Have Mercy

by N. E. Henderson

  Julia deserved worse. A lifetime rotting in a cage would have been more preferable after learning the things she was going to do to my sons.

  In the end, I decided there’d been enough secrets. I didn’t want to add another to the pile, so I told him everything. All that I knew anyway. I haven’t gotten to speak to Danny alone, and Jenna never brought up the last couple of hours before she rescued him. If Danny wants his brother, Jenna, me, or anyone else to know, then I trust he’ll tell us.

  I’m not going to be the one to force him to talk about it if he doesn’t want to. There are certainly things I’d like to forget, never think about again. My ex-wife is one of those things.

  She’s gone.

  She’s dead.

  She can never hurt anyone I associate with ever again, and that’s all I care about when it comes to her.

  Enjoy Hell, you fucking bitch.

  The sound of the sliding doors that led from the outside into the ER open, pulling me out of my wasted thoughts on someone that doesn’t even matter anymore. Seeing Seth and then Cole, I stand. My head swings around, seeing Jenna and Trey still in a private conversation, so I turn back around, waiting for them to reach us.

  “Is Danny okay?” is the first thing out of Cole’s mouth. Concern is etched across his face.

  “He’s fine. He’ll be released anytime now,” I inform him as Seth stops next to us both.

  “And Mal? Are there any updates?” Cole swallows, bracing himself for my answer.

  “He’s in surgery, but that’s all I know right now.” I glance over, seeing Jenna and Trey stand, their mouths moving, but their eyes are on where we stand.

  “How bad is it?” I turn my head back around, witnessing Cole’s shoulders tense up. The pain he harbors behind his green eyes cut deep. All I want to do is reassure my friend that everything is going to be okay, but I can’t do that, because I have no idea if that’s true or not. The guy was shot multiple times, and I don’t want to give him false hope.

  “Hey,” Jenna whispers, stepping in front of me. Taking another step, she walks into Cole’s personal space, wrapping her arms around his waist, embracing him. “It’s going to be okay,” she assures him, talking into his chest. Her head tips back, looking up at him.

  “How do you know that?” he croaks out.

  Stepping back, Jenna pauses at my side. “Because he’s strong. He’s a fighter. And because he’s Malachi. He has to be okay. That’s why.” There’s a quiver to her voice that’s just now surfacing. I want to reach out, but she’s been through a lot today, we all have. I don’t want to push us or cause her any more pain, so I stand still next to her.

  My attention goes to the double doors farthest away from the waiting area. A tall man with milk chocolate skin, wearing a long white coat pushes his way toward us.

  “Is the family of Malachi Hayes here?” the man asks, stopping.

  My gaze drops to the script displayed on his white coat: Marc Thornton, MD. Trauma Surgery is listed beneath his name.

  “We are,” Josh speaks up.

  Jenna’s left hand finds my right one, interlocking her fingers with mine.

  “You’re all his immediate family?” The doctor arches an eyebrow. “Pardon me for asking, but none of you look related, and it doesn’t say he’s married in his record.”

  “You’re damn right we’re his family,” Josh says. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a badge. Flipping it open, he flashes his federal ID. “He’s one of my agents. That makes him family.”

  “All right then.” The doctor nods. “Surgery went well. We were able to extract the bullet and mend the damage. With rest and physical therapy, he should recover just fine and be back to one hundred percent with time.”

  “When can we see him?” Cole asks.

  “About an hour I suspect. He’s still sedated. We’re about to take him to recovery until he wakes. I can allow one person to come in the room once we have him settled if one of you wants to.”

  “Cole, it should be you,” Jenna says.

  “You sure?” His brows wrinkle as he chews on the side of his cheek.

  Taking a step away from me, Jenna stops in front of Cole, looking up at him. Lifting her hands and placing them on each side of his face, she says, “We only get one life. It’s up to us to make the most of it. Either vow to commit to him now or walk out of this hospital and never see him again. You can’t do both, and you can’t keep stringing him along.”

  “What if it’s too late and he doesn’t want me?”

  “You won’t know the answer to that until you go see him and you talk to him.”

  He leans forward, pressing his lips to her forehead, he lingers against her until he sighs out a tired breath. Feeling the bone tiredness throughout my entire body, I wanted to do the same, but then her words hit home and something else blossoms deep within my chest.

  We only get one life. It’s up to us to make the most of it. Do those words pertain to us too? I wonder.

  “If it’s decided,” the surgeon says. “Then you can follow me. I’ll take you back now.”

  “Yeah, I’m going,” Cole says, taking a step away from Jenna.

  Everyone is silent as he and the doctor disappear through a set of double doors that leads into the other part of the hospital and out of the emergency room.

  “I should probably call Mal’s parents,” Jenna says.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Josh informs her from where he and Jessica stand next to one another. Both of her hands are wrapped around one of his with her body pressed close like she’d fuse hers to his if she could. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the two of them, but I guess that doesn’t matter. I don’t have to. If Jess loves him, then she loves him.

  And if Malachi Hayes is the guy Cole likes or loves, then all I care about is what makes my best friend happy.

  “Thanks.” Jenna nods, a forced smile spreading across her lips. Glancing at me, our eyes lock for a couple of seconds before she turns, walking away. There was a sadness in her brown eyes that tugs me to go after her.

  I’m going to get you back, baby, one way or another, or I’m going to die trying.

  51

  — Jenna —

  Malachi is going to make it.

  Danny and Brandon are fine.

  Everything is okay again.

  But is it? Three days ago—the morning I woke up at Cole’s like I do every now and again—my path was set, and I’d come to terms with that life. Jamie wasn’t mine, still isn’t mine. He may have been divorced, something I’d known was coming since the day he filed the papers. Cole had been so eager to tell me months back. I guess thinking it could change things and that I’d consider telling Jamie the truth.

  I didn’t share the same enthusiasm that Cole did. If anything, his pending divorce just made everything worse, harder even. He was available, but not. Not for me anyway.

  The threat to my son’s life still existed. I’d long stopped searching for evidence that Julia had ever done anything like what she’d done to me. I thought it was a one-time thing simply to get what she wanted. In a way it was. Even though she had Jamie on paper, she didn’t have him in any other way.

  I should be relieved that it’s all over now. Danny is free, so to speak, but instead of feeling like I can breathe again, I feel like someone has a plastic bag over my head, suffocating me.

  I shouldn’t feel partially responsible for all those women that Julia either sold or murdered, yet I do. It’s not logical, but if I’d continued, never stopping the eyes I had on her, then maybe I would have realized what was happening and could have stopped it.

  I don’t even know how many women it was, or if it was only the women Jamie had relations with. Maybe there were others too. He’s a rock star, yes, but I wouldn’t consider him a whore. Not like the stories you hear about bands’ after-parties. Sure, those happen, but Bleeding Hart was always tamer in that way than other bands.

  I remember Josh once telling me how he had to capture
and sell a minimum of four girls a year. If that still rings true, then how many is that over the course of eighteen years? It’s less than a hundred. That number might sound low in the scheme of things, but it’s still a lot of women that were ripped away from their homes, their lives, their families.

  “Hey, Jen, wait up,” he calls from behind me as I’m heading down an empty hallway somewhere in the main part of the hospital. I left the ER, needing a moment alone.

  I pivot, facing him. “Don’t, Jamie.” I hold up my hand, my arm outstretched to stop him. “Go be with the boys or wait in the waiting room. I just need a minute alone.”

  His eyes linger on mine for a long beat, then he blinks and starts looking around in every direction. Wrapping his hand around my wrist, he begins walking, pulling me along with him.

  “Jamie,” I whine. Doesn’t he understand a minute alone means just me, alone with myself, him not included.

  I guess not.

  Opening a closed door, he peeks his head inside. A second later, I’m tugged in the dark room with him, where he closes us inside.

  Glancing around, I’m thankful it isn’t the janitor’s closet. It’s a small space, an administrative office most likely. There is a desk with a desktop computer and a phone. That’s about it. It’s mostly bare, with a paned glass window behind the desk. With a storm brewing, it doesn’t cast that much light in here despite no curtains hanging.

  Releasing my wrist, his hand lifts, gently cupping my jaw and cheek. His head dips and then his lips are on mine, kissing me. What starts out soft and sweet quickly turns hard and heated. My mouth opens, beckoning his tongue inside all on its own without my brain’s permission.

  The mental power he still has over me is astonishing. It’s both thrilling and annoying. But we want who we want, right?

  Still . . . I can’t have him distracting me. I needed this time to set myself straight and clear my head. I don’t think clearly around him.

  Pushing on his chest, I pry my lips from his, instantly missing the way he makes me feel from just a kiss.

  “Stop,” I say breathlessly.

  “You want me the same as I want you. Just admit that much to yourself at least.”

  “Doesn’t mean we should always act on it.”

  “That’s exactly what it means,” he argues. “I know this is crazy, but we are who we are and neither one of us stopped loving each other. We can do this. We’ll never be able to slow down. Don’t you remember that first day we met in Sunday school. By the time the hour was over, you were my girlfriend, and you stayed my girlfriend until I lost you.”

  “You mean until you threw me away when you decided to believe someone else over me.”

  “I can’t change the past, and . . .” He closes his eyes as his fingers run through his dark hair. Seconds pass with only the sound of his labored breathing between us. When those indigo eyes reopen, he says, “Danny told me a couple of days ago that he’d choose his brother existing and going through every second of what he’s dealt with by not having me in his life than growing up how Brandon did with two parents. I didn’t get it at first, but now I do. He’s right. If things hadn’t happened the way they did, I wouldn’t have the two sons I have today. They wouldn’t have each other. And you know what? I’d go through the last eighteen years without you and Danny all over again so that those two could have each other.”

  He’s not saying anything I haven’t thought myself over the last couple of years. I didn’t begin getting close to Brandon until I moved to California. When I first met him, I thought I’d fallen in love with that little guy, but I was wrong. It wasn’t until I started waking up in the mornings, making sure both boys got off to school on time. When I started being the one that signed his report cards. When he started asking me for advice.

  I don’t need Brandon to call me ‘mom’ to know that he is my son in every way except biology.

  “I love you, Jen. And I want both of my sons to have a mother that loves them as much as you do. I want Brandon to have the mom Danny has.”

  “He already has me.”

  “Do I?”

  I turn my head to the side, not knowing how to answer his question. Sure, I want him, and I know he wants me. But all the time lost, how easily and quickly he doubted me just doesn’t up and vanish now that we are free to be together again. I trusted him wholeheartedly and he didn’t return that trust in me. I don’t know how to get past those things. Perhaps in the big picture they shouldn’t matter anymore, but they do.

  “You hurt me, Jamie. You shattered my heart. Are you asking me to just forget that and let you back in like it never happened?”

  “Of course not.” His brows crease. “I was young and stupid, and that’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth. I was eighteen, barely older than our boys are now. I have to live with the fact that I nearly cost us a lifetime together. I can’t go back and change things. I don’t think you’d want me to either. Everything shapes us into the person we are, and I’m not the same person I was then. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for the time we lost. I’ll cancel the summer tour, hell, the fall and winter one too. Just don’t say no to us . . . trying.”

  “Trying what?”

  “To be a family, to being together. Hell, at this point I’ll take friendship if that’s all you’re willing to give me. I just want you in my life any way I can have you. I can’t go through even one day without you again—at least not in some way. Please, Jen.”

  “Trust has to be earned, and you don’t exactly have a good track record, you know.”

  “I didn’t love her. It’ll be different with you and me. I don’t want to be with anyone else but you.”

  I place my hand flat on his chest, thinking. Wrapping this hand around the wrist I have hanging at my side, Jamie lifts my arm, bringing it up until my skin meets his lips. He peppers light kisses down the inside of my forearm, and I can’t stop the smile that tugs at the corners of my mouth.

  “You want this the same as me. Just admit it.” With his other hand, he places his warm palm against my cheek with this thumb under my chin. Tilting my head back, he goes on, “It’s you. Only you from here on out.”

  “It’s only ever been you for me,” I whisper, unashamed that I’m admitting that to him.

  “What?” His eyes flicker as his head tilts.

  “I haven’t had sex with anyone but you, Jamie.”

  His mouth drops open, but no words fall out. Something inside me sings knowing I’ve stunned him into silence. It only lasts a second or two. It’s not something I’m exactly proud of. It is what it is. It’s sad really, because I’ve spent so many years longing for that intimate connection that I’ve only ever wanted with Jamie.

  “I know this is probably going to sound shitty coming from me when I’ve been with . . . well—”

  “Yeah”—I hold out my hand like a stop sign, shaking my head—”let’s not go there. You’ve slept with other women. I know. It doesn’t have to be discussed or brought up again.” He nods.

  “Hearing you say that, knowing I’m the only man that’s ever been inside you, makes my dick hard.” In an effort to drive his words home, he steps into me, pushing my body into the solid wooden door behind me and then presses said hard dick into my stomach.

  Damn him.

  My eyes flutter closed, savoring the feel of him against me. He always did know how to use his body to get anything he wants out of me. Not that I have room to talk. I used to as well.

  “You know you want this, baby.”

  My eyes pop up and my eyebrows lift. “Pretty sure it’s you that wants this,” I say, pointing at myself.

  “Oh, I do.” He smirks. I’m tempted to lift my knee, but then I’d screw myself too. Or, it’ll prevent him from screwing me in this office that we’re so rudely occupying.

  Pushing off me, his hands go straight for the buckle on my black tactical pants, and then the button is undone, and the zipper is pulled down.

  “Jamie,” I warn, k
icking myself for putting up this much of a fight when I’m bound to lose. Ignoring me, he pushes the material and my panties down my legs before doing the same to his. “We’re in a hospital and in an office that anyone could walk in at any time.”

  “Don’t care.”

  Grabbing me by my thighs, he lifts me up, aligning my body just right.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve invested in any condoms, have you?”

  “When in the last couple of days would I have had time to buy condoms I never plan on wearing?” Without waiting for a response, he presses between my thighs, entering me slowly.

  “Ahhh,” I breathe, sucking in air. The intrusion isn’t something I’ve gotten used to, probably won’t for a while at least.

  “Are you ready to let love win?” he asks, unmoving as he looks into my eyes.

  “Did I really ever have a choice?” I counter, squeezing him as I ask.

  “There’s always a choice,” he bites out. “But why fight something that we both want?”

  Let love win, he says, like it’s that simple.

  Instead of answering him, I lean forward, snatching his lips up with mine. We have a lifetime to see if love will outweigh all the baggage the two of us bring to the table. I do want this. I want this just as bad as he does, so maybe we’ll finally get that happily ever after we both deserve.

  Only time will tell.

  There is no doubt in my mind that if you want it hard enough, and if we both put in the effort together, we can find the us that was always meant to be.

  Epilogue

  — Jamie —

  Redemption can be found in forgiveness. The agony of regret doesn’t have to last a lifetime if you’re able to let the past go so the future can prevail. At least, that’s what I’ve told myself for the last nine months.

  My ex-wife is dead, lying six-feet underground. The only reason I know where is because I went with Brandon to her funeral. He didn’t want to go, but Jenna talked him into it, telling him he needed closure. In a way, I did too. We all did. Watching that casket be lowered into the ground, I was overcome with relief, feeling eighteen years of tension leave my body in a matter of seconds.