Broken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Second Season

by Peak, Renna

  “Jenna. You will support him. That isn’t an option. You were promised to him some time ago—promised to his family. Daniel made some mistakes, and he has apologized for them. It is important to both your mother and I, and also to my career, that you do exactly as I say.” He folded his hands together, his voice now almost painfully calm. “Monday morning, you, Daniel and his father will be at a press conference in Washington, D.C. You will stand by his side and hold his hand. And you will not say a word. Is that clear, young lady?”

  It was like a bad dream—almost like the moment I found out he was dead. I knew it was happening, but something about the situation seemed surreal. It was almost like a cloudy vision—it wasn’t quite within my grasp. All I could do was shake my head, my jaw slackened. This couldn’t really be happening. My father wanted me to stand next to the man who had kidnapped me less than two months ago. He wanted me to support a man who had pretty much admitted he raped me two months ago. And my father was supporting him and not me? It just couldn’t be real. I almost wanted to pinch myself, sure I would wake up from a nightmare. Maybe I’ll be back in the hotel room with Brandon…

  I looked over at Brandon. He was back to staring at his folded hands again, no real expression on his face. He was hard to read when weird shit wasn’t happening all around us, but his face now was just completely blank.

  My father continued. “You’ll fly out Sunday.” He looked down at his watch. “Considering that is almost tomorrow, you should get home and get some rest. I don’t want to see a single tear on Monday morning unless it’s a tear of joy. Are we understood?”

  All I could do was shake my head again. There was nothing I understood about this. And not a damned thing I was about to agree to.

  My father let out another sigh. “Good. Brandon, I trust that you can get my daughter … my engaged daughter home safely tonight?”

  My gaze darted to him and I saw him give my father a single nod.

  “Good. You two end this fiasco once and for all now. I don’t want to hear another word about the two of you together after tonight.” He looked between the two of us. “Both of you understand?”

  I shook my head again and watched as Brandon nodded again. How he was able to agree with anything my father said was beyond me. It was so unfathomable that I couldn’t really believe it.

  “Very good. And Brandon, you’ll have that job completed no later than Sunday evening. You can let your sister know the results.” My father turned his gaze back to me. “Get some rest, Jenna. It’s going to be a long week.” He slid out of his seat and Daniel followed close behind.

  I cringed as Daniel bent down and kissed the top of my head as he walked past my seat. He dipped his head lower and trailed his tongue across the top of my ear.

  I winced and had to force down the bile I felt in my throat.

  He leaned in closer and whispered into my ear. “Tell Brandon I won.” He turned and planted a kiss on my cheek, stood up and walked toward the door with my father. He turned back before they exited. “And Jenna, make sure your hair is blonde again before you come home.”

  I looked over at Brandon, who still had his eyes downcast, staring at his hands still folded neatly on the table. The way his eyes were almost hooded told me everything I needed to know.

  He’d lost.

  8

  Seven Months Earlier

  I looked at the number on the cell phone and thought for a moment about whether I should even answer. The area code was San Francisco, but it definitely wasn’t my grandmother’s number. I decided to answer, praying it wasn’t someone who might actually ask me to come back to that hell hole of a city.

  “Mr. Richardson? This is Carrie from Hospice of San Francisco. Your grandmother asked me to call…”

  I closed my eyes. I knew this day would come, just not this soon. My heart felt heavy in my chest when the woman on the other end of the line told me that my grandmother had just been admitted to their facility. She said the doctors had given her three months, but with this type of cancer, no one could ever be sure. She could have more time than that, she said, or maybe she would have less. Three months’ time was the average.

  I hung up the phone. I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes to let the information sink in. My grandmother had raised me from the time I was four—she was the only parent I had really ever known. And even with her crazy vendetta against the Davis family, she was the only family I really had aside from my sister. I knew I had to go back—had to see her at least one more time before she died. I owed her that much.

  I finished up the paperwork I had been working on. I had originally thought that buying this company in Osaka a few months ago was going to be a pain in my ass—especially after Senator Davis had paid me to keep Daniel busy here. To keep him the hell away from his daughter, anyway. Christ, I hadn’t let myself think about Jenna Davis in years. I wondered if she looked the same—her long brown hair and deep blue eyes that could cut into a man’s soul… Stop. I couldn’t let myself go back to those thoughts. I wouldn’t allow myself to think about her ever again, not after I knew she had made an actual choice to be with the douche bag that was Daniel Sato. Any woman who could choose that was one I wanted to stay as far away from as possible.

  Keeping Daniel busy had been easy. I hadn’t even had to see the asshole since I brought him here a year ago. God, had it already been a year? Time was flying, and I really needed to think about what in the hell I was going to do about that. My grandmother would be asking as soon as I flew in to see her, anyway. She would want to know what I planned to do to keep the Richardson family name alive—not that there was much of a Richardson name left to keep alive. She wanted great-grandchildren, and it was something she’d been giving me grief about for the past few years. I felt a little pang of guilt in my stomach, knowing she wouldn’t live to see her first.

  When my office door swung open without a knock, I was sure it was going to be my secretary—she was the only one who ever came in here, but she was also polite—she would have knocked. My skin began to crawl in an all-too-familiar way when I looked up to see Daniel standing in front of my desk. There was something about this guy that made me sick—physically ill. My stomach began to sour as soon as he was in my presence.

  He dropped two photos and a backpack on my desk without as much as a word.

  I looked down at the photos, both of the same woman. She was beautiful—shoulder-length blonde hair and striking blue eyes. I looked back up at the man standing in front of my desk. This was pretty typical for the type of business I did now—finding people and getting them to do this or that. At least it wasn’t all politics anymore, but I had to admit, doing any favors for Daniel was about the last thing I wanted to do. “Who is it?”

  He looked down at the pictures, and I could have almost sworn he had a tear in his eye. If I hadn’t known Daniel was incapable of actually feeling, I would have been sure of it. “That’s Jenna.”

  That’s Jenna? She looked different. Older, more mature. But different, too. Like something was missing. I had to remind myself again that I didn’t really know the woman. Anything I thought was missing or not missing was all in my imagination. And she had to be different than I remembered her anyway. I remembered her as an eighteen-year-old woman who gave up a career doing something she was amazingly talented at for the man standing in front of me.

  I slid the photos back toward him. “Ancient history, Daniel.”

  He shook his head and pushed the backpack toward me. “All I want is to get her here. That’s all you have to do. I built her a house—a house with a piano in the living room that overlooks the ocean. Exactly what she always wanted. Just get her here and I’ll take care of everything else.” He looked at me again, his eyes almost pleading with me. “Please, Brandon. I’m a changed man. I just need her. I need her here.”

  I shook my head. “First of all, there is no way her father would go for this. We both know that.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll deal with
him. You just get her here…”

  I rolled my eyes. “Second of all, it’s been a year, Daniel. She’s moved on.”

  “She hasn’t. She wouldn’t. You don’t understand, man. We were in love…”

  I remembered the non-stop dialog on the plane when I’d brought him here. How much he loved her. How sorry he was for treating her the way he had. How he had to get her back. How she’d want him if she knew what was going on. I shook my head again. “Loving a woman like this makes you weak. Feeling like there is one woman out there for you—only one who can make you happy—makes you a weak man.” I walked to the window and looked out at the city. “Pick any other woman you want out there. There are millions of women here who don’t think you’re already dead.”

  “You don’t understand.” He started unloading stacks of cash from the backpack onto my desk. “This is just a deposit. Get her here, and I’ll pay you whatever you want. Anything you want.”

  I had to admit, it was a lot of money. I didn’t really need it, but it was a lot. And it would allow me to find another babysitter for Daniel. I wouldn’t even have to see her or meet her to get this job done. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a few calls, bribe a co-worker of hers to get her to a fake meeting here. It would almost be too easy, especially for that much money. And while taking advantage of a lovesick man wasn’t usually in my taste—this was Daniel we were talking about. Daniel, the asshole who treated people so poorly he had found himself banished here by his own father. Daniel, who had fucked his life up so badly that he was not only banished to his father’s home country—he was banished here without the love of his life. He deserved not to have her after the shit he had pulled. He deserved a lot of things, but the best thing of all would be to bankrupt him.

  “Ten million.”

  His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Brandon, that would be everything. I mean…”

  I shrugged. “Ten million or I’m not doing it.” I shrugged again. “You can do it yourself.”

  “I’d be dead for real if I tried to do it myself. I mean, there are people watching everything I do…”

  “Exactly. Ten million or no deal.”

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t make a sound. He looked … broken. He was a broken man and now he would also be broke. He’d get to feel exactly what it was like to be taken advantage of—to have someone you trust take everything away, just like he had done.

  But he’ll find comfort in the arms of his beloved Jenna… Shit. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve anyone.

  He extended his hand. “Deal. Ten million. I’ll get you half now—the other half when she gets here.”

  I couldn’t even force a smile to my face. There was nothing good about this transaction. Nothing in it for me but money. The fact that it felt so wrong didn’t help, either. “Great. Give me a couple weeks. I have to go to San Francisco anyway for some family business.”

  * * *

  I was right—it had almost been too easy. It was pure coincidence that Jenna Davis also lived in San Francisco now. I didn’t need to see her, though. I definitely didn’t need to feed that youthful obsession I’d once had with her. I hadn’t even thought about her, anyway. Well, except for the times that Daniel talked my ear off about her. And if the photos he had shown me in Japan were any indication, the woman wasn’t my type, anyway. Blondes had never really been my type, and blondes who could fall in love with some asshole like Daniel … definitely not my type. The fact that she had given up the one thing she loved—music—for a man like Daniel … I knew she wasn’t my type. Not anymore.

  My grandmother was losing it. Seeing her like this was heartbreaking and the crazy shit she was saying wasn’t even funny or cute anymore. I wasn’t going to go pick up some woman tonight just because she’d had some kind of “vision.” My grandmother wasn’t like that—she loved San Francisco for some unknown reason, but she sure as hell wasn’t one of those hippy-dippy types who had “visions.”

  I had rented an apartment for three months. I figured if she made it longer, I could always extend the lease, but I sure as hell didn’t want to live in a hotel for that long. And the place was nice and only a few blocks from the hospice. It was an easy walk and there was plenty to do nearby.

  I had already made the calls to set up Daniel’s fiancée—to get her back to him. Ex-fiancée. Whatever the hell she was. The spineless woman who had agreed to marry him for some reason I would never understand. I didn’t know what anyone could ever see in that man. Calling him a douche bag—my favorite term for him—was almost too kind. He was a dirt bag of the worst kind, and the way he treated women…

  But I was sure she deserved him. She was a Davis, after all. A Hennessey. She had evil blood in her veins, at least according to my grandmother. Evil blood and an evil father who had killed my parents, at least as far as my grandmother was concerned.

  I turned the corner to go back to my temporary apartment. My grandmother had told me I needed to go out tonight. That I would meet her. The One. The one who would give her the great-grandchildren she so desperately wanted. I breathed out a long sigh. There was no way I was going to meet “her,” whoever “she” was. Not tonight, anyway. Not with my grandmother dying in a hospital bed a few blocks away. And I didn’t want to pick up any more women in bars. Women in bars were desperate. Desperate for different things, sure, but desperate. And desperation was the last thing I needed.

  I walked past a sign and then turned around to look at it again. Watercolor Classes Tonight. I had always loved to paint when I was younger. I thought I was even pretty good at it for a while, but then life got in the way. But painting sounded a hell of a lot better than drinking tonight.

  And grandma never said where I’d meet The One.

  I signed up for the class and walked up the stairs to find a seat. I was one of the last people there and I had to sit in the back corner. I scanned the room—there was definitely not anyone here who wasn’t at least twice my age. My grandmother was wrong. I wasn’t going to meet “The One” tonight, but I was at least going to come out of this class with a painting to hang in her hospital room. I knew she would love it, even if she had been wrong about me meeting the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.

  And then she walked in the room. And when she sat down next to me—the last seat in the class—I thought I was going to lose it. My heart was beating out of my chest and I hadn’t even really seen her face. I knew it, though. I could feel it. I knew it the second she walked in the door, and it didn’t matter what she looked like or who she was. She was the woman my grandmother was talking about. There wasn’t even a question in my mind. It was her. She was The One.

  9

  Present Day

  Other than telling me to sit down, Brandon hadn’t spoken a word to me since we had entered the restaurant. I was still seething at what he had done. I just couldn’t understand it—he had to know what was coming. He let me walk in there like it had been my idea. The whole “dangerous” thing—that had been bullshit. Just a way to get me to demand to go, a way to get me there when he needed me there all along. He was no better than Daniel or my father, and in that moment, I hated all three of them.

  I sat with my arms folded across my chest, staring out the window on the long drive home. At least he wasn’t making me drive this late—not that I would have been able to sleep anyway. I just wasn’t going to deal with this right now. I’d go home and figure it all out in the morning. Maybe I could think of someone who could help me out of this mess, because I sure as hell couldn’t think of a way out myself.

  “I didn’t know.”

  I turned to face him, wondering what the hell he was talking about. We had just spent the last hour in silence—he hadn’t even said a word to me when we left the restaurant.

  “It really took you an hour to think of three words to say?” I turned back to the window.

  “I didn’t know he’d be there. I knew what your father wanted. I knew…”

  �
�You knew you screwed up. So … what? You thought tonight was it? Your night to be killed? That whole elimination bullshit? Was that supposed to happen tonight?” I could feel my breath trapped in my chest after I got the words out—the words I’d been thinking of for the past hour. There was just too much. I should have listened to him and should have taken a cab back to San Francisco, even if it would have cost an arm and a leg. I should never have gone to that meeting.

  “I knew what he wanted you there for, Jen.”

  Shit. Of course he had wanted me there. Brandon trying to get me to not go was really his way of protecting himself—it probably would have made things worse for him if I hadn’t been there. And I had been the one who had insisted on going.

  “I didn’t know Daniel was going to be there. I didn’t know anything about this … this resurrection thing. The last I heard, he’d gone off the rails. He was trying to get…”

  I finally turned to him and saw his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. “Wait. You need to tell me what the hell is going on, Brandon. Start at the beginning.”

  “The very beginning? The warm day in Miami beginning?” I’m pretty sure I saw a hint of a smile flash across his face.

  “Stop fucking with me, Brandon.” I leaned back in my seat, folding my arms across my chest again. I didn’t want him to know it, but I was pretty close to losing it and having a full-blown sobbing fit. “Start with why I can’t be trusted to know what’s going on.”