“You don’t have to put on a false bravado. I know you’re scared. You have every reason to be scared, Jen.”
“Panicking, being afraid, letting my emotions get the better of me,” I say, “isn’t going to find my son. I have to get myself under control or I’ll be of no use.” A shudder flows out of me. “I can’t fall apart. I do and Danny is as good as dead, if not something far worse.” On the inside, I am panicking, but there’s no point in saying that out loud.
“Nothing is worse than death.” She pats the cushion next to her, beckoning me to come sit down. “There is no one stronger than our boy. He’ll make it out of this, you just have to have faith.”
There are many, many things worse than death. She doesn’t get that. What happened to me was a walk in the park compared to the things I’ve seen done to others. Even at Josh’s worst, he was still merciful compared to others. She’s wrong. So very wrong. There are too many things worse than death. And I can’t stomach any of them being done to my son.
“Anne, that’s where you’re—”
I stop pacing, then my head snaps to the window in my living room that faces the front yard, having heard two car doors close. My eyes are unblinking and my heart pounds, waiting to see if it’s them.
Josh’s body is the first I see coming up the concrete path to my front door, followed by Jamie behind him. Why they’re together, beats me. Josh never mentioned Jamie being with him, but I guess it makes sense. Brandon is his son, after all. In hindsight, I should have contacted him when Mal called me. I’ve had his number stored on my cell for years and even if I hadn’t, it’s not like I don’t have it memorized.
Josh opens the door seconds later, walking in. “How long before Hayes gets here?” he asks as Jamie steps inside, closing the door behind him.
“Should be anytime now.” My eyes connect with Jamie’s dark blue ones.
“Any word on Danny?” Jamie asks.
I shake my head, unable to say the words. Feeling a slight tremble of my bottom lip, I suck it between my teeth, biting down to make it stop. I’m losing the battle of my control. Realizing that, I squeeze my hand tighter around the object in my hand and ball the fist of my other as I turn away from the three people in my house.
“Don’t ask me to stand down or let local police handle this,” I say. “He’s my son, Josh. And—”
“I won’t,” he quickly follows, interrupting me.
“Good.” I nod about the time warm hands wrap around my biceps. He doesn’t have to speak a word for me to know Jamie is the one behind me. The heat from his hard body seeps into my back, making every fiber inside me want to relax into him. It’s remarkable how a body can recognize and know another person simply by the way they touch you. Then again, maybe it’s the process of elimination. Josh wouldn’t touch me like this, and Anne is an inch shorter than me.
God, how I want to give in to his comfort. It’s as though his body beckons mine, knowing exactly what it needs. I can’t accept it, I won’t. I’m wasting time, just as it is waiting for Malachi to get here with Brandon. He’s the only source for information I have.
Jamie’s forehead dips, connecting with the back of my head. “I’m sorry about this morning.”
“Not. Now,” I say, locking my jaw.
“He told me to find you and not let you come after him,” he continues.
“Try and stop me and you’ll—”
“I’m not. That’s not my thought at all,” he says, his forehead rubbing from side to side against the back of my head. “I’m telling you what I know. That’s what you need, right? All the details. I should have stopped him or followed him when he took off. If I—”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Josh cuts in. My eyes snap up to see him stopping next to me. His light blue eyes are cast down. “I trained that boy. If he was hell-bent on leaving, you didn’t stand a chance in making him stop or following him if he didn’t want you to.”
“I should have tried,” Jamie says, his hands tightening around my arms. The slight shake of his body doesn’t go unnoticed.
Josh’s fingers wrap around my wrist, then he lifts my hand. He isn’t saying anything, but I hear the silent request loud and clear. My nails release the skin they were digging into and my palm opens, revealing Danny’s necklace. “Where did you find that?” he asks.
“Middle of the highway. Three miles from where his truck was abandoned.”
“Danny snatched the one that Brandon wears off Julia’s neck this morning,” Jamie tells me.
There’s my answer for why I never got a notification that something was wrong. It goes to show you, you can take every precaution with your children, but nothing is foolproof. I thought I had their safety down to an art. I thought they were safe.
How was I such a fool?
“Turn it off, Jen. If you’re hell-bent on being part of this, turn the mom part of you off,” Josh commands.
“I can’t turn one off to turn the other on. Right now, I’m both. It is what it is,” I say, swiping my cheek. I hadn’t realized I’d teared up.
In part, Josh is right. I can’t be an emotional mess. I have to stay focused, and Malachi needs to hurry the hell up. I need Brandon here so that I can locate Danny. Without him, I’m dead in the water.
“We’ll find him, babe.” Jamie’s hands squeeze my arms. I haven’t told him, but him being here, touching me, is helping. The worry, the nausea won’t go away until Danny is back and I know he’s safe. If Jamie’s warmth wasn’t seeping into me, I could easily see myself falling apart. Maybe I am stronger and wiser than I once was, but that doesn’t mean I’m hard. I’ve never mastered turning my feelings, my emotions off. What I can do is use them to fuel me instead of hindering me.
The sound of a cell phone ringing brings me out of my thoughts. Jamie’s hands fall away from my flesh and I’m instantly cold. Turning, I see him pulling his phone from the front pocket of his jeans.
His eyes squint before he says, “It’s not a number I recognize.” Instead of pulling the phone to his ear, he answers it and then taps the button on the screen to put the call on speaker. “Hello.”
“I told you, Jamie,” she says, chills breaking out all over my skin. My eyes instantly lift, connecting with Jamie’s. “I warned you what would happen if you went back to her! Did you think waiting and then divorcing me would change things? It didn’t, husband. I. Told. You.”
A sense of dread and fear coils inside my belly before words form on my lips. Then the call ends as soon as I start to reach for it in Jamie’s hand.
I will find my son.
I will bring him home.
And I will make that bitch wish she’d never met me. After I’m done with her, she’ll be lucky if she doesn’t end up six-feet underground instead of locked up in a confined six by eight prison cell.
41
— Julia —
Twenty-one years ago
Daddy really did it this time. He moved Mom and me to some small town, backwoods no-where-ville. There isn’t even a mall in this stupid town. The closest one is over an hour drive away. I just know I’m going to die of boredom in the first week.
My first day of ninth grade starts tomorrow. The schools here actually started a week ago, so now I have a full week’s worth of school work to catch up on. I’ve never attended a real school before, I’ve been home-schooled all my life. Daddy thinks I need to cultivate social skills, that apparently, I’m lacking in.
He can kiss my ass.
I don’t need social skills; the ones I have are fine. People just have to learn to do what I say, when I say it. His staff shouldn’t be allowed to question me or go running to him, tattling on me. They’re the ones that need life lessons—which is exactly what the last nanny is getting right now.
Daddy doesn’t know that I know the password to his computer, which is also the same for his email. For a powerful man, he can be so dumb. Works out for me, and now I know the interworking of his real business, not the one the IRS thinks he
does. Sure, he really is a lawyer and an investment banker, but that isn’t where the majority of his money comes from or what pays for the lifestyle we live in.
Of course, that lifestyle sure took a nose dive when he moved us to this dump called Mississippi, USA. Paris, New York City, even that year we lived in Chicago was a gazillion times better than where we live now.
Though . . . I cock my head to the side, taking in the shirtless, ripped body on a small, platform built to be an outdoor stage. His tan skin is mouth-watering. The way he holds the microphone stand, leaning his body forward, is hot.
“Well, hello,” I whisper, even though no one is in hearing range. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, pinching the meat between my teeth as I eye him up and down. He’s downright delicious.
Maybe this small town isn’t so bad after all . . .
Maybe I’ll give it a chance—for him.
When I want something, I don’t stop until I make it mine, one way or another, and that boy right there will be mine.
Present
Jamie Hart was always going to be mine. He was never hers. Elise, or Jenna as she goes by now, was simply borrowing him.
I thought she’d learned that—apparently not. No worries. Another lesson is in order, and this time, they’ll both understand the length I’ll go to make something mine.
Jamie will regret divorcing me. One way or another.
“I told you, Jamie,” I explain into the phone attached to my ear as my eyes stay locked with the seventeen-year-old boy my men tied to a metal chair. The ropes around his wrists have to be burning his skin by now. He hasn’t stopped tugging on them since he was forced to sit down fifteen minutes ago. “I warned you,” I continue into the phone. “What would happen if you went back to her! Did you think waiting and then divorcing me would change that? It didn’t, husband. I. Told. You.”
Pressing the button to end the call, I then power the burner phone off. I’m not stupid. I can’t take the chance that the authorities are monitoring his calls. I didn’t get this far since taking over the family business after my brother disappeared by allowing my personal feelings to interfere with a job.
“You don’t actually think you’ll get him back now, do you?” he asks, his indigo eyes so much like his father’s I almost want to cut them out. Hell, his everything is just like Jamie, from the hair, to his lips, broad shoulders, and defined body. Though, where Jamie lacks, this kid doesn’t. I had never seen him up close until he was standing in my house this morning.
“Well, if I don’t, that stupid bitch won’t have him either, and he won’t have her. He’s mine, or he’s no one’s.”
After Jamie filed for divorce last summer, my mind started playing tricks on me, or so I thought. I knew about the other women. I knew he slept around every chance he got. But had he been seeing her on the side without me knowing? I had him followed for months early into our marriage, and then again after I received the divorce papers. Nothing ever came that led me to suspect he was seeing his ex. Had it, I would have nipped that problem in the bud before now.
I threatened Jamie years ago, using our son as leverage. I thought for sure that was enough to keep him away from her. He obviously didn’t take me seriously. Who knows how long he’s been planning to dump me only to run back to that worthless trash?
If it weren’t for my family’s money, Jamie and his bandmates would have starved to death when they moved out to LA nearly two decades ago. They wouldn’t have made it big if I hadn’t helped them get there. It was my father’s connections that landed them their first record deal. But are they grateful? No. The opposite actually. Especially Cole.
I tried but was unsuccessful in getting him kicked out of the band. That was the stipulations of their first contract. Jamie wouldn’t sign it, not without his stupid little best friend being a part of the deal. It was either all of them or none of them. The record company liked their music too much to allow the band to walk. The contract was signed before I knew what had changed.
I wasn’t happy. Cole was the single reason the rest of the band never accepted me as anything more than just the girl their friend knocked up.
Did any of them really think Jenna could have taken them to the top? God, no. She would have been eating out of dumpsters right along with them. I made Jamie Hart famous. Not. Her.
My focus was off. I was distracted for far too long. This is all Daddy’s fault if I think about it, or my brother’s. If Joshua hadn’t ditched his responsibilities, then my father wouldn’t have made me step in and learn the interworking of our true business—the nitty-gritty side where we capture teenage girls and boys that are attractive but don’t have any family that would bat a lash if they suddenly disappeared. Homeless or runaways are the perfect target. Then sell them to the highest bidder.
Daddy will be retiring next year, and he wants his only grandchild to step into the shoes my brother vacated years ago—and I want to get back to living the way I was always meant to.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I plan on doing with you, boy?”
“Don’t see a point.” He shrugs. “I won’t be here long enough for you to do much.”
Stepping in front of him, I react to his blatant disrespect by slapping him across the face. A slow smile forms on his red lips, making me want to do it again. How dare he—
“Ma’am?”
My eyes snap to Carlos, a man that’s been employed by my father since I was in my early twenties.
“What?” I seethe, irritated by the interruption.
“The cargo ship. I just got word there are cops all over it and the package is no longer secure.”
“Brandon is gone?” I question, not caring if Jamie’s other son hears me. It’s not like he’ll ever see the light of day again. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know. A Native-looking guy put him in an SUV and took off from what I was told.”
Malachi. I dismiss that thought, not having thought about him in years. Though, now that I’m older, wiser, I should have taken care of him years ago too. He was a loose end I never tied up. Thing is, I couldn’t have had him taken along with Jenna; too much suspicion would have been raised. First, a girl goes missing and then another kid? Hell no. Luckily for me, I was able to scare that boy into silence. Had my father found out about Malachi’s involvement he would have shipped me off to suffer what should have been Jenna’s fate to begin with. After he found out I had contacted my brother for a job, he was furious.
No, I couldn’t have done a thing about Malachi. Whoever has Brandon must be a local cop, or hell, even FBI. In the last hour, I’ve learned enough to know I messed up. When Jenna came home, I should have made her permanently disappear like I thought I’d done in the first place.
Seems she’s stepped up in the world by becoming an FBI agent. And lo and behold, Josh Breckett, her superior, looks identical to an older version of Joshua Montgomery. Not that he ever knew his real last name. My father had him raised by two of his employees, giving him their last name, Brown, instead of the family name I was rewarded with. I guess he changed it when he disappeared.
“Find him,” I order.
“Lose my brother already?” Danny says.
Turning back around, I say, “I wouldn’t gloat if I were you. You’re in a worse predicament than my son was.”
“Considering he has you for a mother, I don’t think I am.”
“I have plans for my son. And if I don’t get him back, well, then those plans may fall on your shoulders.” A slow smile of my own crawls up my lips.
Maybe I don’t need Brandon anymore. It’s not like that boy ever had the stomach for the things that would be required of him. He wasn’t raised like my dear ole brother was; even though, I did try to toughen him up. I made him stay home alone from time to time, starting from the age of ten. The little shit is scared of his own shadow. Sometimes I wonder if I was given the wrong baby at his birth. Brandon and I are nothing alike.
Perhaps Danny is a suitable replacemen
t.
42
— Brandon —
I always knew my mother didn’t care that much about me. She wasn’t like any of my friends’ moms that doted on them, came to school functions, took them shopping with her just so that they could spend time together. The only time mine would show any interest in me whatsoever was when my dad was present.
She has this weird obsession with him that I’ve never understood. Honestly, I don’t know why he stayed married to her as long as he did. I’m sure it was mostly because of me, at least that’s what my brother often says.
If I had it my way, my dad would have left my mom years ago and taken me with him. Watching him around Jenna the few times I’ve seen him with her, it’s obvious he’s in love with her. I’ve always known she loves him, but until I saw them together, I never realized why.
Sure, I knew they dated. I mean, they had to have since she got pregnant with Danny before my mom got pregnant with me. But I would never have thought my dad cared so deeply for another woman when it was clear as day he didn’t love my mother.
It doesn’t make sense why he chose to marry mine over Danny’s. If I loved someone half as much as I can tell my dad loves Jenna, I wouldn’t hesitate making her mine.
Jenna hasn’t told me much about the past, only bits here and there. Danny has always been my best friend. I don’t have a memory of any time that I didn’t know him. I grew up thinking he was just a kid my grandma kept during the summer. Him calling her grandma too should have clued me in, but I just figured he was that close with her. Unlike me, he lived and grew up in Mississippi. He saw her more than I got to, so I never questioned it.
It wasn’t until we were twelve that I found out Danny and I were brothers. Apparently, he’d always known my father was his father too, but Jen made him promise never to tell me. As much as I hate it, Danny kept that promise to his mom. He wasn’t the one that told me—she was. It was a slip up, she hadn’t intended for the truth to come out, but once it was said, it couldn’t be undone.
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