Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season (24 page)

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.

It was my security blanket. It could be security for both of us—for Jen, too. I just had to figure out a way to tell her about this—something I knew she wouldn’t want to know about. Her little disappearing act told me she might finally be ready—she had been able to keep herself from logging into any of her personal accounts the entire time she had been gone. It had been frustrating as hell, and if it hadn’t been for that small break with the teenager tweeting about seeing her, I might not have ever found her. And I thanked my lucky stars that I
had
found her.

Until today. Until now—now that she was gone again.

“I did it.”

I blinked my eyes a few times, snapping myself out of the almost trance-like state I had been in. I turned to Melissa. “Did what?”

“Texted Ryan. I said we need to have Jenna back.” She frowned and I could see tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t have you hating me, Brandon. I don’t want to hate her, either, but it’s hard not to. She has everything and she doesn’t even see it. She gets
everything
—she always has. Talent and looks and money and guys—“

“She doesn’t have everything.” I wasn’t going to discuss this with Melissa—what I knew about Jen. How broken she was inside. How hard she had worked to pull herself together. It was the part of her that no one else knew that I loved about her most of all. That part of her that was strong, so powerful that she wasn’t aware of it herself most of the time. I knew it was the part of her that made her able to leave her life behind—even though it had meant having her leaving me. “And this isn’t a game, Melissa. He isn’t going to just
give
her back.”

She handed the phone to me, shoving it into my hand. I looked down at it and read the text that Ryan had sent back to her.
He knows what he needs to give me if he wants her back this time.

I did know what Ryan wanted, but there was no way he was getting it. Not when it was the key to having a future with Jen. I knew there would be another way to find her—I just didn’t know how. And the fake Rembrandt wasn’t helping at all.

I stood up, turning to look at the main part of the room. There was something here—I knew there was. Something that would give me the answer I was looking for. The sign I needed was here. It had to be.

I walked over to another painting that I was sure was a reproduction—I just wasn’t sure of what. I knew the answer wasn’t going to actually come from the painting itself. I just had a feeling that if I looked at the right thing and if I could make sense of whatever it was I needed to, everything would work out the way it was supposed to and I would have Jen back in my arms. I just wasn’t sure where I was supposed to look. I had no idea where Daniel was, other than the fact that he lived somewhere out here. I hadn’t been able to track him down, and I hadn’t had any need to. Until today—until now. And there was no trace of him. He had gone off the grid, just like Jen had so many months ago.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. Cade and I hadn’t been on very good terms since Jen had left. I hadn’t known he had been the one to take her away from the cabin in Montana, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise, either. I just knew he was still in good with Daniel for some reason and he also had some sort of fatherly love for Jen. He was the only answer I could think of.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, glancing at the screen. I was finally able to breathe a sigh of something that resembled relief when I read Cade’s response. It was the best thing I had seen all day. It was almost elegant in its simplicity.

Done.

I
never knew
it was possible for my ears to feel as hot as they did at that moment. My heart sped in my tightening chest. My knees pulled together and I wished that a sinkhole would open up in Daniel’s desert home and swallow me whole.

This can’t be real
.

I had no reason to trust Daniel. I had no reason to believe a word that he said to me, but the truth was staring me in the face—actually,
I
was staring at the truth. The naked truth—literally—photos of me that didn’t seem possible. Photos that I had never taken—photos that I would have
never
allowed.

“We think it’s a type of computer virus. We haven’t been able to find the code that runs it, even though we’ve found hundreds of computers that are infected.”

I blinked a few times, unable to tear my eyes away from the photos that were on the screen. Photos that weren’t more than a few days old—taken from my bedroom in Virginia. From the angle, they had to have been taken by the computer that sat on the desk in that room. They must have come from a computer that I hadn’t touched since the previous fall. They had to have been taken when I had stayed with my parents before Daniel and I were supposed to go to the press conference to announce his “resurrection.”

My head was spinning again—there was no way this could be real. I clicked a few buttons on the screen and saw more than I could stand to witness—photos of me, screen captures of everything about my life. It was like a hacker had taken over everything—my email, my bank accounts. My webcam. Me.

“It’s sophisticated. I don’t think Brandon couldn’t have written it or come up with it by himself—it deployed three years ago or so. He was working with a bunch of different people back then. We think he had different people working on different elements—none of them knew what the others were doing. It’s actually brilliant. No one knows how it works or where it hides—it makes it impossible to remove.”

He took the laptop with the photos of me and pointed at the webcam. “Electrical tape. The light that’s supposed to come on when it turns on never lights up on an infected computer. The only way to not have yourself recorded at all times is to cover the camera.” He pointed at a few spots on the computer. “The microphones, too. They stay on all the time—and even with the tape, they sometimes pick up some conversation. You have to physically remove the battery to turn the computers off. And Brandon’s set up some pretty sophisticated voice recognition software to sort through conversations. We think he must have some people working for him, probably overseas. There’s no way he could go through all those recordings himself.”

He closed the computer, pushing the button to remove the battery. “He has a file on me, too. I have a reverse peephole set up on mine so I know when he’s been watching.” He shrugged. “As far as I can tell, he hasn’t been watching me at all for the last six months. Not since I moved out here.” He motioned at the new laptop I was still holding. “It’s clean. You want me to show you how it gets infected? Just login to your email—there’ll be a photo of you on that site I just showed you and a screen cap of whatever you’re reading. It’s ingenious.”

I shook my head, not only because I didn’t want to be recorded, but because I still really couldn’t believe any of this. And I hated that it all made sense—how Brandon always seemed to have access to information that he shouldn’t have.

I pushed the silver laptop toward him, almost throwing it at him in disgust. “Why should I believe you? How do I know
you
didn’t do this?” It was a fair question, and just thinking about it gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe this
wasn’t
Brandon’s doing. “For all I know,
you’re
the one who’s been watching me. The way you’ve acted since I found out you were alive—it would make more sense.
You
could be the one responsible for this. This could all be
your
stuff.”

He sighed, taking the silver laptop from me before standing to put the computers back on the shelf. “I only cracked your profile a few months ago. If I’d had access to that stuff a year ago, I would have made your life a living hell.” He smiled. “You should be glad I didn’t. That I didn’t see any of that until after I came to my senses.”

I smoothed down my blouse, staring down at the floor. “None of this makes sense. You coming to your senses doesn’t make sense, either.”

“I know. I know you want me to tell you I found God or something, but that wasn’t it. I just woke up one day and realized that my life sucked. That this…” He motioned to the shelf full of computer equipment. “This wasn’t ever what I wanted. And if I’d had access to that kind of information when I was running for Congress, I never would have needed the Agostino’s help. It was getting the help that turned my life to shit.” He sat down in the desk chair again. “I wish I could explain it better than that. I meditate a lot now. I try to make sense of the bad decisions I’ve made and I pray every day that my phone doesn’t ring. I pray that no one calls me, that no one asks anything of me. Because when they do…” He motioned toward the window. “People end up dead.” He fixed his gaze on mine. “You still have time to get out, Jenna. You have time to leave it all behind—I had hoped that you had. Your account was silent the entire time—for nine months—and I knew he didn’t know where you were. And I hoped that he never would find you. That you’d stay quiet—stay off your email and out of your accounts and that he would
never
find you again.”

Tears welled in my eyes. The fact that Brandon was capable of this didn’t surprise me at all. That he had turned this—whatever this was, his technology or whatever it was—on me was a different thing. It was a betrayal. It was more than a betrayal, it was treachery of the worst kind. There was no reason he would need to collect information on
me—
not unless he was planning to use it somehow. To blackmail me, maybe. Or just to torture me with the knowledge that he had done it and that there was nothing I could do about it now.

Daniel’s phone beeped and he fished it from his pants pocket. He looked down at the screen, frowning. “It looks like it doesn’t matter now.”

“What doesn’t matter now?” My brain screamed at me not to trust him—that he had already put me through too much. But my gut said something else. My gut said that he was telling me the truth, no matter what my mind was warning me about.

“Remember how I said that my life wasn’t really mine?” He nodded, putting the phone back into his pocket. “Someone higher up than me has made a decision.”

“Ryan.” It didn’t make sense, but I smiled. “He wants you to kill me.” I nodded, still smiling, holding back a laugh. My response made no sense—I somehow knew I was in mortal danger, but I thought it was hysterical. It shouldn’t have been funny that I would finally find out the truth about what it was that Brandon was doing and that it would be the last day of my life. But there was some kind of irony there and it seemed almost fitting. And there was also some comfort in knowing that I was going to die knowing the truth and in knowing that I wouldn’t be standing in the way of Brandon taking care of Melissa and their baby if I were dead.

“Not Ryan. And you aren’t going to die today.” He grinned. “Not by my hand, at least.” He chuckled. “Why are we laughing about this?”

“I have no idea.” I laughed out loud then—I had to hold onto my sides, I laughed so hard. It seemed like the exact wrong response, but there was too much. The only thing I could do that felt right at that moment was to laugh.

Daniel didn’t laugh with me, but he smiled, extending his hand.

I took it that time, and he helped me out of the chair, leading me out of the room and back to the living area.

He frowned then, almost wincing. “I have to take you back. Back to him. To Brandon.”

I knew then—knew with every beat of my heart that there wouldn’t be any more laughing that day. And I knew too many things that I couldn’t
un-
know now. Too many things that would ever allow us to be together again.

I still wasn’t sure about the pecking order in the organization that I knew both Brandon and Daniel worked for. There was only one thing that was abundantly clear at that moment—Brandon outranked Daniel. And he outranked Ryan, too.

“
Y
ou will stay away
from her. I don’t care where you go, just let me have some time with her.” I walked back to the lobby of the hotel, right in front of the wall of glass that made up the front of the building. He would drop her off right here, and if it hadn’t been such a public place, I would have been able to finish him for good. I would have been able to reach in the window and snap his neck, killing him before he ever knew what hit him.

But I knew I couldn’t do it in front of Jen. I knew she would never admit it, but she still cared about him. She had loved him at one time in her life, and I knew that better than anyone. I couldn’t hurt him without hurting her.

I gave my head a hard shake, trying to push the idea of
caring
about Daniel out of it for good.
I don’t care about him. I don’t care about anyone
.

Except Jen. I had to repeat it to myself—
except Jen
. I loved her. I wanted to protect her from the men like Daniel, who would do us nothing but harm if we stayed here. Stopping here had been a mistake—I saw that now. I had only wanted to come to Vegas to seal the deal. To finish what I had started and to marry the woman I loved. And that piece of paper meant more than she needed to know. A marriage certificate shouldn’t have meant more than the two of us sharing the rest of our lives together. And it
would
mean that, too—I would make sure of it. But it meant so much more. It was the key—the final key to unlock the last piece of the puzzle. It helped that I had fallen in love with her. It helped a lot. But, in the long run, it didn’t matter—Jen was always going to be my wife whether I had fallen in love or not. And I was going to marry her. Today.

And then I would have everything.