Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season

by Peak, Renna

  Krystal’s mouth dropped open and she stood there, staring at me for a long moment. “Marian sent us here, Jenna.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, bullshit. You expect me to believe that? That is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. Marian doesn’t give a shit about me.” I shook my head. “Marian only cares about her legacy. She only cares about the Hennessey family name. And I’m not a Hennessey.”

  The two looked at each other again and I knew that was it—there was something about this story that had to do with the Hennessey family name.

  “What?” I looked between the two of them. “What does this have to do with her? With Marian?”

  “It’s a long story, Jenna. If you want to come with us, we have a long plane ride. I’ll explain everything I can when we get there. But we really do need to get going. Or you do. One way or another, that car is being taken away from here and you can’t stay. This is a death trap for you here.”

  “It’s small, but it isn’t a death trap.” Even if I had to cook for the next few months while I waited for Brandon to come back, I knew I wouldn’t die. Not unless I burned down the cabin or something. But I knew it wasn’t a death trap.

  Krystal blew out another long breath, and I could tell she was getting frustrated with me. “You’re a sitting duck here. There are people who want you dead now that Ryan knows about you—”

  “Knows about what? Just say it—no one is here right now. It’s still dark outside. Christ, it isn’t even six in the morning—”

  She interrupted me that time. “He knows who your mother is. Your biological mother. And that means you aren’t safe. Anywhere, but definitely not here.”

  “Then why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? I was here—they gave me that drug that Daniel gave me. It knocked me on my ass for almost a full day. He could have killed me then. He could have put a bullet in my head—”

  “Jenna. I can’t give you one answer that’s going to answer all your questions. And it isn’t Ryan that will want you dead. Your being alive is much more valuable to him. It’s why he left you here.” She squared her jaw. “We’re wasting time. I need an answer from you. You can come with us—we’ll take you to Maine and you’ll get your answers. Or you can leave on your own. Your call.”

  “Maine? What in the hell am I going to do in Maine?” Maine wasn’t my home—that was Marian’s home. I hadn’t ever really even been to that compound—I went there when her mother died, but even with all the summers she spent there, I hadn’t ever been invited. I wasn’t a Hennessey, so it all made sense now.

  “She sent us, Jenna. Marian sent us.” Krystal nodded. “She wants you to come back with us. But like we told you, we’re not here to kidnap you. You’ll have to choose this. You’ll have to make the choice to come with us.”

  “This is impossible. You said that someone who cared sent you here. Marian doesn’t care about me. She wishes I was dead—”

  Krystal interrupted me with her sigh. I probably was being impossible—it all was just very hard to believe. “Marian doesn’t want you dead or we wouldn’t be here. She said she had an epiphany the other night when you were at dinner with her. She said you’d know what she was talking about, because she knew this was how you’d react.”

  “How I’d react? How else would I react? The woman hates me.” I didn’t even know what the hell she was talking about, anyway. Unless this had something to do with me bringing up Mason Agostino and asking my father if Marian was going to be asked to raise him now that his mother was dead. That had to be it—that had to be the reason for her “epiphany,” whatever that meant. I shook my head again, trying to clear my thoughts. “Is this because of the new love child? Because of Mason?”

  The lift of Krystal’s brow was all the confirmation I needed. This was about the new illegitimate kid. This whole thing had to be because she really was afraid that she’d be called upon to raise another child of my father’s who wasn’t hers. I couldn’t blame her, really. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her, being asked to raise a child as her own when it was conceived through an affair with another woman. I just didn’t understand why she had hated me for it for all these years. Because I hadn’t asked to be born. I hadn’t asked my father to bring me home to her. And I was getting pretty tired of being punished by Marian Hennessey for the mere fact that I had been born.

  “What does she want? With me?”

  Krystal shot Cade a look and he turned and gazed at the wall. There was something about the interaction that told me that whatever it was that she wanted, it had very little to do with me at all.

  She looked back over at me, staring at me for a long moment. “I wish I could tell you that, Jenna. I wish I could tell you exactly what it is that she wants with you. But I don’t know for sure.”

  “And you’re working with her? Not with my father? Both of you?” My gaze darted between them again.

  She frowned. “I’ve worked with your father for a long time, Jenna. You know that. I’ve put up with a lot of stuff from him. Done a lot of things I wish I had never done. I’ve made a lot of bad choices myself. I can’t really blame Brandon for a lot of things he’s done, because I’ve done them, too. But you need to know that this time—this time, it was too much. This time Marian approached me and I agreed.” She looked over at Cade and back at me. “We both agreed. Cade and I both agreed—your father went too far this time.”

  “With Mason?” My brow wrinkled under my confusion. “With what happened to his mother?”

  She tilted her head. “There’s so much more to it than that, Jenna. So much more.” She let out another long sigh. “I’ve done a lot of things for that man, thinking he would be president someday. I thought I was doing what was right, but I wasn’t. I was wrong. We’ve all been wrong, and it’s time for this to end. It’s time for all of this to end, and Marian wants you to join us.” She glanced at Cade again, nodding, before returning her gaze to mine. “It’s time for us all to work together to end this. To end him.”

  My heart nearly exploded out of my chest, it was racing so fast. “End him?”

  She shook her head. “Not him personally. His reign. To end this long reign of terror. It’s time, Jenna. We want you to help us. You’ve been the biggest victim of his in all of this, and it’s time for it to end.”

  She was right. I didn’t want to think of myself that way—as my father’s victim—but I had been. Even before I was born, I had been. Too many people had been. And I wasn’t sure at all what I could do to help—if there even was anything I could do. I felt so helpless most of the time that I didn’t see what I could do at all. But I gave her the only answer that seemed right at the time.

  “I’m in.”

  7

  Today

  I didn’t know how to answer her. I didn’t know why the words had fallen out of my mouth in the first place—that Marian was about to castrate me, or whatever the fuck I had said. It was the again part that I couldn’t go back on. That was the part that should have stayed in my mouth. That was the one word that had betrayed me to Jen.

  I couldn’t just look over at her and tell her, even though I wanted to. I wanted nothing more than to sit her down and explain to her every fucking thing I had ever done in my life, no matter how horrible or horrifying those things were. I wanted to be able to explain to her that two wrongs didn’t make a right—but that sometimes ten wrongs did. Or a thousand. Sometimes it took a thousand wrong things to fix the one thing that was right. And whatever else was going on here—I knew what Jen and I had was right. And it didn’t matter how many wrong things I had done in my life—I was going to make all of this right.

  I just wanted to hold her in my arms. Forever. I wanted to make love to her and walk on the beach with her and sit at her feet, listening to her play the piano for the rest of our lives. I didn’t need anything more complicated than that. Everything I wanted with her—for her was simple. And I didn’t know or understand how everything in our lives had come to be so
fucking complicated.

  I couldn’t even turn to face her. I couldn’t even look at her, but I knew that I had to give her some explanation now. I needed to tell her that yes, I had met her mother before. And yes, she had definitely kicked me in the balls—not literally, but she might as well have. And she hated me for many of the same reasons she hated Jen—it wasn’t that she hated either of us, per se, it was more the resentment. It was more what the other people related to us had done to her that she resented. And I wasn’t about to have that conversation with her, not when there was so much other bullshit hanging in the air. That was a conversation for a different day—a day when we were lying on the beach somewhere, remembering how fucked up this had all been. Remembering how much we had gone through to be together. That day—that would be the one when I would tell her why her mother resented me. Not that Marian was even her mother—and that was also a conversation I wasn’t prepared to have with her yet. I had no idea how I would ever be able to explain to her who her real mother was or how Jen’s life was now a fucked up mess because of her.

  It wasn’t really for me to tell her, anyway. This was a conversation she should have with her father. This was something he should have explained to her a long time ago—long before she was sucked into this mess. Long before she ever met me.

  I cleared my throat. “I’ve met her before.”

  “I gathered that.”

  I couldn’t even turn to face her. I was sure she would cry. I was positive that her emotions would overflow—this day had already been so long and so full of emotion, that I wasn’t sure how much more she would be able to take before she cracked. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, either.

  “And you’re not going to tell me anything else?”

  I turned to her. There were no tears in her eyes—nothing that would have conveyed she was upset about this revelation, if she even was. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t a quivering mess over that news. I knew I had betrayed her, even though she had no idea what had happened. “I did a favor for her once. A long time ago.” It was a long time ago—sort of. It felt like a long time ago.

  She nodded. “Oh. And you didn’t think that was knowledge you might share with me? You didn’t think that might be relevant given my history with Marian?”

  She was pissed. She wasn’t a quivering, upset mess of tears—she was angry. Rightfully angry, but her reaction still surprised me. With everything she had been through with that woman, I hadn’t expected this reaction from her. Maybe I had just been around Melissa for too long. Maybe it was that Melissa was so quick to tears and drove me so fucking insane with her bullshit crying spells that I had forgotten that Jen wasn’t like that. She wasn’t quick to tears or quick to lose control of her emotions. I felt like a dick thinking it, but it was something that drove me nuts about women. And maybe because it had been nine months since I had seen her, I had forgotten that about her—that she wasn’t like that.

  She shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her.

  I wanted to reach over and pull her into my arms, but there was so much. I knew what we really needed was to have a conversation. A long, full conversation where I laid out exactly what I had done. Everything I had done with nothing left out. I knew she needed to know. I knew I needed to tell her. Because I needed her to know my side of things—why I had done all the things I had done. My side of the story, just like she had said. And I knew I wouldn’t hold anything back this time. I just didn’t want to do it in front of Cade. Not in front of him. Not when he’d had a hand in getting us to this point—not when I still blamed him for my having lost her in the first place. People thought I played multiple sides, but no one ever suspected him. And he had full access to Jen. Until now—until today. Today was the day that this would end. I would make sure of it.

  “Jen, I’m sorry. I promise you that as soon as we get to wherever it is that we’re going, we’ll sit down and talk this out. I’m going to tell you everything.”

  Cade glanced into the back seat, giving me a small smile before turning his gaze back to the road.

  I could have killed him with my bare hands. I actually could have killed him—I just didn’t want to get us into a car accident at this speed. And he knew it—I could see it on his face. He was going to pay for doing this to us. They all were. Cade, Senator Davis, Marian Hennessey. They would all pay for taking her away from me. I just needed to figure out how I was going to get her away from them.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure how much I could say to him. I wasn’t sure how much I could reveal without blowing everything. Brandon had worked for my father for years. Just like his sister had. She might have changed allegiances when everything happened, but I still wasn’t sure if he had. The ring he had in his pocket gave me hope, but I still wasn’t sure he would be on my side and not on my father’s. After all, I was still nearly certain that my father was signing his paychecks. I was still almost positive that he had been working for my father while he was trying to find me this whole time. Because there was no one out there with more to gain from finding me than my father.

  I wanted to tell him everything—I wanted to tell him how Cade wasn’t working for my father any longer. That he hadn’t taken a bribe that night. I wanted to explain everything to him, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him with everything. I wasn’t sure he would even understand what was going on. I knew he would never understand that I was just as involved in this game as he was now, maybe even more involved. And I knew he still didn’t get why I had been hiding in Maine—why I had changed my identity and hidden in plain sight.

  I knew how this night was going to go. I knew that it would be too late to do anything once we got there—got to Marian’s family compound. Her butler would tell us that she had retired for the evening and that we would deal with everything in the morning. And that was good—that almost brought a smile to my face. Because then I could invite Brandon into my bed and we could have one more night together. One more night of bliss before Marian did whatever she was going to do to him.

  And maybe we could figure something out tonight. I would try to tell him enough. I would tell him what Krystal and Marian and I had been doing over the last nine months. I would only tell him enough so that he would understand. I wouldn’t tell him everything—just enough. And if this was real—if there was some chance that he was really here for me and not on some errand from my father, he could work with us. Maybe he would want to work with us. He was good at this kind of thing. Krystal knew it, too. Brandon was better at this game than any of us, and he could help. He could help us bring down the senator. He had just as much reason to want it as any of the rest of us. Probably more.

  I had learned so much over the past nine months. I had learned more than I had ever wanted to know—and I wasn’t scared anymore. I mean, I was still frightened from time to time, and having Brandon around now was definitely a little scary—but I wasn’t scared all the time like I used to be. Having people trust me with information had almost been a godsend—I was definitely in more danger knowing it, but I didn’t feel like a victim. I felt like I had a little control over my life now. Even though I’d had to hide because I was Jenna Davis, I was more in control of my life now than I had ever been.

  I looked over at him. I could see he was surprised that I was angry about it. I’m not sure how he thought I’d react to the news that he had worked for my mother, but my anger had already evaporated. If he had worked for her before, he might be willing to work for her again. And that meant he could work with me. It meant we could finally be together. It meant I didn’t have to hide from him—even if the whole thing with my biological mother put both of us in danger, we could hide together if they still wanted me to hide. And that seemed a hell of a lot better than hiding alone.

  “We’ll work this out, Brandon. As soon as we get there. And Cade won’t listen, will you?” I glanced into the front seat.

  “Nope, kiddo. You two do what you need to do.�
��

  I smiled over at him, tilting my head to force him to meet my gaze. “Brandon, there is nothing that you can tell me right now that is going to make me hate you. I don’t care what you’ve done or how you think you’ve hurt me or my family. There is nothing—nothing—you can tell me that is going to make me hate you.”

  His expression softened. “When we get there, I’m going to tell you everything.”

  I nodded. “Me, too.”

  He reached over and pulled my hand into his, lowering his voice and tilting his head toward me so that Cade wouldn’t overhear. “And after everything else I plan to do to you tonight, you will never want to hide from me again.”

  I felt the heat rise into my cheeks. I had to close my eyes for a moment as the warmth settled in my belly, my body aching for his touch.

  This was what I had missed. I had missed everything about him, but I especially missed how he knew what to say to make me feel like this. How a single sentence could make my body tingle and almost send me over the edge at the thought of him fulfilling that promise.

  And I had every intention of letting him fulfill it. As many times as we could before our summons to go see Marian in the morning.

  8

  The place was a fucking palace.

  I had never been here, and it was my understanding that not many people had even been invited here since Marian’s father had been assassinated a long time ago. Before Marian was even born.