Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season

by Peak, Renna

  I groaned in response. “No.” My fists clenched, my fingernails biting into the skin of my palms. “That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to tell you that we’re more alike than different. That we’ve been through the same things.”

  He sat up straight and looked around the room before turning back to me. “Do the walls have ears here or something? Are you afraid someone is listening in? Because I can tell you that your father doesn’t have any listening devices in this place. I don’t think he ever even comes here.”

  My jaw clenched and I had to close my eyes for a moment. “And as delightful as it is that you seem to know more about my father than I do, that isn’t what I was getting at.”

  “Is it your mother? You think she’s listening?”

  “God, no. Can you just listen? Just for a second?” My muscles were almost rigid from my frustration. Nothing had changed about how Brandon reacted when he felt backed into a corner—he was like some wild animal who would fight and claw his way out, no matter how much someone was trying to help him.

  He stood up, raking both hands through his hair. “I am listening.” He turned away from me for a long moment before turning back, breathing out a long sigh. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”

  “I know. It wasn’t how I imagined it, either.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed again. “I guess I’m relieved to know you were at least thinking about this. Our reunion. That you actually believed it was going to happen.”

  I reached my hand out to him, and he took it. “I thought about it every day, Brandon. Every single day. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about you. I swear to God.”

  He nodded, giving my hand a squeeze.

  “And I meant what I said about telling you everything I know, even though I’m fairly sure this information is all going to go back to my father.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a long sigh. “It isn’t. You’re just going to have to trust me on that one.”

  I nodded. And I knew he was right—I was going to have to trust him. I didn’t have any other options. I didn’t trust Marian or my father. I also didn’t trust the people they surrounded themselves with, but I knew that I had to trust him. I had to give up whatever reservations I’d had and let them go. Trusting Brandon was the only choice I had now.

  4

  “Tell me what you know about her.”

  This was the secret—the big deal that no one felt I was capable of handling. No one until the day Krystal and Cade showed up at the cabin in Montana, anyway.

  “Fine.” I let out a shaky breath, pulling my hand back to wrap my arms around my legs again. “But I think there are parts of this story that you don’t know. And I need you to not freak out.”

  He chuckled. “Jen, I know this story backward and forward. I’ve known it longer than I’ve known you.”

  I shook my head, narrowing my gaze. “You know, I should be pissed at you for saying that. I should be so angry with you—”

  “But you aren’t. You aren’t because someone finally told you and you understand why I couldn’t. You understand the danger you’re in … could be in.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll fill in any blanks if I can, but I need to know what you know.”

  I shook my head, turning my gaze back to the window. “I know Amanda and I shared a biological mother.”

  “And…?”

  I turned back to face him. “And what? That isn’t enough? I’m my little brother’s aunt and sister and that isn’t enough?”

  He shook his head. “Whoever told you the story left out a few parts if that’s all you know.”

  “I know her name was Angela—my mother. I know she died a long time ago—”

  “You think she died a long time ago.”

  My stomach twisted around itself and I was glad I hadn’t eaten in a while, because I was fairly sure I would have puked if I had. “What is that supposed to mean? I think?”

  “You really haven’t been paying much attention, have you?” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know if she’s dead or not, but I wouldn’t put it past anyone to have faked her death given what she did. Given who her husband was at the time.” He shook his head. “Christ, Jen, who do you think Daniel was trying to sell you to when he kidnapped you?”

  Tears stung behind my eyes. I had sworn I wasn’t going to cry about this. This wasn’t new to me anymore and there were no more tears left for me to shed. My biological mother had cheated on her husband with my father. Her husband just happened to be in prison at the time. Raul Agostino had ties not just to organized crime, but to almost every political family in the country. And my father had knocked up his wife with me while he was in prison. There had never been another choice but for her to give me to my father and pray for the best. I still didn’t know for sure how my father had managed to convince Marian that claiming me as her own was a good idea, but it had worked. For a while. Until other things came into play—like Amanda’s affair with my father. Krystal had explained that it had to have been some kind of vengeance-seeking on her part—that Amanda was trying to somehow get back at my father and make her step-father happy at the same time by getting pregnant with the senator’s child. It was twisted—I would give her that. But Amanda’s choices had brought about her own demise—she played too many sides against each other. Hers had been a clear example of why being caught in the middle was so dangerous. When both sides had had enough, her death was the only option. Her carelessness and greed would have brought down both families. I knew my father had no love for the Agostinos, and other than wanting to bury the hatchet, no interest in having any dealings with them at all. But then he had fathered a child with Amanda. And Krystal was sure that he’d had no idea at the time that she was in any way connected to the Agostinos.

  “Jen, there aren’t many people out there who can keep you safe if they decide they want to come after you. But I can. If you tell your father—”

  My eyes widened and I turned back to face him. “You can? I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but you didn’t do that great a job the last time you were supposed to protect me.”

  He shook his head, setting his jaw. “Ryan was never after you. He was after me. I had something he wanted.”

  I lifted a brow. “And do you still?”

  He shook his head again. “No.”

  I blew out a long breath. “And you’re not willing to share what it was he wanted?”

  “Jen…” He shook his head, pausing for a long moment. “He wanted information I had. That’s it. I gave it to him and he let me go.”

  “And that information was…?” I gave him an expectant look.

  I saw his nostrils flare for only a moment. “The location of something he wanted. Something we both wanted. We each knew a piece of a puzzle and…” He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. “Christ, it sounds like the plot of a bad movie.” He opened his eyes and looked into mine. “It was money, basically. That was all that was really important about it. Money and a small amount of power. Nothing I couldn’t live without. Nothing that was worth leaving you alone in Montana.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “He left me with that little bitch you used to call a friend. I convinced Melissa to help me and she did. I gave him what he wanted and she helped me get back to the cabin. That’s all that’s important.”

  “Except that was why he stabbed you in the first place.” My brow furrowed again. “So it was worth getting stabbed over, but it wasn’t worth leaving me over?” I let out a sigh. “You know what? This doesn’t matter at all in the end. This isn’t worth fighting about.”

  “I could not agree with you more. Seriously.” A smile flashed briefly across his face. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

  “No. Nothing is cleared up. Not about that. I still don’t see how you can protect me if the Agostinos suddenly decide that they need to seek some kind of revenge on my father. I’m a de
ad woman if that happens—we both know that.”

  He shook his head. “No. What I gave Ryan—what I gave up for his family—they owe me now. They may have done a lot of dirty things, but they live by their word. It’s all they have.”

  “It’s all any of us have, really.” I turned back to the window. Telling him the next part of this was going to destroy him. I knew it somewhere inside myself, and I felt like my guts were shredding themselves into pieces. I could only think about how devastated I had been when I found out Marian’s secret that night. How I had almost let that information destroy me. I knew it was going to do the same thing to Brandon, and I didn’t know how to soften the blow.

  “Who has been hiding you? And how? I need to know…” I turned to see him raking his hand through his hair again.

  I lifted a brow. “This isn’t really your question, though, right? This is the one my father sent you up here to have answered.”

  He winced, and I knew that I had hit the nail upon the head.

  “Why does my father care about Daniel?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s my turn. I get to ask the next question—it’s only fair.”

  “I never said anything about playing fair, Brandon. And I didn’t think that phrase was even in your vocabulary.”

  Whatever it was that had been on his face—the guilt and anguish—melted into a smile. “You always could see right through me, you know.”

  I returned the grin. “What can I say? It’s a gift.” I sucked in another breath—the only answer I really craved tonight was what Daniel had on Brandon and my father that kept them both at his feet. “Now, about Daniel…”

  “I know where he is. And he’s not dead—there hasn’t been another faked death, and he won’t be coming back to bother you for a long time. If ever.”

  “Really?” I wished that I could feel some sense of relief, but I didn’t. I didn’t really believe the words that were coming from his mouth. It was all almost too rehearsed—too perfect. There was something that just smacked of insincerity.

  “You don’t believe me.” He tore his gaze away from mine, staring out the window behind me. “I don’t blame you. For not believing me, I mean. I don’t think I’ve ever done a damned thing to make you trust me. I never really understood why you ever did.”

  “Because you asked me to.”

  He nodded, returning his gaze to mine. “I don’t know what he did. Honestly. I don’t know how the whole faked death situation came about. I know that your father asked me to help and I did. He asked me to keep tabs on him for a while in Japan, and I did that, too. I helped with the cover-up, with faking the accident scene. I helped get him out of the country. But I never knew what it was that he did and I never asked. There are some things that are just better not to know. My gut says this is one of them.” He reached out to touch my hand that was clenched again into a fist. “You’re just going to have to trust that it’s better not to know. And if I could go back in time and have you never find out he was alive, I’d do it in a heartbeat. If I could undo a lot of things, I would.”

  “Okay.” There wasn’t much else to say. It wasn’t as though I could argue with him about it—there were many, many things I had learned over the past nine months that I wished I could un-know now. I had spent most of my life with my head buried in the sand, but when I pulled it out and looked around, the sand seemed like it had been a pretty great place to have my head buried. Things only became more difficult, especially with the kind of business that Brandon did for others. He did the work that no one else wanted to do—cleaned up the messes that other people made. And the way he accomplished those tasks wasn’t always above board. Or legal.

  “Really? Just like that?” He lifted a brow. “No, ‘Tell me what you knew and when you knew it?’”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ve spent a lot of time the past few years telling myself I didn’t want to know—that I didn’t care. And when I realized I did and I started seeing things…” I shook my head again. “Let’s just say I agree with you that some things are better off unknown. Some things.” I felt tears sting in my eyes again. This was going to suck—hurting him. Not that I had been the person who had hurt him, but I knew I was going to have to deliver the news to him that was going to bring him to his knees.

  “Good. My turn now. And I need you to be completely honest with me, Jen. One hundred percent honest—no partial answers.” His brows knitted together, almost as though what he was asking of me was going to be as painful as what I knew I needed to tell him. “That’s still the agreement, right? Complete honesty.”

  “Okay.” Even though I knew he hadn’t followed through on the “complete honesty” agreement himself, I knew I would. Even if it meant that the information would funnel directly to my father, it didn’t seem to matter at the moment.

  “Alright. I need to know who took you. Who helped you get out of that cabin and who’s been hiding you all these months? And none of the ‘Bob’ business—I know that guy has nothing to do with any of this other than probably getting one hell of a payday to help you out.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. He did—he spent most of it remodeling that gift shop and getting some decent merchandise in there—”

  He cut me off with his smile and the shake of his head. “No changing the subject. Who and how. And when would be good, too.”

  I barely heard the click of the door as it closed. Brandon and I both looked over at the woman standing just inside.

  Krystal smiled. “It was me.”

  5

  “God, your hair, Jenna.”

  I had forgotten about the red mop on my head. The queasy feeling started in my stomach—the same one I always had when I knew I was going to have to face the wrath of my mother began to creep over me.

  She let out a sigh and walked over to us, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Brandon. She set down a large bag on the bed next to her. “I brought you some things. Clothes, shoes, makeup. And I have a hair guy coming first thing in the morning. He’ll be here bright and early so you won’t have to face her with that.” She motioned with her hands toward me. “Whatever you want to call that color.”

  “I like it.” Brandon smiled. “I think you should keep it that way. Or go all the way with it—a nice bright fire engine red would be beautiful.”

  I narrowed my eyes, grinning. He was playing with me—teasing me again. It was almost like no time had passed. Like everything was the same as it had always been. “I was thinking Marian might prefer something more along the lines of lavender. Or fuchsia. Fuchsia would be good.”

  Krystal chuckled before the smile fell away from her lips. “I was sent up here to make sure there was no…” Her brow furrowed for a moment. “Christ, how did he put it? Cavorting?”

  I shook my head and swung my legs over the side of the window seat where I had been perched since arriving in my bedroom earlier that night. My hands gripped the edge of the seat. “He called you?”

  She nodded at my question before turning to Brandon. “I pulled her from that crappy little cabin in Montana. You can thank me later.”

  “Right. You.” He shook his head, returning his gaze to mine before turning back to Krystal. “You realize I have to go downstairs and tell him.”

  “Tell him whatever the fuck you want to tell him, little brother. He won’t believe you if you tell him it was me. He also won’t believe you if you tell him it was me and Cade—his two most trusted staff members. And he’ll probably have you thrown off one of the cliffs over there if you tell him his own wife was the one who sent us.” She motioned toward the window. “So like I said, tell him whatever the fuck you want. I’m guessing you can make up something he’ll be more likely to believe than the actual truth.”

  “What you don’t know, dear sister, is that Jen and I have a new pact. We’re only being honest. And I have my suspicions about who helped her, but I want her to tell me.” He glanced over at Krystal. “And I don’t want or need to hear yo
ur bullshit lies.”

  I winced. “It’s not bullshit, Brandon. Everything she said—it’s all true.”

  He shook his head, pressing his lips together to hide the grin I could see on his lips. “This is fun. No really…” He glanced between the two of us. “Just like old times. Good times. But I need an answer, and I’m damned well getting one before I go back and tell Jen’s father what he wants to hear.” He let out a sigh and turned his gaze to me, his eyes boring into mine. “Look, Jen, this is the only way. Your father and I have an agreement, too. I agreed to find you and the only thing I would agree to for compensation was you.”

  “What?” I could hear my heart thrashing in my ears and I had to clench my fists again to cover the fact that every muscle in my body had begun to quiver with anger. “You … you, what?”

  His jaw dropped. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean that you were…” He raked his hands through his hair. “Fuck. Fuck. I swear to Christ I didn’t mean it like that, Jen.”

  My voice lowered to almost a growl. “So you decided to play his game. Win me. Have him betroth me to you in exchange for … what? The names of the people who took me from that cabin? You couldn’t beat him so you decided to join him?” I could feel a vein pulsing in my forehead as my gaze narrowed to a glare. “You own me now? Is that it?”

  “Christ, no.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “I just meant that he would give you the freedom to choose me. I swear to God, Jen—you can ask him yourself. It wasn’t that way at all—it wasn’t some kind of arrangement where I would get you in the exchange. Just the opportunity. Just the chance to have you choose. Isn’t that what you wanted? To be allowed to make your own choices?”

  Tears filled my eyes at his words and the rage I had felt turned into something else. Relief, almost. The churning in my belly turned into more of a fluttering and the pounding in my head melted into more of a hammering in my chest.