutes late returning from a trip to the store. I somehow knew I couldn’t keep doing this to myself, let alone any children that I might have had.
Children. Babies. I had let myself forget for a moment that Brandon already had a child on the way. That I wasn’t going to be the person worrying about him not coming home. I knew that he had chosen me, even though it wasn’t right. If Melissa was really carrying his child, he owed her something. He at least had to take responsibility for his actions. I wanted to believe that what I had seen at the airport hadn’t been true—that she was lying. I could only hope that she was only trying to get me to believe that Brandon was the father of her child—to get back at me. Probably because Brandon had still looked for me, even after he knew about the baby. I could feel it in her eyes—that look that would have shot poison darts into me if it could have. I knew at that moment that Brandon wasn’t mine anymore, and it wasn’t something that I had thought I would have to deal with again.
“This whole thing was thrown together at the last minute, and Ryan had those two new guys he wanted to test. I only know what he told me—that Melissa called him to tell him you were coming into town. He gave me the flight number and told me to call the driver. Tom. He’s pretty new, too, but he’s been good so far.”
I turned his words over in my head. Marty, the former cop, was dead. I knew that. He was the one who had talked about double-crossing or triple-crossing or whatever it had been. Trying to gain an advantage—an upper hand with the Agostinos—had killed him. I grimaced, clutching at my nauseous stomach, remembering how I had offered to help them double-cross Ryan. How I would pay them double. I wasn’t sure I could live with the guilt of knowing that the responsibility for Marty’s death was at least partially mine. If I hadn’t encouraged him—if I had just kept my mouth shut the way they told me to—everyone would still be alive. There wouldn’t be the body of a father and husband lying somewhere in the middle of the desert, probably already being picked away by vultures.
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, certain I was about to vomit. I sat like that for a long moment, trying to think of anything I could do to make the situation right. I thought I might be able to find out who the guy’s wife was—give her money anonymously to at least make her life easier. Her husband had been a cop—he had made a decent living until he had chosen to go work for Ryan. And he had failed his first test. Because of me. I couldn’t live with myself, knowing it was my fault.
I opened my eyes when I felt something cold against my leg. Daniel had brought a bottle of water and was holding it out to me, touching it to the side of my thigh.
I looked up at him, barely able to hold back the tears of my guilt. I took the bottle and opened it, taking a long drink of the cold water.
“It wasn’t your fault. Tom told me what happened. Marty broke the rules before you ever opened your mouth, Jenna. His fate was sealed the moment he brought up taking you hostage—trying to get some sort of ransom.” He shrugged, sitting down in the chair across from me again. He let out a long sigh. “It’s the worst part of the job, but it’s also the part that everyone knows about. It’s not like it’s a secret. If you cross the Agostinos, you die. It’s the most straightforward thing about the job.”
I still didn’t trust him. I was sure that I would never be able to trust him, but I knew he was at least trying to be honest.
/> And I was damned glad I had never agreed to work for the Agostinos.
8
I never would have thought that taking a sip of water would communicate anything to anyone—let alone telling Daniel that I had some small amount of trust for him, no matter how tiny it might have been. That one act—opening a bottle of water and taking a drink—seemed to tell him more than anything else I could have said out loud.
“Why did you bring me here?” I didn’t really expect an honest answer—trusting that the water he had given me wasn’t spiked with some drug that was going to knock me out was one thing. Having Daniel tell me the truth about anything was another.
“I told you. Melissa called Ryan and asked him for a favor. She doesn’t have much pull with him anymore, but their interests were aligned this time. Sort of.” He gave me a weak smile. “Because you and Brandon were on the plane. If it had just been you, Ryan would have told her to go to hell.”
I nodded, taking another small sip of the water. I wasn’t really sure why I was nodding—none of this made any sense—but at least he wasn’t lying. I couldn’t think of a single reason he would have to lie about that.
“You know, don’t you? About the baby?” He grimaced, almost as though he knew how much the question was going to hurt me when he asked me.
Tears filled my eyes and it felt like a knife was stabbing into my heart. I couldn’t understand why Brandon would have continued looking for me at all when he was having a baby with Melissa. To bring me back to this? To force me to face the fact that while I had made the choice to disappear, he had made the choice to be with Melissa?
She blamed me. I had known that for a long time—she blamed me for all the things that had gone wrong in her life. She blamed me for her ever meeting Ryan, and while I knew that their meeting was probably because of me, her hooking up with him was definitely not. I had tried to warn her—at least I thought I had. And Brandon had tried to warn her. The pain in my chest turned from hurt to anger at that moment—Melissa was a grown woman, too. She made her own choices, and it was time for me to stop feeling guilty about whatever it was that she blamed me for. She had called Ryan to hurt me, and Ryan had called Daniel to hurt Brandon. Their interests are aligned, at least for the moment…
