by Peak, Renna
“Jenna, I’m sorry. I know that sounds disingenuous, but I am. I really just want you to be happy. I hope you can believe that.”
I glared across at him, shaking my head. “Everything you’ve done … everything in the last few years. None of it has been to make me happy, Daniel. I really don’t know how you expect me to believe any of this. That you’ve just suddenly turned over a new leaf? That you’re somehow now a new person? I’m not sure how you expect me to believe anything you say, ever again.”
He nodded. “I deserve that. You’re right—I haven’t done anything to make you trust me. I’ve done exactly the opposite.” He tented his fingers on his lap again, tapping them together a few times. Something about his mannerisms was familiar. Too familiar.
Just like my father.
Pain pierced my chest again as I realized where I recognized what he was doing with his hands. And after all the talk about how double-crossing the Agostinos gets you killed…
If I had been in a cartoon, a light bulb would have turned on over my head in that instant. And I hadn’t seen it before. I had only seen two sides—black and white, Davis and Agostino. It was that moment that I saw what I should have seen all along. There weren’t two sides to this story. There weren’t any sides at all. It was all one—both sides were the same. There was no good guy in this drama—only bad guys. Only guys out for what was best for themselves. Only people who felt the need to get what they wanted.
I didn’t have to choose a side. There was no Brandon versus the senator or Brandon versus Daniel or Brandon versus anyone. He worked with all of them. They all worked with each other to get what they wanted.
So why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I look out for my own best interests? Why couldn’t I just look out for Jenna? Because I knew damned well that no one else was going to.
“So why did you bring me here? If you want me to be happy, that means you’re not planning to hurt me this time. Not planning to rape—“
“I never raped you, Jenna. I let you believe that because it hurt Brandon. It hurt you and it hurt him. I didn’t even touch you. Remember the woman I was with? Lexi? I had her take your panties off so that when you woke up you’d think…” His voice trailed off and he looked down at the floor, running his hands through his hair again. He lifted his gaze again to meet mine. “I’m sorry. I am. I let my bitterness get the better of me. I spent a long time hating Brandon for what he did to me. And then for what he did to you.”
I closed my eyes for a moment before looking at him again. “Other than knocking up the woman who used to be my best friend, what has he done to me? Specifically? And why does Ryan hate Brandon so much? He’s never told me. Brandon’s only told me that Ryan wants something that he thinks he has.” I didn’t really expect an honest answer—I didn’t even know if Daniel knew what had caused the rift between Brandon and Ryan. And everyone kept telling me that Brandon was trying to hurt me, but I had never seen any real evidence of that. If he really was the father of Melissa’s child, that would hurt like hell. But otherwise, he had pretty much bent over backward to prove that he wasn’t trying to hurt me.
He smiled. “Those are a lot of questions and that’s a long story. I didn’t bring you here today to do anything to you or even to have this conversation with you. I only brought you here to make Brandon squirm. Ryan wanted him to know that he could still do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.” He turned his gaze back to his lap. “We forget that sometimes. What we signed on for.”
“We…?”
He looked over at me again, his expression nearly vacant. “What I signed on for. What Brandon signed on for. It’s a lifetime sentence, and they can call us back in to serve them anytime they want and for any little thing they want. And they do.”
My brow furrowed again under my confusion. “I don’t understand.” My mind was racing, searching for any answers in what Daniel had already said. In everything Brandon had ever said.
“I need to show you something.” He stood up, his hands falling to his sides. He looked down at me, almost wincing. “You need to see this, but it changes everything. If I show you this, it means you’re part of it now. If you weren’t part of it before, you will be now.”
“I don’t—“
“I know. I know it doesn’t make sense.” He let out a long sigh, holding his hand out to me. “I have to show you. Then it might. It’ll make more sense than it does now.”
I stood, ignoring his outstretched hand. I couldn’t remember the last time Daniel and I had held hands, but it wasn’t going to happen again. Not today.
He nodded, turning to the short hallway. He began walking and stopped at one of the closed doors.
I followed, stopping behind him. “Daniel, if you’re planning to do something, can I just—? “
His head snapped around and he looked at me, his eyes narrowed. “I told you I’m not going to hurt you. You’re just going to have to believe me.” He turned back to the door, shaking his head.
He opened the door and I saw it was a small office. There was a desk facing the window in the corner of the room with several computer screens sitting on it. They looked innocent enough—the monitors looked like they were displaying spreadsheets and nothing looked overtly diabolical.
He sat down in the chair in front of the desk, spinning to face me. “I’ve known Brandon for a long time. Longer than I’ve known you.” He motioned to the chair next to the desk.
I sat down, leaning around to look at the screens more closely. There were only numbers—nothing seemed out of the ordinary or in any way unusual.
He shook his head, turning to the face the desk. He placed his hand on the mouse and minimized the screens with the spreadsheets. “This stuff isn’t important.” He paused, staring at the blank screen for a moment. “I’m not even sure I should explain this to you.”
“You brought me all the way out here. You might as well tell me now.” I tapped my fingers on my lap. I could feel my chest tightening again, my stomach hardening along with it. I had no idea what it was he wanted to show me, and I still wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But I knew I had spent too long trying to bury my head in the sand—being indecisive and trying to remain ignorant of what was going on all around me.
It was time for me to grow up. To be the woman I had wanted to become. To live out the life I had decided I wanted to lead over the past nine months—all that time without Brandon. It was time to know the truth.
He let out a long sigh, clicking on something on the computer. A black screen with a blinking cursor came up. “This is going to take a minute. It’s kind of complicated.”
“I took a few programming classes in college. I’m not an idiot, Daniel.”
He grimaced at my words. “I know that. And I’m sorry if that was how what I said came across.” He stood, crossing the room to the closet near the door. I watched as he pulled out a laptop, crossing the room to set it on the edge of the desk. He walked over to the bookshelf in the opposite corner, pulling a box from the shelf that looked like it contained a brand new laptop.
He handed the box to me. “It’s brand new.” He motioned at it with his head. “Check the seals. It’s never even been opened.”
I turned the box over in my hands. It was still sealed in its original shrinkwrap, the manufacturer seals all still in place.
“Open it.” He nodded at me again.
I began opening the box, peeling away the plastic and breaking the silver seals on the box. I pulled out the gleaming silver laptop and set the box on the floor.
He nodded, pulling the other laptop over to his lap before spinning in his chair to face me. “Has Brandon ever told you about his specialty? About what he does?”
“Information.” The brief discussions about what exactly he did had never been very clear to me. None of it had made much sense, but I had always had the feeling that his real specialty was women. He had some ability to get them to spill their deepest, darkest secrets in some sort of pillow talk that I hadn’t
really allowed myself to ponder too often. I knew he had been with other women—I just didn’t like to think about it.
He lifted a brow, typing something into the laptop. “That’s funny.” He chuckled a bit, typing something again. “I suppose if you boil it down, that is what he does. I’d call it blackmail, but, you know, to-may-to, to-mah-to.”
His words came as no surprise—and blackmail was probably what I would have called it, too. Brandon and I had just never gone there—talked about his former job at any real length. I had always told myself that I didn’t want to know, and I had let it stay that way. Ignorance hadn’t really been all that blissful, though—it was what had led me to this moment. And there didn’t seem to be anything about that old saying that was true in my life. Ignorance was not bliss—not to me, anyway.
“Okay. Don’t freak out about this.” His brow creased and he looked down at the computer screen. “Promise me you won’t freak out.”
I nodded, unsure of what he could possibly show me on a computer screen that would make me panic in the way he seemed to think it might.
He turned the computer around on his lap, the screen now facing me. I wouldn’t say it caused a full-on panic attack, but my breath did catch in my chest.
And when I looked at the top of the screen—looked at the source of what I saw there—tears filled my eyes and I could only think of one thing to say.
“No…”
9
I wasn’t sure which of the hotel parking lots I had pulled into—I just followed the signs to park at one of the big resort hotels on the strip. I couldn’t really remember even driving over here. I only knew I was here—wherever that was—and that Melissa was sitting next to me.
“Where are we going?”
I pulled into a stall, wishing then that I had just stood in line for a cab. Renting a car had been an enormous waste of time—time I could have spent trying to find Jen. Instead, I was trapped in Vegas with a woman I could barely stand to be around on a good day. It didn’t help at all that she had been the reason Jen had slipped right through my fingers.
“Are you listening to me? I asked you where we’re going.” Her tone was almost demanding, inappropriate for the shit storm she had created all by herself. “Brandon—“
“Shut up.” My eyes widened at my own tone—I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken to a woman like that. I had always tried to be respectful, even if the woman didn’t deserve it. And Melissa definitely did not deserve my respect. Not now.
She crossed her arms over her chest like an indignant teenager, turning to look out her window.
I rolled my eyes before closing them for a moment. I just needed to think—I needed a chance to sort out what in the hell had just happened and how I was going to fix this.
It was a long shot, but I picked up my phone, opening the internet browser. I typed in the website name and waited for it to load. Nothing. No sign that Daniel or Jen had logged into anything recently. Nothing I knew about, anyway. Nothing that had my tracking code on it.
I clicked the phone off, slipping it back into my breast pocket. I turned off the ignition and got out of the car.
Melissa followed me as I made my way to the rear entrance of the casino. The chill of the air conditioning hit me as soon as I opened the door, not bothering to hold it open for the woman trailing me as I normally would have done.
We wound our way through the casino floor. I wasn’t sure where I was going, only that I needed to find somewhere reasonably quiet to think—somewhere where the loud ringing and dinging of the slot machines wasn’t going to distract me. And somewhere that I could leave Melissa to her own devices. I just needed a moment. I had to find some sort of clarity—some way to think of what to do next.
We finally made it to the main hotel lobby, but it wasn’t much quieter there. There was a corridor off to the side—it was bright and it didn’t look like there were many people there. I made a sharp turn, making my way through the corridor with its faux sky painting on the ceiling and replications of famous works of art lining the walls. There were only a few people there in the fake art gallery—a few older couples and people looking at what they had to know wasn’t really the Mona Lisa.
I sat down on one of the benches facing a large painting that I was pretty sure was supposed to be a Rembrandt. I stared at the wall next to the portrait with a blank gaze as I tried to get my thoughts to flow in some kind of meaningful way. There had to be a way out of this—I just needed to think of what it was.
Melissa sat down next to me. “What are we waiting for?”
I rolled my eyes again, not turning at all to face her. “A sign.”
“What kind of sign?”
“Fuck if I know.” I clenched my fists, my fingernails biting into my palms. “A sign from God.”
“Like that one?”
I turned to see what she was talking about. She was pointing at a portrait of what I assumed was a replication of a baby Jesus. I turned back to stare at the wall in front of me. “Funny.”
“I was just trying to lighten the mood, Brandon.”
My jaw tightened. “There wouldn’t be a mood to lighten if you had just listened to me. If you had just believed me when I told you that I would take care of you—“
“You should have told me. I only kept this baby because I thought it was yours. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye on things, but I always liked you. I always thought—“
I interrupted her with a shake of my head, turning to face her, glaring daggers in her direction. “Yeah, I heard. The things you and Jen used to talk about and … whatever.” I turned back to my wall and my fake Rembrandt. “Thinking someone is hot isn’t the same as falling in love with them. And I love Jen. I love her, and that’s the bottom line. You and I could never have that. I couldn’t have that with anyone but her.”
I was relieved that she didn’t say anything else for a long moment. I closed my eyes, replaying what I knew—the events I was sure about. Melissa called Ryan—a man she hadn’t spoken to in six months. He hadn’t given her the time of day since he’d found out she was pregnant and the baby wasn’t his. I couldn’t blame him for that. If I had found Jen that day in Maine and she had been pregnant with another man’s child, I wasn’t sure I would be able to forgive her, either. But Melissa’s baby wasn’t mine. I had only allowed her to believe it was because I thought it was the best thing for her, even though in hindsight, it had been a pretty terrible idea. I hadn’t thought through the consequences—I hadn’t imagined that I would even find Jen, and once I had, I knew I could explain it to her. And I should have explained it to her before we came here. Before everything fell apart. It wouldn’t have changed what Melissa had done, but at least Jen wouldn’t be out there somewhere feeling like I had betrayed her.
I knew I needed to stop trying to do the right thing by women I didn’t really care about. It was too easy for me to carry their guilt when I had plenty of my own to bear.
I was going to have to come clean with Jen. I had meant to ever since I had found her—I had meant to tell her everything. I just hadn’t had a chance. We hadn’t had the right moment for me to explain it all to her. It had to be the right time and place because I knew it was going to be hard for her to hear. I just wanted to have the opportunity to tell her how much I had changed—how she had changed me. And how I would leave it all behind for her if that was what she wanted. I would take my chances, knowing what the end result might be. Knowing there was always the risk that I might leave any children we might have fatherless because of the choices I had made in the past. But I wasn’t that person anymore. I wasn’t the bad guy—I was the man who wanted to make it right.
“Would it help if I texted him again? I could ask him where he had her taken—“
“He had Daniel take her. We both know that.” I let out a long sigh. I couldn’t let this defeat me. Daniel shouldn’t have been a problem for us—not anymore. Not since he had decided he was going to quit playing the bad
guy, too. As far as I knew, he was leading a quiet life doing some kind of online law work—running financials and investigating businesses for companies that were looking to buy them out. Boring work that I would never want any part of—so boring that I had stopped checking on him months ago. After I was one hundred percent sure he hadn’t had any part in Jen’s disappearance, I had no interest in what he was doing with his life now. He could do whatever he wanted for all I cared.
But Ryan would have called him in for this—it was too easy. He couldn’t send Daniel himself to the airport to pick her up, but he could send in someone who would deliver her to him. And I should have seen it coming—having her arrested for Amanda’s murder was like a slap in the face to me after Ryan had done the job that I was supposed to do. And I hadn’t seen it coming at all. He had pulled it off because I was losing my touch—a completely transparent ploy that would have taken me about half a second to figure out a year ago went completely over my head today. I had spent too long searching for Jen to the exclusion of everything else.
I had lost it.
But I hadn’t lost everything. My network was still up and running and I could turn back to that anytime I wanted. It had been the reason Ryan had wanted me dead, but couldn’t kill me. If he ever had the key—if he ever figured out how anything worked, I wouldn’t stand much chance of living another day. But I had set it up so that no one could unwind any of it—it was almost too intricate for me to figure out on my own. I just knew it worked and that if everything else failed, I still had that game locked down. I was untouchable as far as information went—information on anyone, including Senator Davis and his daughter. Not that I would ever use that information against Jen, but there was something almost comforting in knowing I had it if I needed it. In knowing that no one else would ever be able to access it but me.