Exposed: A Jaded Regret Novel

by L. L. Collins

  “I’m not your mother.” The words dropped like bombs around us, destroying everything in their path. She smirked at the look on his face. I felt like the bottom just fell out of my stomach, and the truth wasn’t directed at me.

  Beau lurched forward, and Kale stepped in between him and her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Spit flew from his mouth as he shouted at her.

  We had to get out of here. Media outlets were parked on the road, and all we needed was for them to get wind this involved Jaded Regret. Beau was very recognizable with all of his tats, so for all I knew, they’d already seen him.

  “Beau. We have to go.” I turned to Kale and pleaded with my eyes for him to help me.

  “I’m not going anywhere until she tells me what she’s talking about. I don’t believe this shit. How did you get Natalie to believe this was your big ‘secret’? I don’t see her believing a word you said, especially enough to pay you a ton of money.”

  She sneered. “What do you think? She knows, Beau. She’s always known. I didn’t give birth to you, thank fuck.”

  “To the office,” Kale bellowed, shoving her forward. “Now. All of you. Beau, Kai, in my car. We can’t stay out here, Beau or this entire thing will be front page news. Do you want everyone to listen to this whole thing go down and get it on camera? It’s only a matter of time before they figure out who you are.”

  I didn’t think Beau was listening, much less would do what Kale said, but he turned and followed us. I was a little scared to get in the car with him, but he stormed ahead and slammed the car door after himself.

  “Fucking hell.” Kale blew out a breath. “I know I can’t ever expect things to go the way I plan in this line of work, but Jesus. Who would’ve ever thought this was what would happen.”

  “We suspected it could be his mom,” I said, my mind still reeling around the words she spewed from her mouth. “But the rest of it? No. Nina Anderson, or Jordan, or whoever she is, isn’t Beau’s mom. Natalie knew it all along. Holy. Hell.”

  Kale nodded. “It’s a damn good thing we got him in the car when we did. Look at all the cameras.” We reached the car, and I walked around to get in next to Beau. I wasn’t too chicken to admit I was scared. This was a horrible situation for anyone to deal with.

  Natalie.

  The thought of her made my chest ache. She had no idea any of this was happening, and now the truth was out. The only good thing I could see coming out of this was Natalie not being blackmailed by this woman any longer.

  Unfortunately, Natalie would have to deal with all this shit when she got out of therapy. I prayed she’d be strong enough to handle her brother’s anger.

  I had the feeling we were about to find out the rest of this sordid story, and what it could be scared me half to death.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kai

  “April, you need to come down here. You may want to bring Johnny and Tanner, too.” My voice shook despite me trying to hold it in.

  “Come where? What’s happening? Is Beau okay?”

  I looked over at Beau, pacing back and forth in the glass enclosure Kale told him to stay in until they could get her processed. He wasn’t going anywhere until he talked to her, but they had to do the formalities first. She had an unregistered gun, shot two people, extorted money from Natalie for years, and held people hostage in a bank. That was a lot of red tape to get through.

  “Kale apprehended the person trying to get the money out. We’re at the holding station.”

  “Does Beau know who it is?” April’s voice was soft like she knew this was about to be bad news.

  “Yes. It’s his—” I didn’t know how to address the woman. “His mother.”

  “What?”

  “That’s not all, April, but I think Beau should tell you the rest. Can you get here?”

  “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Kai, is he okay?”

  I tracked Beau’s movements, walking back and forth like a caged animal. “I don’t know, to be honest. You’ll be able to gauge that better when you see him.”

  She cursed under her breath. “Thank you, Kai.”

  Just as I hung up the phone, Kale stepped out of an unmarked door. He looked as harried as I felt.

  “What’s going on?”

  He looked over at Beau. “This is some fucked up shit.”

  “Does Beau know?”

  “No. His mother—or whoever she is—is spouting all sorts of foolishness back there. We’re going to get a psych eval on her, too. I’m not sure she’s right in the head. I honestly don’t think Beau should talk to her tonight.”

  I laughed dryly. “Good luck telling him that.”

  Kale looked over at him, still pacing. “I figured as much. I wonder if anything she says is true, though. God only knows. She could be on drugs, mentally ill, or both.”

  “We can try to tell him that, but I don’t think he’s leaving until he hears the rest of what she has to say.”

  Kale nodded. “Okay. Let’s go in and talk to him. We’ve got her processed and in a holding cell.”

  “She’s not getting out for the rest of her life, is she?”

  “Not unless she’s incompetent to stand trial. If that’s the case, she’ll be locked up in an institution.”

  “But either way, she won’t be able to spread her filth anymore, right?”

  “Right. Not that she can’t try to find a way to be ‘heard’ within the walls of a prison, but for all intents and purposes she’ll be out of their lives.”

  Kale and I walked silently into the room where Beau still paced. He stopped when he saw us. His hair stood on end, and his eyes were bloodshot. His mouth was set in a straight line, his posture rigid.

  “Can I talk to her now?”

  Kale sat at the table in the room, and I followed, hoping Beau would, too. He stood at the end, his eyes boring into ours and his fists clenched.

  “She may not be mentally sound, or she could be on drugs.” Kale tried to reason with him.

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  “She may not even be telling the truth.”

  Beau opened and closed his fists. His nostrils flared, and he narrowed his eyes on Kale. “She’s going to tell me what fucking shit she’s talking about. If it’s not true, Natalie will tell me. But if you think I’m going to leave here without hearing what she has to say, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Kale studied him for a moment. “Okay. But you have to promise to be calm, Beau. I’m not supposed to let anyone talk to her.”

  “He will be.” April’s voice came from behind us. Beau’s gaze snapped to hers. His eyes softened, and his hands dropped to his sides. His chin began to tremble, and he collapsed in a chair at the end of the table, covering his eyes with his hands.

  “Give us a few minutes,” April said quietly. “Everyone else is out there.”

  Kale and I stood and walked out. Jaded Regret stood there, surrounded by their security team. We watched through the glass partitions as April pulled a chair up next to Beau and wrapped her arms around him. He buried his head in her neck, and we saw his back shaking.

  “What happened?” Bex’s gruff voice was soft and full of emotion. “God, I hate seeing him like that.”

  “Their mother has been extorting money from Natalie,” I answered. “We’re not sure if she’s mentally sound, but she started saying stuff about Beau not being her son, and Natalie knew all along. That’s why she was blackmailing her, to keep the secret. We didn’t hear the rest of the story, but Beau’s determined to go talk to her and find out.”

  Mouths dropped as they all registered the words.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Mac said finally. The others nodded their head in agreement.

  Everyone looked back over at Beau and April, watching as she held him.

  “Thank God for her,” Bex said. “He’s not the same person he was before her. He never would’ve been able to handle this before April.”

  Beau stood, and April linked
her fingers with his. She smiled up at him, and though he didn’t smile, he appeared much calmer than before. They walked out together, and he stopped in front of everyone.

  “I need to know,” he said.

  “We understand,” Johnny said. “But keep in mind she may not be telling the truth.”

  “You know what kind of person she is,” Bex said. “Remember that when you’re listening to whatever she has to say.”

  “I would much rather hear it from Natalie, but I know I can’t do that right now. So until I can clear things up, I have to know the rest of the story.”

  “Come on,” Kale said.

  Beau turned to me. “I want you and April in there with me.”

  “Me?” I could understand April, but I didn’t see the need for me to accompany them. She kept him calm. She was his wife. I…was in love with his sister. Still wondering where that put me in this craziness.

  “Yes. I want you there because you need to hear what she says so when we can talk to Natalie, you can help me be calm around her. She’s my sister, and I love her, but I’m not sure how I’ll handle things if she’s been lying to me my entire life.”

  My throat dried out. I wondered how the heck I got myself in the middle of this situation. I was clueless about how to proceed.

  I looked over at Kale, and he nodded his head once. “Okay, let’s go. You’re not going to get long, Beau.”

  We followed him through the unmarked door and into a small room where she was handcuffed to the middle of a table. When we walked in, she turned her wrinkled face to us. Her dingy hair lay against her face, and her lips turned up in a smirk.

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away. You want the rest of the details, right? Where’s your worthless sister, anyway?”

  “None of your damn business. Tell me what you were going to say out there.”

  She sat back as far as she could before the handcuffs stopped her and looked away from us. I wanted to jump across the table myself and make her talk, so I could only imagine how Beau felt.

  April tucked her hand into Beau’s, and I knew that was the only thing that kept him together.

  “Nina.” Kale’s voice held a warning.

  “I should make your sister tell you the entire story and pop the perfect little bubble she lives in. She’s been the one, all these years, who kept you together, right? And now you’ve got her? You’re married? Watch out honey, you never know when he may hang himself in a closet. His parents sure as shit didn’t care about living. They left me to deal with his issues until no amount of money could make me put up with his shit anymore.”

  Before Beau could respond to her hateful remarks, April straightened her back, her lips pursed as she leaned over and began talking. “If you want to tell him what you’re talking about, please do. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and stop. You can’t hurt him any more than you did when he was a kid, so do everyone a favor and either finish your story or let them take you to rot in jail where you belong.”

  If I could, I would’ve hugged April. This woman was the vilest person I’d ever met.

  Nina’s eyes flashed. “You want the story? Fine. You can ask your sister—wherever she is—to back it up. Your dad had a problem keeping it in his pants. We had a babysitter; her parents were friends of your dad. They had more money than brains, but their teenage daughter loved Natalie. So we hired her to babysit when we needed to both go somewhere, or we went out together. Natalie was just a baby when she started and was a little over a year old when I found them. He was sleeping with her. She was sixteen years old.” She paused, letting that information sink in. “I was going to kick him out, but he promised it was over. He was sorry, and he loved me. Except that was a fucking lie. He continued to sleep with her.

  “She got pregnant and came to us crying. Her parents were going to kick her out and have your dad arrested. I was going to divorce him and take Natalie. His life was crumbling around him…until her parents had a different idea. They were high society folks in our town and didn’t want their daughter to be part of a scandal. So they sent her away while she was pregnant and told me if I pretended to be pregnant and take the baby, they’d pay us a million dollars and not prosecute him.”

  Hell. The story sounded…crazy. Like something out of a tabloid or on one of those crazy informative news shows.

  Beau stared at her, waiting.

  “So that’s what we did. They sent her away until she had the baby and then you became my child. A few weeks after you were born, she killed herself. Your dad was beside himself. He loved her, even after all that shit. He would’ve left me for her if he could’ve gotten away with it. Her parents were destroyed, but they made me promise to never tell the story.” She shrugged. “But one million dollars ran out a long time ago, raising his kids by myself. And Jaded Regret got big. I knew Natalie could afford to help me, and if she didn’t, I’d get a lot of money from any media source that would listen to me talk about the famous drummer Beau Anderson’s father being a pedophile.”

  “That’s why he killed himself,” Beau whispered. “Because he loved her.”

  “He could never come to terms with her death. Every time he looked at you, he saw her. He loved you, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. So he left me with you and Natalie.”

  “This is why you hated me.” Beau sounded like a sad little boy, and I guessed he was, still the little boy who wanted his mother’s love and didn’t understand why he didn’t have it. “When did Natalie find out?”

  “The day you were hospitalized I told her.”

  “So let me get this straight. You told your daughter the truth, and she was just fourteen years old. You expected her to do what with that truth? Then you not only left the bastard child you never wanted, but your own flesh and blood, too?”

  “Oh…that. Well, see, Natalie isn’t mine, either. You have different mothers.”

  The room fell silent at her last admission. She looked around, a smug look on her face that she shocked everyone silent.

  I wrung my hands together under the table, feeling the color drain out of my face.

  “You’re fucking lying. This whole thing is made up.” Beau’s quiet voice was full of menace. April volleyed her gaze back and forth between them, wondering if she needed to intervene.

  “I told you, your dad couldn’t keep it in his pants. He knocked up some junkie when I met him, and he bowled me over with his charm and said he loved me and had this baby he had custody of. Natalie was just a few weeks old. I think he just wanted me to take care of her since he didn’t have a clue what to do with a child.”

  “So you told Natalie this, too?”

  “She’s known all this since the day I walked away from the two of you.”

  “Where’s Natalie’s mother?”

  “Overdosed two days after Natalie was born. Natalie was born exposed to all sorts of drugs and stayed in the hospital for several weeks while she was detoxing. I always thought it was amazing she didn’t have long-term effects, but she was always a fighter.”

  “So you admitted me into a psych hospital, told the girl who thought she was your daughter her whole life you weren’t either of our parents and then left.”

  “The money ran out, and so did my patience with dealing with his shit.”

  Beau stood up. “I want you to know something. You’re nothing but scum on the bottom of my shoe. You don’t deserve one more second of my time or energy. My sister and I have made it in life. And you? You’re stealing money from people to live whatever miserable existence you have. You’re a sorry excuse for a human being. I never want to see or hear from you again. You leave my sister alone, too. We’ve moved on from the pain you caused us, and we’re not interested in reliving any more of your vile presence. I’m done here.” He walked out of the room and April scrambled after him.

  Kale led me out of the room, and we left Nina Anderson to the fate she deserved. Being alone, broke, and locked up like the animal she was.

  My phone buzzed on the counte
r, and I snatched it. Today was the first time I could talk to Natalie, and after this insane week, I wanted nothing more than to hear her voice.

  “Natalie.” My heart sped up in anticipation.

  “Hi, Kai. How are you?”

  The week’s events scrolled through my mind. “Better now that I hear your voice, love. I miss you so much it physically hurts.”

  She sighed, and I wished I could feel her breath against my cheek as we lay in bed next to each other. “I miss you too, Kai. So much.”

  “How is it there?” I wanted to ask her a million questions about what she did on a daily basis, but I didn’t want to push.

  “It’s good. I’m doing well. I’m physically stronger, for sure.”

  “And mentally?”

  “Making progress. Every day I do either individual or group therapy. I have homework and have to keep a journal of everything I’m eating. They let me walk around the grounds for some fresh air and exercise.” Her voice caught. “I’m sorry for all I put you through, Kai.”

  “Don’t. I’m right here, love. When you’re out of there, I’m here.”

  “Are you still in Florida?”

  Shit. I never lied to her, but this was different. I had to protect her. “I’m still with Jaded Regret. I’ve been helping them hold the fort down until you get back, but I’m still working. Barney has been very patient.” I still planned to go back to New York at some point before she got out, but with all that went on here, I stayed instead of going home the day she was admitted.

  “Wow, that’s great. I’m sure they love having you around. How’s Beau?”

  A disaster. No one had seen him or April since we left the FBI office days ago. April texted Mac and said they were fine but Beau was taking a breather. “He’s fine, love. Everyone misses you so much.”

  “Thank you for my presents, Kai. How in the world did you get a place that put a different song in each card?”

  “I have my ways.” Every day she was there, I had something scheduled to arrive from me. So far it was things like flowers, a robe, slippers, a notebook and pen, and a stuffed animal.