The Mistaken (24 page)

“No way, Tyler! You’re fucking mad. Alexi will never
go for it. Dmitri’s already made a deal. He can’t back out now. We
have no choice. We either deliver that girl or we find Erin and
deliver her. There’s no way we have the time for that now. We don’t
even know where she is, and we’ve got a deadline. Two days, Tyler.
Two. Do you get that? They’ll be gunning for us if we don’t turn
her over to them in two fucking days.” He sighed and spun around in
place, stomping his foot on the floor. “Godammit! We are so
fucked.”

“Just try, Nick. Please. Stall for a little time.
I’ll leave with the girl. We’ll hide for a few days until I can
work it out. Please, just call him. I need to talk to Hannah, try
to persuade her to leave with me. I can work this out, I swear I
can, but…I need your help. Please do this one thing for me. This
one
thing. Please.”

Nick stared at me for a long moment then swallowed
hard, finally nodding in agreement. I smiled in relief then walked
to the bathroom door and knocked quietly.

“Hannah? May I come in?” I tried the handle but it
was locked. “Hannah, unlock the door, please. We need to talk.”
There was no response. “Come on, open the door. Don’t make me break
it down.”

“What if she escaped out the window?” Nick wondered
aloud.

“Escaped? Come on, Nick, I’m not exactly holding her
hostage.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she isn’t too clear on that
point, Ty.”

I panicked for a moment. “Go check out back and see
if she got out,” I ordered, waving my hand toward the front door.
“Hurry!”

Nick ran out the front door and I turned back to the
bathroom.

“Hannah, open this door or I swear to God, I’ll kick
it in.” Still no response. Maybe she
had
escaped out the
window. “Hannah! Open the door!”

I gave her only ten seconds longer then threw my
shoulder into the door, splintering the frame and sending the door
hammering into the wall. I saw her the instant I entered the
bathroom, sitting in the tub with her knees drawn up to her chest
and her arms wrapped tightly around them.

“For God’s sake, Hannah, why didn’t you open the
door?”

She turned to face me. She was crying again. “What
have you done?” she asked in a small, frightened voice before
resting her forehead on her knees.

I stepped into the tiny bathroom and knelt down next
to the tub. “I know what you heard out there scares you, but…I
promise, I won’t let anyone take you or touch you in any way.
Hannah, please—”

“I don’t think you can keep that promise,” she said
quietly as she looked me straight in the eye. “You’ve destroyed
me...for good this time.”

Her words cut deep. She was right. But it wouldn’t
stop me from trying.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get you home again
safely. Whatever it takes, Hannah,” I promised again, knowing that
even if it cost me my life, I would pay to see it kept. And it very
well might.

Nick burst back into the room, panting. “I couldn’t
find her...” he wheezed. “Oh, she’s here. Good. Um, Ty, can I talk
to you for a minute? In private?” He motioned with his head for me
to follow.

I walked out to meet him. He looked nervous.
Spooked. His hands were fidgeting, and he kept peering out through
the drawn curtains.

“We need to get out of here,” he urged. “I’m not
sure, but I think they might be watching us. I thought I saw one of
Dmitri’s cars out there by the gas station. You take me back to my
car then we can split up. I’ll lead those guys away while you leave
with the girl. Head to Cali on the back roads. Take it slow, and
stay off the grid as much as you can. I’ll take I-5 straight down
and intervene with Alexi as best I can.”

I grabbed his wrist. “No, Nick! You stay away from
him. You don’t need to talk to him in person. Just use your phone.
I don’t want him using you as leverage.”

“Leverage? What are you talking about?” He wrenched
free of my grasp and backed away. “Why would he do that?”

I groaned and ran my hand over my face. “Okay, look,
I need to level with you about something, but…I don’t want you to
flip out.”

He looked at me with suspicion narrowing his eyes.
“What the fuck have you done this time, Tyler?”

“Well, when I negotiated this deal with Dmitri, I
persuaded him to let you go, to forgive your debt, if I delivered
Erin as promised.”

“
You did what?” Nick’s face flushed
red. “Bloody fucking hell, Ty. You have no right to stick your
fucking nose in my business. I’m not some child to be taken care
of.” He paced back and forth across the room. “Godammit, Tyler! Do
you realize what you’ve done? I’m a fucking dead man, for sure.
Shit!”

I was so focused on getting him free that I hadn’t
considered the possibility of failure.

“The fact that you have to worry about your life is
reason enough for me to want you out,” I explained. “Can’t you see
that?”

“I don’t need your protection. I know what I’m
doing, and I know how to deal with these people.
You
have no
fucking clue. They don’t play games, Tyler. It’s all about image
and control. If you fuck them over, they’ll take you out if for no
other reason than you made them look bad. Something you should know
better than anyone.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed with his elbows
on his knees. He ran his hands through his hair over and over.
“This guy Dmitri was doing a favor for—the one who bought the
girl—Sergeyev? He’s fucking big time, from the goddamn motherland.
You can
not
mess with these Russians, Tyler. They’re mean
fucks. For God’s sake, I warned you. I told you this was
complicated, that there were things you didn’t know. What am I
supposed to do to hold them off now, huh? What?” He looked at me
like I had the answer, but I did not.

“Right. Okay then. Well…you’re just going to have to
stay out of sight until I can fix this on my own.”

He jumped to his feet. “You
can’t
fix this,
Tyler, on your own or otherwise. That’s what I’m trying to tell
you. We are both dead. And that girl in there,” he said, once more
pointing towards the bathroom, “she’s going to wish she was when
they’re finished with her. You think what
you
did to her was
bad?” He shook his head. “Just get the fuck out of here, both of
you. I don’t even want to know where you’re going.”

“What about your car? I left it up at
Maguire’s.”

He just glared at me. “Get out, Ty. Stay away from
home. And stay the fuck away from me, too.” He grabbed the keys to
his Jeep, and left without looking back.

I ran around the room collecting all of our stuff,
throwing everything into whatever bags I could find. I carried it
all out to Hannah’s BMW and threw it in the back. I returned and
stood in the shattered bathroom doorway. Hannah was still in the
tub; she hadn’t moved an inch.

I reached my hand out to her. “We have to go,” I
said.

She glanced at my hand and shook her head. “No. I’m
not going anywhere with you. I’m better off on my own. You’re way
too dangerous. You’re drunk. You don’t think things through, and
you’re going to get us all killed.”

I stepped closer and offered my hand again, my
expression stern. “Hannah, please don’t mistake my regret for
weakness or a lack of resolve. Now please, let’s go.”

When she still refused, I reached down and grabbed
her arm, yanking her out forcibly. She gasped and struggled against
me, but I held on tight. She protested as I dragged her through the
door and closed it, pulling her along to her car. I pushed her in
through the open driver’s door and moved in behind her.

“Slide over,” I ordered and closed the car door
behind me. “As you might have discerned, this situation has become
more complicated than expected. If we have any hope at all of
getting out of this alive, you
will
do as I say. This is not
a game.”

“You’re right. It’s not a game,” she screamed. “It’s
my life!”

“Yes, and it’s in
my
hands. It’s up to
me
to make sure you have the opportunity to live it!” I
started the car and pulled out of the lot. I spied Nick walking
alongside the busy road in the opposite direction. “I’m going to
make sure we all do.”

Chapter
Twenty
-
Four

Hannah

In one moment of madness, my life had turned upside
down. I was barreling down the freeway with a man I didn’t know,
who had beaten and nearly violated me then apologized for both as
he wept over his dead wife’s memory. I didn’t know where we were
going or if I would live to see tomorrow. He had intended to trade
me in payment for some kind of debt, and though he promised
otherwise, his life and that of his brother depended on him doing
just that. I feared I was being delivered to the Devil at the very
gates of Hell.

In what world did this kind of thing happen? I was
trapped in a situation I could not navigate through, at least not
on my own. The only person who might be able to help me was the
very same man who had thrust me upon this road in the first place.
My mind was spinning with fear and uncertainty. All I could do was
trust my instincts and pray they didn’t let me down. But was that
enough?

The whole situation was spiraling out of control.
The tension between the two brothers told me so. They were both
scared and unsure of how to proceed. Tyler seemed committed to
keeping me away from the men he’d been dealing with, but I wasn’t
altogether convinced that his remorse, as profound as it appeared,
was enough to keep me safe. His brother seemed more than eager to
sacrifice me in order to save his own neck. I had no idea what was
going to happen or what they planned on doing to settle the
dangerous dispute that loomed ahead. Tyler wasn’t sharing any
information with me. In fact, he wasn’t talking at all.

As the silence grew heavy, I turned my thoughts to
his wife. She was the root of all this. I was curious about her,
about their relationship. He certainly seemed lost without her. I
understood that, the rage he felt, the loneliness. I even
understood his bitterness, of having everything that made you who
you were stripped away. It’s demoralizing to lose everything that
defines who you are. Beck had cheated me out of that, of knowing
exactly who I was—
Mrs.
Beckham Maguire—but I had contributed
to it. I pulled away, was distant, remote. I shouldn’t have been
surprised; the signs were all there. This man, however, never saw
it coming. Blindsided as he was, it’s no wonder he chose the path
he did. If I’d been given the opportunity, would I have given
myself over to vengeance as he had?

I saw the regret in his eyes, the remorse that
consumed him, and the pain of knowing his decision was more costly
than he could have ever imagined possible. Down deep, I didn’t
want
to believe he was a monster. I wanted to believe it was
just a reaction to what life had thrown him. I knew only too well
that life could change in the blink of an eye and take you down
with it—hard—as it spiraled out of control. I was living, breathing
proof. And so, I thought, was he.

I also knew weakness, the kind he had fallen victim
to, which promised bittersweet numbness in the wake of extreme,
debilitating pain. Grief can do strange things to the mind and
spirit, like make you hate the one person you promised to love
most. I understood it all too well, and I knew his experience was
far worse than anything I had suffered. As close as he’d come, and
as much as it frightened me, I would rather be raped a thousand
times than lose the one person who meant more to me than life
itself. There would be no meaning to anything if Conner were ever
taken from me. I would collapse onto myself, just as this man had
done. I understood it all perfectly.

Yet if I was to trust this man with my life, I
needed to understand him—his character, not his motives. Most
people don’t stray too far from the core of who they are. Perhaps
the severity of his reaction was the very measure of the love he
held for his wife. Could someone who loved so greatly be a monster
or simply be capable of doing monstrous things?

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t believe him. Maybe
this was all a con, part of his grand scheme, to make me believe he
wasn’t the monster he’d already exposed himself to be. So that I
would trust him, go along willingly, even feel sorry for him. A
loud voice in my head told me to fear him. It was screaming,
flailing, jumping up and down, warning me to run.
Run, godammit,
run!
That was the smart thing to do, wasn’t it? To protect
myself? You run from what tries to destroy you, what causes you
pain. But there was something else there. I couldn’t put my finger
on it, but whatever it was, it made me believe him. No man could
fake that kind of pain, that level of remorse and regret. And he
wouldn’t really need to, would he? I was at his mercy, after all.
He had the gun. He had control. Yet he had begged for my
forgiveness, and now he wanted to protect me from the very enemy
he’d unleashed. Why would he do that if he weren’t truly sorry, if
he didn’t want to save me? Why would he ask his dead wife to
forgive him?

Yes, I agreed with the voice inside me. I did fear
him, but my instincts were screaming, as well, telling me I had no
better option than to trust him. In spite of everything he had done
to me, my heart held a degree of empathy for him, telling me to be
compassionate toward his tortured soul.
There but for the grace
of God...

I wouldn’t fight him. I believed his need for
redemption was the only thing that promised me deliverance. I
closed my eyes and took a deep breath, giving myself over to
whatever fate held for me.

What choice did I really have anyway?

Chapter
Twenty
-
Five