Broken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Second Season (22 page)

P
resent Day

B
randon held
my hand as we walked toward the door of the restaurant. There was something so final about this—it felt like everything was over. It was like everything in the last six months had led up to this moment and we were walking to our doom.

Despite the gnawing in my stomach, I turned to him, looking up into his blue eyes. “Kiss me.”

He smiled, his blue eyes boring into mine. He released my hand and snaked his arms around my waist. He tilted his head and brushed his lips over mine, only barely touching me.

Feeling his lips on mine still made my heart flutter, like little wings were trapped inside my chest. His touch still sent a thrill across my skin. And when he breathed the words, “I love you,” into me, they still made me feel light-headed. It felt like the first time and the millionth time all wrapped up into one perfect moment.

I stood on my tiptoes to put my arms around his neck. I ran my hand through his soft, black curls and pulled him into an embrace. I whispered into his ear. “I love you, too.”

There was something so intimate about that moment, but so bittersweet. I knew nothing would be the same again. It was one of those strange, wonderful, but almost sad moments—one of those times when you want to desperately hold onto what you have, even though you already feel it falling through your fingers like grains of sand. One of those moments when you know your whole world is about to change, but you have no idea how or why. I just knew that whatever it was—whatever it meant—it was a moment I would want to hold onto for the rest of my life.

He finally pulled away and laced his fingers through mine again. We went into the restaurant and headed for the back room, just like I knew we would. No words needed to be spoken between us. I already knew who the man behind the curtain here was. I already knew we were going to meet my father. There was just something so solemn about it—like we were marching to our deaths. Like we had to go face the firing squad together.

And looking back, that’s exactly what it was. At least for me.

I was standing behind him, my hand still tightly clenched in his—almost painfully held in his grasp. I couldn’t see the person we were meeting, but I sensed him the moment we walked in the back room.

I heard my father’s voice. “Brandon. Sit down.”

Brandon slid into the booth across from my father and I was finally exposed to him. Not just to him—to
them
.

I think my heart stopped beating for a second or two and I couldn’t find a way to breathe. I stood there with my mouth open, unable to move. I think a hospital would have probably pronounced me dead because it seemed like it lasted for an eternity—no breathing and no heartbeat.

I’m sorry, Senator Davis. Your daughter is dead.
If I only could have been so lucky.

Brandon pulled on my arm and it woke me from the daze, at least long enough to breathe. I sucked in a long breath, staring at the man sitting next to my father. At Daniel. And the memories came flooding back into my mind on that breath. Not just the recent ones—all of them. The anger and the hurt. The betrayal. The fear.

I tried to wrench my arm away from Brandon’s grasp, but it only tightened. I just wanted to run. I had to get away from them, and it didn’t matter where. He pulled me toward him again, almost forcing me into the booth next to him. I finally gave up fighting him and sat down across from my father. I looked between the three men. Daniel. My father. Brandon. I saw the three men in my life and I knew then that I didn’t trust any of them. I didn’t have anyone left—no one in the world who I could trust. No one who had my best interests in mind. No one to keep me safe but myself.

I wanted to calm myself down, and tried telling myself that there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation why my father would be sitting in a backroom restaurant booth with
him
. With Daniel. And that there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation why Brandon would be meeting with
them
. With my father and
Daniel.
I just couldn’t get past the fact that my chest hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. I probably should have screamed. I probably should have run. But I couldn’t even
breathe.

“Brandon, so nice of you to join us.” My father’s baritone voice rang out across the table. “I see you brought a peace offering.”

Sick. I was going to be sick. If I’d had even a bit of food in my stomach, I would have puked. My head was spinning so fast I thought I might pass out anyway, but the sick feeling in my stomach…
Brandon works for them. He works for my father. They expected me to be here. They
wanted
me to be here.

I told myself I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know the depths of what Brandon was like, what he did, who he did it for. I didn’t want or need to know. I’d had enough of politics for an entire lifetime, and I
never
wanted to know what he did. I just wanted to be anywhere but here—anywhere but in the presence of Daniel and my father.
Back in the hotel room. Back in the hotel room would be good. Making love with Brandon before I knew anything—that would be so much better than this.
I should have held onto that moment a little longer. I should have held onto it forever…

“You’re looking well, Jenna. Better than the last time I saw you, anyway.” I’m pretty sure I heard them all snicker at Daniel’s comment, but it might have only been him. My stomach twisted into a knot and I couldn’t even force myself to look up from the spot on the table where my gaze had been fixed. I didn’t really want to know who was laughing at me, anyway.

They were all on the same side. All on the let’s-fuck-with-Jenna’s-head side. And I had to admit it—the state of my sanity was tenuous on a good day. The fact that I had taken a bottle of my mother’s anxiety pills three days after Daniel’s “death” should have been at the top of all their minds before they tried pulling this little stunt on me. But it wasn’t, because they were all sitting here playing some sort of horrible mind game with me. And I was sitting there, my head spinning and just wishing to be anywhere else. Dead would have been a fantastic place to be at that moment. Death seemed like the perfect option. Because if I was dead, I wouldn’t have to face the fact that each of these men had betrayed me. I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I had slept with two of them—hell, I had slept with one of them less than an hour ago. And they were
all
playing some sick and twisted game with me. Some fucked up game that I didn’t understand.

My father cleared his throat. “Your mother told me you were in Sacramento, Jenna. Did you hear the speech?”

I felt something squeeze my hand and I looked down. Brandon was still holding it. I tried to wrestle it away again, but he only tightened his grip. I still wasn’t able to lift my gaze to make eye contact with my father. I didn’t think I would ever want to look at
any
of them. “I don’t forgive you. I don’t forgive any of you.” I pulled my hand away again, and this time Brandon let it go.

I heard the chuckling again. Now that my hand was free, I thought for a second about running, but then thought better of it. “Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

My father and Daniel both chuckled again. I was pretty sure Brandon hadn’t made a sound that time, and maybe he hadn’t since we sat down. My head was spinning so fast it was hard to tell what was real and what was only in my imagination at that point.

My father folded his hands on the table, looking at Brandon. “Would you like to explain to her ‘what the hell is going on,’ Brandon? Or should I?”

I looked over at Brandon. He was looking down blankly into his lap, his shoulders hunched. I wasn’t sure what my father had on him, but it had to be big. I had never seen Brandon like this, and it looked like he certainly wasn’t here to stand up for me or for himself.

“How long has it been since I hired you, Brandon?”

My stomach clenched and I felt the same wave of nausea as before.
Brandon works for him. For my father
. I should have known. I probably did know all along—I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. I finally turned my gaze to him, if only to see what the response would be.

“Three years.” He didn’t look up to make eye contact with me or with my father.

“Three years.” My father repeated it flatly. He let out a sigh. “And in those three years, what has been the one and only rule? The only rule I have told you over and over again? The one I warned you about four weeks ago when I came to visit you after your little accident?”

My father had been to visit Brandon?

He set his jaw, still staring at his hands. “Stay away from your daughter.”

“Wrong. Stay the
hell
away from my daughter.” My father looked me up and down. “By the looks of it, you haven’t been following my one and only rule, Brandon.”

I heard Daniel snicker again until my father shot him a look that shut him up immediately.

Brandon moved his hands up to the table, still folded together, and sucked in a long breath. He stared down at his hands silently, not even acknowledging that my father had spoken.

My father’s eyes were cold and now fixed on me. “What happens to rule breakers, Daniel?”

“They’re eliminated.”

I think my heart stopped in my chest again and I could feel that icy chill of fear flowing through me again. I felt Daniel’s eyes on me.
Eliminated.
Is that what had happened to him? He had broken one of my father’s rules and had been “eliminated?”

My father’s eyes never left mine, even when Daniel was speaking. “Is that what Brandon wants, Jenna? Is that what
you
want?”

My heart definitely stopped this time. My breath stopped again, too. I was pretty sure I was clinically dead again. He had warned me when I was in Virginia. He had told
me
to stay the hell away from him while I waited to find out if Brandon was even going to live.
I
was a rule breaker. Was he really suggesting that he would eliminate
me
? I found my breath long enough to breathe out my words. “Of course not.”

My father shook his head. “Then why are you defying me? Why, when I’ve given you everything you could ever want?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Because I love him.” I turned to look at Brandon. “Because I
love
him.” I turned my gaze and let it rest on Daniel for just a second. There was nothing there. Not even a hint of what I once thought I felt for him. Not even a trace. “And I never loved Daniel.” My father was wrong. He hadn’t given me everything I ever wanted. He had taken away the one thing that had ever really mattered to me so that he could give
me
to Daniel. He had taken away my music and forced me to bend to his will—to accept an arranged marriage to a man I had never loved. I had given
my father
everything he ever wanted. And now that I wanted to stand up for myself—now that I was finally finding my backbone, now
I
was the one in the wrong.

My father let out another long breath and almost glared at me. “How many times do we have to go through this, Jenna?” He turned his focus back to the man sitting next to me. “I need a status report, Brandon. I gave you a job to do. I realize you may have signed that contract under duress, but I need a status report. Your deadline was up two days ago, and I haven’t heard from you, which honestly concerns me more than that fact that you’re fucking my daughter.”

My stomach flipped, but Brandon didn’t even flinch at the words. “I need two more days.” His voice was quiet, almost too reserved.

My father shook his head. “You know how I feel about blackmailers, Brandon. I needed this taken care of
before
the convention. That was why I gave you the length of time I did. It was more than enough time…”

Brandon nodded, pursing his lips. He still just stared down at his hands. “I realize that, sir. I’ll take care of it in the next forty-eight hours.” I didn’t like this Brandon. The one who spoke like this to my father—almost respectful, almost
fearful
. I didn’t like the Brandon who
worked
for my father. Who took direction from him—who was talking to him, agreeing with him about something I didn’t even know or understand. About something I didn’t
want
to know about.

My father pressed his palms to the table. “See that you do, Brandon. Or the ending will not be pretty for any of you.”

Brandon still hadn’t looked up to make eye contact with him or with anyone else at the table—he just nodded his head in agreement.

I could feel Daniel’s gaze burning into me and I wanted to slap him. I wanted him to suffer for everything he had ever done to me, but I knew as long as he was with my father—and it didn’t matter if it was literally or metaphorically—he was safe. Untouchable. But how he had managed to weasel himself back into my father’s good graces after his “elimination,” I still wasn’t sure…

My father turned his gaze back to mine and slapped a hand against the table, making me wince. “We have another problem, Jenna.”

E
ighteen Months
Earlier

I
was running late
—again. Daniel hated it when I was running late, but this time it really was unavoidable. I was desperately trying to finish a project for my last marketing class. This class was almost killing me, I hated it so much. This was my last semester—I just had to get through it and I’d have my MBA. Less than four months. It was all within reach.

I really just wanted to get home that evening. The drive from Georgetown to Baltimore … sucked. And that was putting it kindly. Especially in rush hour traffic, and more especially with this weather. Winter here wasn’t fun, but this freezing rain stuff—it was a nightmare to drive in. I had been sitting in traffic for almost two hours—and I had forgotten my phone charger, so my phone’s battery was dead and there was no way for me to let Daniel know I was going to be late. Again. For the third time this week. And I knew how much he was going to piss and moan about having to have takeout again that night.

I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed my hair. My roots were awful—I hadn’t had time to get them done because of this project, and Daniel had already given me shit about it once this week. I hated being blonde. Hated it. But he
loved
it and it was so
important
to him. It made me feel violently ill that I had let him talk me into this hair thing at all—disappointed in myself for having no backbone with him. I had almost completely lost my ability to stand up for myself, and the longer I was with him, the worse I was becoming. Spineless. I suppose I should have been angrier with myself for letting him convince me to dye my hair in the first place, but it was pretty easy to let myself blame him. I was sick of him—sick of everything. It might piss him off, but I was going back to my natural color this weekend. I had a pretty good feeling that it wasn’t going to matter much to him after tonight, anyway.

I couldn’t help but smile when I glanced down at the passenger seat where I had the letter lying open. I had probably looked at it about a thousand times in the past three days, having to constantly remind myself that it was real. It still made me feel like I was floating on clouds. The San Francisco Conservatory had accepted me into their Master’s program and I was going to start in September. It was really real and I was really going to do it, and I felt like I wanted to scream out the car window just thinking about it again. It hadn’t been my first choice of schools, but it was
music
. It was what mattered to
me
. And Curtis and Julliard were in the past—long gone opportunities. But San Francisco was real, and I had a real offer to go back to the piano. My stomach was fluttering just thinking about it—
I’m really going to get to play again.

The nightmare was almost over. I could finish my MBA at Georgetown and make my parents happy, then I would move to San Francisco and make myself happy. And I didn’t really give a shit about Daniel anymore. If I had to hear one more time about how fat I was or how awful my hair was … for as mean as he was to me, I may as well have been living with my mother. And he had his political career here in Baltimore now. He was going to be a congressman—his lifelong dream. I wasn’t going to be his arm candy anymore, or whatever the hell it was that he thought of me. Not anymore. I was going to take control of my life. I was almost twenty-three years old, for Christ’s sake—I should be able to control my own life. Living with him had been like a bad dream—worse than living with my parents in more ways than one. The fact that I was pretty sure he was cheating on me … scratch that. He
was
cheating on me. There was no “pretty sure” about it. He wasn’t even trying to hide it from me anymore, and when I questioned him … let’s just say I got the same “boys will be boys” bullshit that my dad had always fed me. No more. I was moving to San Francisco whether he approved or not. And the wedding was going to be off after tonight. I was giving him back the ring. And burning the dress. I couldn’t ask him to leave the house, though, not in the middle of a campaign. I’d been around politics long enough to know that much, but it wasn’t going to stop
me
from leaving
him
in the fall. The press would eat that shit up, anyway—Jenna Davis returns to the piano. The best part was going to be never having to hear another word about how I must be a huge disappointment to the Hennessey family for them to not allow their only blood heir to get married at the Maine compound.

I sighed. I was getting really tired of hearing about how much the Hennesseys hated me. I didn’t know them. I never had. And I didn’t much care.

I drove through a taco place and got dinner for Daniel before I went home. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t perfectly capable of getting his own damned food, but I knew he wouldn’t. And then he’d bitch at me the rest of the night about how I didn’t care about how important he was and how he deserved better than tacos. I’d get to hear how I needed to
make
the time to learn how to cook for him so that I could be a perfect wife. He had a car and he could drive through a taco restaurant just as easily as I could. And he had two hands and could learn to cook just as easily as I could. But he wouldn’t because then he wouldn’t be able to complain about how awful I was. How I wasn’t what he’d signed up for. How he could do so much better than me.

I pulled into the driveway and was surprised for a second that his car wasn’t there. It was dark—after eight, but he wasn’t home yet.
He’s probably with his girlfriend
.

I went inside and plugged in my phone, but there were no messages from him. No texts about what he wanted me to pick up for dinner … no nothing. He at least usually texted to tell me he loved me, especially if he had been particularly mean that morning or the night before. I thought back to the conversation we’d had the previous night—the one where he told me my hair looked like shit. And something about too much takeout. “Jenna plus takeout equals that extra twenty pounds that’s going to make you need to resize your wedding dress.” Yeah, that definitely warranted an apology text.

I took off my engagement ring and set it on top of the piano in the living room, feeling at least twenty pounds lighter with the weight of the ring off my finger. I sat down at the keyboard and started to play, willing all the bad thoughts out of my head.
It’s all going to be over after tonight. I don’t have to hear any more from him after tonight.

It was just like it always was when I sat down at the piano—I lost track of time. I wasn’t even sure what time it was when I heard the pounding on the door. I was shocked when I glanced at the clock on the living room wall—it was just after midnight. Daniel must have lost his house key or something while he was out with his girlfriend. Or girlfriends. It didn’t matter. It was all going to be over in a minute. I would show him the letter, give him back the ring and then it would all be over.

I pulled open the door without even looking. “Nice, Daniel. It’s after midnight. Did you even think…?” I finally looked up. It wasn’t Daniel at the door. It was two police officers.

“Miss Davis?”

My legs felt like they were frozen, too heavy to even move. The sound that came from my throat wasn’t even my voice—it was a high-pitched squeal that sounded more like it belonged to a small rodent than a grown woman. “Yes?”

“Miss Davis, may we come in?”

I somehow made room for the two to enter my house. Our house. The one I shared with Daniel. The one I knew I wouldn’t be sharing with him anymore after that night. I knew. I knew the second they said, “Miss Davis?” I knew. I felt it in my heart, in the way it fluttered in my chest and in the way my stomach sank through the floor.
I knew.

I remember sitting down on the couch and the two of them sitting across from me. Or one of them might have been sitting next to me. Yes, he probably was sitting next to me because I think he caught me when I fainted. And I think the other one called my parents. The entire interaction was pretty much a blur except for what they said when we first sat down.

“Miss Davis, your fiancé is dead.”