The Mistaken

by Nancy S Thompson

  “I told you. I didn’t go through with it.”

  “No, but you almost did.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Nick, our plan was to deliver that girl to Alexi and Dmitri. They’ve already sold her, for God’s sake. Just what the hell do you think was going to happen once they turned her over?”

  He rushed forward and got right up into my face. “That’s them, Tyler. They’re fucking monsters. You’re not. You don’t do that kind of shit. Even I wouldn’t do that kind of shit. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  He turned his back on me and walked away, and I felt shame wash over me again. I had no response. I sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed my hands along the back of my neck, shaking my head in despair.

  “That’s just it. I wasn’t thinking. I never planned any of it, believe me. I only wanted to scare her, you know. I wanted her to know what it felt like, to be frightened, not knowing whether she would live or die. When I saw her and thought she was Erin, I just…just…snapped. I don’t even remember making that decision. It’s all a blur. And now it’s too late. I can’t take it back. All I can do is protect her until I can somehow make this right, somehow come to terms with Alexi and Dmitri.”

  He spun back around to face me. “Terms?” he asked with a short chuckle. “You’re joking, right?” He shook his head. “Tyler, there’s no coming to terms.” He pointed toward the bathroom. “You deliver that girl unless you want us both dead.”

  I shook my head. “No way. That’s never going to happen, Nick. I can’t do that. You know it. I need you to call Alexi and let him know I have to speak with him before I drive back down there. Don’t tell him what’s happened. Just see if you can find out how much he was paid for the girl. I have all that money Jill and I saved for the down payment, and there’s Jill’s life insurance. I can repay him, with interest, if he wants. He won’t be out a dime. Shit, he’ll make money on this deal. A lot of it.”

  I tried to reason it all out, knowing full well how desperate it sounded. Nick shook his head again and backed away from me with his hands up.

  “No way, Tyler! You’re fucking mad. Alexi will never go for it. Dmitri’s already made a deal. He can’t back out now. We have no choice. We either deliver that girl or we find Erin and deliver her. There’s no way we have the time for that now. We don’t even know where she is, and we’ve got a deadline. Two days, Tyler. Two. Do you get that? They’ll be gunning for us if we don’t turn her over to them in two fucking days.” He sighed and spun around in place, stomping his foot on the floor. “Godammit! We are so fucked.”

  “Just try, Nick. Please. Stall for a little time. I’ll leave with the girl. We’ll hide for a few days until I can work it out. Please, just call him. I need to talk to Hannah, try to persuade her to leave with me. I can work this out, I swear I can, but…I need your help. Please do this one thing for me. This one thing. Please.”

  Nick stared at me for a long moment then swallowed hard, finally nodding in agreement. I smiled in relief then walked to the bathroom door and knocked quietly.

  “Hannah? May I come in?” I tried the handle but it was locked. “Hannah, unlock the door, please. We need to talk.” There was no response. “Come on, open the door. Don’t make me break it down.”

  “What if she escaped out the window?” Nick wondered aloud.

  “Escaped? Come on, Nick, I’m not exactly holding her hostage.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe she isn’t too clear on that point, Ty.”

  I panicked for a moment. “Go check out back and see if she got out,” I ordered, waving my hand toward the front door. “Hurry!”

  Nick ran out the front door and I turned back to the bathroom.

  “Hannah, open this door or I swear to God, I’ll kick it in.” Still no response. Maybe she had escaped out the window. “Hannah! Open the door!”

  I gave her only ten seconds longer then threw my shoulder into the door, splintering the frame and sending the door hammering into the wall. I saw her the instant I entered the bathroom, sitting in the tub with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them.

  “For God’s sake, Hannah, why didn’t you open the door?”

  She turned to face me. She was crying again. “What have you done?” she asked in a small, frightened voice before resting her forehead on her knees.

  I stepped into the tiny bathroom and knelt down next to the tub. “I know what you heard out there scares you, but…I promise, I won’t let anyone take you or touch you in any way. Hannah, please—”

  “I don’t think you can keep that promise,” she said quietly as she looked me straight in the eye. “You’ve destroyed me...for good this time.”

  Her words cut deep. She was right. But it wouldn’t stop me from trying.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you home again safely. Whatever it takes, Hannah,” I promised again, knowing that even if it cost me my life, I would pay to see it kept. And it very well might.

  Nick burst back into the room, panting. “I couldn’t find her...” he wheezed. “Oh, she’s here. Good. Um, Ty, can I talk to you for a minute? In private?” He motioned with his head for me to follow.

  I walked out to meet him. He looked nervous. Spooked. His hands were fidgeting, and he kept peering out through the drawn curtains.

  “We need to get out of here,” he urged. “I’m not sure, but I think they might be watching us. I thought I saw one of Dmitri’s cars out there by the gas station. You take me back to my car then we can split up. I’ll lead those guys away while you leave with the girl. Head to Cali on the back roads. Take it slow, and stay off the grid as much as you can. I’ll take I-5 straight down and intervene with Alexi as best I can.”

  I grabbed his wrist. “No, Nick! You stay away from him. You don’t need to talk to him in person. Just use your phone. I don’t want him using you as leverage.”

  “Leverage? What are you talking about?” He wrenched free of my grasp and backed away. “Why would he do that?”

  I groaned and ran my hand over my face. “Okay, look, I need to level with you about something, but…I don’t want you to flip out.”

  He looked at me with suspicion narrowing his eyes. “What the fuck have you done this time, Tyler?”

  “Well, when I negotiated this deal with Dmitri, I persuaded him to let you go, to forgive your debt, if I delivered Erin as promised.”

  “You did what?” Nick’s face flushed red. “Bloody fucking hell, Ty. You have no right to stick your fucking nose in my business. I’m not some child to be taken care of.” He paced back and forth across the room. “Godammit, Tyler! Do you realize what you’ve done? I’m a fucking dead man, for sure. Shit!”

  I was so focused on getting him free that I hadn’t considered the possibility of failure.

  “The fact that you have to worry about your life is reason enough for me to want you out,” I explained. “Can’t you see that?”

  “I don’t need your protection. I know what I’m doing, and I know how to deal with these people. You have no fucking clue. They don’t play games, Tyler. It’s all about image and control. If you fuck them over, they’ll take you out if for no other reason than you made them look bad. Something you should know better than anyone.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees. He ran his hands through his hair over and over. “This guy Dmitri was doing a favor for—the one who bought the girl—Sergeyev? He’s fucking big time, from the goddamn motherland. You cannot mess with these Russians, Tyler. They’re mean fucks. For God’s sake, I warned you. I told you this was complicated, that there were things you didn’t know. What am I supposed to do to hold them off now, huh? What?” He looked at me like I had the answer, but I did not.

  “Right. Okay then. Well…you’re just going to have to stay out of sight until I can fix this on my own.”

  He jumped to his feet. “You can’t fix this, Tyler, on your own or otherwise. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We
are both dead. And that girl in there,” he said, once more pointing towards the bathroom, “she’s going to wish she was when they’re finished with her. You think what you did to her was bad?” He shook his head. “Just get the fuck out of here, both of you. I don’t even want to know where you’re going.”

  “What about your car? I left it up at Maguire’s.”

  He just glared at me. “Get out, Ty. Stay away from home. And stay the fuck away from me, too.” He grabbed the keys to his Jeep, and left without looking back.

  I ran around the room collecting all of our stuff, throwing everything into whatever bags I could find. I carried it all out to Hannah’s BMW and threw it in the back. I returned and stood in the shattered bathroom doorway. Hannah was still in the tub; she hadn’t moved an inch.

  I reached my hand out to her. “We have to go,” I said.

  She glanced at my hand and shook her head. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m better off on my own. You’re way too dangerous. You’re drunk. You don’t think things through, and you’re going to get us all killed.”

  I stepped closer and offered my hand again, my expression stern. “Hannah, please don’t mistake my regret for weakness or a lack of resolve. Now please, let’s go.”

  When she still refused, I reached down and grabbed her arm, yanking her out forcibly. She gasped and struggled against me, but I held on tight. She protested as I dragged her through the door and closed it, pulling her along to her car. I pushed her in through the open driver’s door and moved in behind her.

  “Slide over,” I ordered and closed the car door behind me. “As you might have discerned, this situation has become more complicated than expected. If we have any hope at all of getting out of this alive, you will do as I say. This is not a game.”

  “You’re right. It’s not a game,” she screamed. “It’s my life!”

  “Yes, and it’s in my hands. It’s up to me to make sure you have the opportunity to live it!” I started the car and pulled out of the lot. I spied Nick walking alongside the busy road in the opposite direction. “I’m going to make sure we all do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hannah

  In one moment of madness, my life had turned upside down. I was barreling down the freeway with a man I didn’t know, who had beaten and nearly violated me then apologized for both as he wept over his dead wife’s memory. I didn’t know where we were going or if I would live to see tomorrow. He had intended to trade me in payment for some kind of debt, and though he promised otherwise, his life and that of his brother depended on him doing just that. I feared I was being delivered to the Devil at the very gates of Hell.

  In what world did this kind of thing happen? I was trapped in a situation I could not navigate through, at least not on my own. The only person who might be able to help me was the very same man who had thrust me upon this road in the first place. My mind was spinning with fear and uncertainty. All I could do was trust my instincts and pray they didn’t let me down. But was that enough?

  The whole situation was spiraling out of control. The tension between the two brothers told me so. They were both scared and unsure of how to proceed. Tyler seemed committed to keeping me away from the men he’d been dealing with, but I wasn’t altogether convinced that his remorse, as profound as it appeared, was enough to keep me safe. His brother seemed more than eager to sacrifice me in order to save his own neck. I had no idea what was going to happen or what they planned on doing to settle the dangerous dispute that loomed ahead. Tyler wasn’t sharing any information with me. In fact, he wasn’t talking at all.

  As the silence grew heavy, I turned my thoughts to his wife. She was the root of all this. I was curious about her, about their relationship. He certainly seemed lost without her. I understood that, the rage he felt, the loneliness. I even understood his bitterness, of having everything that made you who you were stripped away. It’s demoralizing to lose everything that defines who you are. Beck had cheated me out of that, of knowing exactly who I was—Mrs. Beckham Maguire—but I had contributed to it. I pulled away, was distant, remote. I shouldn’t have been surprised; the signs were all there. This man, however, never saw it coming. Blindsided as he was, it’s no wonder he chose the path he did. If I’d been given the opportunity, would I have given myself over to vengeance as he had?

  I saw the regret in his eyes, the remorse that consumed him, and the pain of knowing his decision was more costly than he could have ever imagined possible. Down deep, I didn’t want to believe he was a monster. I wanted to believe it was just a reaction to what life had thrown him. I knew only too well that life could change in the blink of an eye and take you down with it—hard—as it spiraled out of control. I was living, breathing proof. And so, I thought, was he.

  I also knew weakness, the kind he had fallen victim to, which promised bittersweet numbness in the wake of extreme, debilitating pain. Grief can do strange things to the mind and spirit, like make you hate the one person you promised to love most. I understood it all too well, and I knew his experience was far worse than anything I had suffered. As close as he’d come, and as much as it frightened me, I would rather be raped a thousand times than lose the one person who meant more to me than life itself. There would be no meaning to anything if Conner were ever taken from me. I would collapse onto myself, just as this man had done. I understood it all perfectly.

  Yet if I was to trust this man with my life, I needed to understand him—his character, not his motives. Most people don’t stray too far from the core of who they are. Perhaps the severity of his reaction was the very measure of the love he held for his wife. Could someone who loved so greatly be a monster or simply be capable of doing monstrous things?

  Then again, maybe I shouldn’t believe him. Maybe this was all a con, part of his grand scheme, to make me believe he wasn’t the monster he’d already exposed himself to be. So that I would trust him, go along willingly, even feel sorry for him. A loud voice in my head told me to fear him. It was screaming, flailing, jumping up and down, warning me to run. Run, godammit, run! That was the smart thing to do, wasn’t it? To protect myself? You run from what tries to destroy you, what causes you pain. But there was something else there. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but whatever it was, it made me believe him. No man could fake that kind of pain, that level of remorse and regret. And he wouldn’t really need to, would he? I was at his mercy, after all. He had the gun. He had control. Yet he had begged for my forgiveness, and now he wanted to protect me from the very enemy he’d unleashed. Why would he do that if he weren’t truly sorry, if he didn’t want to save me? Why would he ask his dead wife to forgive him?

  Yes, I agreed with the voice inside me. I did fear him, but my instincts were screaming, as well, telling me I had no better option than to trust him. In spite of everything he had done to me, my heart held a degree of empathy for him, telling me to be compassionate toward his tortured soul. There but for the grace of God...

  I wouldn’t fight him. I believed his need for redemption was the only thing that promised me deliverance. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, giving myself over to whatever fate held for me.

  What choice did I really have anyway?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Hannah

  The longer we sat in the car together, the more uncomfortable it became. The silence was like a ticking clock, its volume so loud. It drove me closer to madness with each passing second. I needed to understand what was going to happen in the few days he said we’d be gone. I looked over at him, and though I know he must have noticed, he didn’t turn to face me. His eyes were glued to the freeway. The fact that he tried to ignore me in the small confines of the car unnerved me even more.

  I cleared my throat. “So, what’s the plan?” I asked.

  He broke his concentration on the road and glanced over at me. “The plan?”

  “Yeah, your plan. Some kind of contingency. Surely you’ve thought that far ahead.”

  Hi
s brow rose high above his startling blue eyes. “No, I’m afraid not.” He turned back to the road again. His jaw ticked repeatedly.

  “Okay then,” I tried again. “Where are we going?”

  “Forward, as best as I can tell,” he replied. I didn’t appreciate his mockery and my expression told him so. “Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood,” he added.

  “Look, Tyler, all things considered, you can’t expect me to just trust you. I need to know where we’re going and what we’re going to do once we get there. I think I have the right to know.”

  He studied me for a moment and agreed with a nod. “Yeah, you’re right, you do, but…I don’t have an answer for you. I’m inclined to head back to California.”

  “California. For God’s sake, why? If that’s where your brother’s friends are, isn’t that more than a little dangerous? Especially for me?”

  “I won’t let them get anywhere near you, I promise. But I can’t ignore them either. We’ll just take a longer route. Give Nick time to smooth things over a little.”

  “Your brother didn’t sound too confident about being able to smooth things over.” And I wasn’t feeling very confident about letting either of them determine my future.

  “Yeah well, I think he has more influence than he knows, and once his associates realize that bargaining will net them something, rather than nothing, they’ll renegotiate. They’re businessmen, after all,” he said then paused briefly. “But you’re right. We do need some kind of plan.”

  “Okay then. What is it? What’s your brilliant plan? Because it’s certainly not going back to California.”

  He shot me an exasperated look, and I was pleased I could get under his skin, even just a little.

  “Well, first we need some cash.” He looked over at me expectantly. “Like Nick said, we need to stay off the grid as much as possible. They’ll know to be looking for me, so I can’t use my bank cards. They don’t know about you though. At least not yet.” He cocked his eyebrow, as if willing me to understand his point.