Have Mercy

by N. E. Henderson

  She was mad. No, she was furious when she found out my mother used to leave me home alone during the months my dad would be away on tour with his band. Jenna uprooted her whole life, with my brother in tow, to move to the other side of the country for me.

  That still seems so unreal, but for the first time nearly four years ago, I finally felt like I had a real home with a real family. Jenna has been more of a mom to me in these past few years than my real mother ever has.

  I shouldn’t be so shocked by what transpired today—but I am.

  “You know what you gotta do, right, Brandon?” Malachi says, slowing until his SUV comes to a stop at the curb in front of Jenna’s house.

  “Yeah,” I say, not wasting a second of time before unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the passenger side door.

  “Even knowing what I’ll do if I get there first?” he asks, his voice tinged with doubt.

  I pause before sliding out of the seat onto the grass at the edge of the curb to look over my shoulder. “I said I was ten minutes ago. Stop trying to rehash something that isn’t there. You can hang that bitch from her goddamn neck for all I care.” Without another word, I step out of the vehicle, slamming the door shut without looking back. Mal takes off before I take a second step through the grass toward the front door.

  My own mother drugged me last night. I woke up about an hour ago with zip ties around my wrists. I had no idea where I was, but the slight sway of the room made me think I was on a boat. It was a minute later when the smell of the sea wafted up my nose, confirming my suspicion. It only took seconds for my memory from the night before to come back.

  After we dropped Maggie off at her house, I got a text from my mom, ordering me to come home right away. I groaned, but after taking Danny home, I drove the few blocks where the houses quadrupled in size until I reached the house I hated, despised really.

  When I got there, she was nowhere to be found, not that I checked the whole house. I decided to shower while I waited for her to make an appearance. After pulling on a pair of sweat pants that I’d planned to sleep in and a T-shirt, I still hadn’t seen or heard from her. I was just about to text my brother after she wasn’t in her bedroom or the living room or kitchen. If she wasn’t there, I wasn’t about to stay there any longer than necessary. Especially after learning what Danny discovered last week, I wanted to be the last person on my mother’s radar.

  The door swings open just as I step off the lawn and onto the concrete patio that leads to the front of Jenna’s house. Her slender frame comes flying out of the house, and I almost stumble when she collides with me. I hadn’t expected this reaction, though, I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Grabbing both sides of my face in her hands, she peers up to me. “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay, Brandon,” she begs, her voice cracking and sounding less like the fierce redhead I know her to be. From my height, the four inches I have on her, she appears more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen, ever thought possible coming from her. The woman standing before me isn’t the same one that’s grounded me more times than my parents put together. She isn’t the one that threw out threats of blackmail if my principal didn’t ease up on my case.

  This woman is scared, terrified. That makes me pause, realization finally seeping in—Danny is worse off than I’d originally thought when Malachi filled me in.

  She doesn’t have any time to waste. I don’t have any time to waste. If my mother is capable of doing sick shit to most of the women my father has had sex with over the course of eighteen years, what’s she planning on doing to my brother if she learns my dad is also his dad?

  I have to find him before it’s too late.

  And I pray to God it isn’t already too late.

  43

  — Jenna —

  He moves past me, my hands having no choice but to drop from his face as he slips past, going inside. Turning, I’m on Brandon’s heels as I step back inside my house. Julia had just hung up when I heard Malachi pull up. I needed to see and touch one of my boys, and I thank the heavens that Brandon is okay—at least on the outside he is. Emotionally, he’s a wreck. I can see the clouds rolling in through his diamond-blue eyes.

  Fact is, I can’t worry about Brandon’s emotional state right now. Not if I want to find Danny before she does damage beyond repair if she hasn’t already done so.

  My son is strong, both mentally and physically. Even though I keep reminding myself of that, it doesn’t seem to take. I’m still his mom and he’s still my baby. As a tear drops, cascading down my cheek, I swipe it away, pretending I’m not on the brink of breaking.

  I will find Danny.

  I will.

  “Brandon,” Anne gasps as her hands go to her mouth and visible relief seeps into her mature eyes.

  Jamie is in front of his son within seconds, cupping his hand around the back of his neck and pulling him forward, embracing him as though it’ll be his last. The thing is, I’m not so sure Jamie realizes that could have been a real possibility had Malachi not gotten to him in time.

  Thank God Danny called Mal when he did, or I could have lost both of them. On the one hand, it stings a little that my son didn’t call me, but on the other, I get why he didn’t. I would have panicked and been focused on Danny only. I wouldn’t have had the forethought to put my emotions aside or looked at the situation objectively.

  Speaking of Malachi . . . Why didn’t he come in? I saw him speed off as soon as Brandon was out of his vehicle. Does he know something I don’t? Does he have a tip that he failed to share with me, his partner, his best friend, the mother of his godson?

  “Where—” I start to question Brandon, but I’m cut off by the look in Jamie’s eyes when he pulls away from his son, his eyes cast down.

  “What happened to your wrists?” Jamie grabs both of Brandon’s hands in his, lifting them. They’re red and swollen with marks from zip ties. His right wrist has dried blood on the top.

  “When I woke up and realized they were bound together, I tried to get the binding off.”

  “I don’t know what the hell is going through your mom’s mind.” Jamie’s head shakes.

  “That she’s a sick bitch,” Brandon replies.

  “Brandon, she’s still your—”

  “Dad,” Brandon cuts him off. “You have no idea, and I don’t have time to explain it. If we don’t find Danny, she’s gonna . . .” His voice cracks as he trails off, not able to complete where his sentence was heading.

  “Hey,” I call out, stepping next to him. Lifting my hand, I place it against his cheek and turn his head to face me. “We are going to find him, but I need your head clear. I need you focused, okay?” Tears cascade down my cheeks as I say this to him. My head has to be just as clear if we’re going to pull this off without getting detected. “You know Danny’s password, right?”

  He nods, slipping out of my hand once again. Stepping around his dad, he steps to the coffee table, sinking down to his knees in front of Danny’s laptop. I follow, picking mine up and sitting down on the oversized chair behind him.

  “You’re going to hack the traffic cams, aren’t you?” Josh asks, but by the look in his eyes he already knows the answer.

  “It’s the fastest way to find him,” Brandon says, his fingers typing across the keyboard.

  “Wait. What?” Jamie questions, disbelief in his voice. “Why do you have to hack them? You’re an FBI agent. Can’t you just get access?”

  “Not without a warrant,” Josh says.

  “We don’t have time to go through the proper channels, Jamie. The longer we take to find him, the greater the chance we’ll never see our son again.” I don’t glance in his direction. I can’t. Looking at Jamie, or anyone else in my house will only make the emotions hit harder. Time isn’t on my side. I can’t be the panicked mother that on the inside is sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth because she didn’t protect her little boy. I can fall apart later, once he’s back. And he will be back, dammit. If it’s the last thing
I do, I will find him, and I will bring him home. Can’t say the same for Julia. If I get my hands on her, she will take her last breath.

  Cop or not, I will end her sick reign.

  “I’m there. You ready?” Brandon asks.

  “Enter. I’m ready.”

  The clicking of keys is the only sound that penetrates my ears as I work to cover Brandon’s trail. With Josh’s connections, we could’ve had a judge’s order within a couple of hours, I’m sure of it. But as each minute ticks by, I feel as though I’m losing my son—and I can’t lose Danny. I can’t. I won’t. Every second matters.

  I can’t allow myself to think about all the possible things she could be doing to him. Knowing she’s aware he’s Jamie’s son alone is enough to send my mind reeling.

  Even though I prepped Danny for this, nothing can really prepare a person for the types of things another person is capable of doing to the human body and mind. Sometimes the mental strain is much worse than the physical.

  If anyone can handle it, it would be my son—but he shouldn’t have to.

  We’re coming, Danny. Just hang on.

  That bitch is going down, one way or another. It’s one thing to do what she had done to me, it’s another to mess with my boys. She will pay for that. She will pay with her life, either behind bars or six feet underground. There is a part of me that wishes she would get a taste of her own medicine: captured, tortured, sold. I hate to admit that, and I never thought I would feel that way.

  Rules, ethics, the goddamn law went out the window when she took my son.

  Now I want blood.

  “Got it!” Brandon yells as the smacking of metal has my eyes popping up, seeing his laptop shut.

  I’m out of the city’s traffic system in less than thirty seconds. Closing my own laptop, sucking in a breath, I look up, seeing him sitting back on heels with a cell phone cradled in his hand, his fingers moving across the screen. My eyes suddenly snap to the mantle, seeing both cell phones I’d taken out of Danny’s truck still sitting on top of the painted wood surface where I’d placed them when I got home.

  Whose phone is he using? Who is he texting?

  “Brand . . .” I start to say, his name coming out of my mouth slowly.

  His head pops up, his blue eyes meeting mine. “Malachi is less than ten minutes out. He’ll get there before you do.” Brandon stands as my mind comprehends what he’s saying. “There was a reason Danny didn’t call you, Jen. He doesn’t want to risk you getting hurt. He doesn’t want my mom doing something.”

  There is a pleading look in his young eyes that shouldn’t be there. He’s asking me not to leave, but that’s a request I can’t fulfill, and one he should never have asked in the first place.

  I shove my laptop off my lap, it lands on the cushion of the chair I’m sitting in. Standing up, my brows scrunch together. Before I say a word, he moves fast, stopping in front of me and snatching my wrist up in his strong hand. “I can’t let you.”

  I’m so stunned, I stand there eyeing up at Brandon. His eyes leave mine for the briefest of seconds, roaming over to his dad’s. Then he drops a bomb on me that I wasn’t expecting. “She’s made every woman he’s ever slept with disappear.”

  44

  — Jamie —

  She’s made every woman he’s ever slept with disappear.

  He. As in me. That’s who Brandon referred to a second ago. The room is deathly silent with all eyes on my son, even my mother’s, alarm etched on all of our faces.

  “What are you talking about, son?” I ask, finally finding my words, my brows scrunched together.

  “Mom!” he almost yells, turning around to face me. My eyes drop for a split second, seeing that he didn’t release his hold on Jenna. “She knows about all the women you’ve slept with while on tour over the years. She has you followed, or did, maybe still does. I don’t know. Danny didn’t have notes on any of that.”

  “Danny didn’t have notes,” Jenna says, repeating him, her voice soft. “Notes on what? How do you know any of this?” There’s a long beat before she adds, “Are you sure, Brandon?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” He sighs, lifting his right arm and running his hand over his blond hair. Normally, my kid doesn’t leave home without styling his tresses perfectly. He’s done his own hair since I taught him at the age of five. He’s always taken pride in his appearance, but today he looks disheveled and unlike his normal put together self.

  I still don’t know the details of why his mother had him held up on a boat, but whatever he’s been through has taken a toll. That doesn’t sit well with me. He’s supposed to not have a care in the world. He’s supposed to be happy, yet the look in his eyes at the moment is the furthest from that.

  “Danny was keeping things from me,” Brandon continues, enlightening us. “I saw it in the way he started to avoid eye contact with me, and in the way he would shrug things off. My brother isn’t exactly the shrugging type, so . . . I hacked his computer.”

  “If you hacked Danny,” Jenna says on a sigh, “then Danny let you hack him.”

  “I know.” Brandon glances back over, nodding. “We were going to talk about it last night, but then my mom told me to come home, so . . .”

  “Brando, we’re going to talk about what all happened last night and today and anything in-between once we get Danny back,” Jenna promises. “But I have to leave right now. I’m sorry, but I have—”

  “Did you not hear anything I just said? She makes women disappear after my dad sleeps with them, and the last I checked, he’s currently banging you.” His voice comes out rushed.

  “Brandon,” I scold, half-sighing at his choice of words in front of my mom, his grandmother. Not that it’ll faze her. I slept in Jenna’s bed last night, after all.

  He tightens his hand around Jenna’s wrist, not paying me any mind. “I can’t let you go. Danny wouldn’t want me to either,” he adds.

  She places her free hand on top of his, prying her captured wrist out of his hold. “That isn’t your choice. You aren’t the adult here, Brandon. I am. Danny is my son, and there is no one that will keep me from going after him.”

  “Jen, please,” he begs, dropping his shoulders.

  “It makes sense, you know?” Josh chimes in, grabbing all of our attention, though his eyes are trained on Jenna. “I didn’t put it together until now, even though you told me she was my biological sister a few hours ago. Without me running the show, finding the girls and molding them, someone else had to do it. The people I thought were my parents, obviously are not.” He shakes his head. “Hers were. I’m sure her father had someone else doing the capturing and training, but I guarantee she did the selling.” Josh’s eyes go from Jenna to Brandon and then back to Jenna again. “I’d also be willing to bet her plans for Brandon were to make him my official replacement. Get everything back in the family, so to speak.”

  Jenna gasps, pulling in air through her mouth as his words sink in. Was that Julia’s plan? It’s hard for me to fathom that being something she would do, but then again . . . I didn’t really know the woman I married.

  How could Julia be planning on forcing Brandon to become what Josh used to be—a monster, the devil? Her own son. How could she do that?

  No sane, loving parent would ever put something like that on their kid’s shoulders. That thought wouldn’t even cross their minds. Hell, they wouldn’t be part of that life in the first place to make that call.

  How was I married to some sick monster, capable of despicable things?

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what she was planning.” Brandon’s head tips up as he pulls in a deep breath of air. Dropping his head, his eyes finding Jenna’s, he pleads once more. “Please don’t go.”

  “Brandon, I love you, and I love that you want to protect me, but that isn’t your job. It certainly isn’t your call to make. I’m going after your brother. There is no telling what Malachi will walk into or if he’s prepared. Mal and your mom have a past. One that isn’t pretty. He won�
�t be thinking with a clear head. He has a vendetta, a score to settle, and that’s too dangerous of a position he’s in. It could get him or Danny or both of them killed. Do you understand?”

  “I’m going with you,” I declare as Jenna steps away from my son. I really should call him hers too. She’s taken care of him in the way his mom should have. I get it now, why she calls both Danny and Brandon her boys. They are, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “No, you’re not, Jamie. I have—”

  “You should take him, Jen. He’s her sole obsession,” Josh says, interrupting her.

  “For once, I agree with your boss,” I bite out, unable to call him anything else.

  If I’m the one Julia wants, then let’s give her just that. I need to see her, I need to confront the things she’s done over the years. If what Brandon said is true, she has to be brought to justice. I’m not proud that I cheated on a regular basis, but I never lied to her. She knew from the beginning I didn’t love her and she still chose to be with me. I didn’t sign up for psycho either, and God, there is no telling how many women I’ve been with over the years. If I’m responsible for any of them, or all of them disappearing, being hurt, sold, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  I can handle a lot. I have handled a lot, but I don’t know if I have the strength to handle that reality.

  45

  — Jenna —

  How did I miss this?

  I knew Julia’s obsession with Jamie ran deep, but I just thought she wanted him on paper, wanted the life he could provide. I thought being married to him was enough to satisfy her. I’ve had her watched from time to time, but nothing was ever reported back that was out of the ordinary.

  If she’s been doing this for years, having Jamie watched, and then . . .