Blind Speed Dating #38

Title:  THE MISTAKEN

Genre:  adult psychological thriller

Word count:  95,000  

Query:

All Tyler Karras wants is to enjoy life with his expectant bride; what he gets instead is a graveside seat at her funeral.  With the woman who killed her uncharged and still free, all Ty wants now is revenge.

His brother, Nick, has dangerous connections and suggests a sadistic plan: grab the woman responsible and hand her over to his associates—sex-traffickers in San Francisco’s Russian Mafia.  They offer Ty more than he dreamed possible.  In exchange for the woman, they’ll finally let his brother leave the business for good—with his debt wiped clean and his heart still beating.

There’s just one problem: Ty kidnaps the wrong woman.

Now he must protect Hannah Maguire from the very enemy he’s unleashed, but the Russians are holding Nick as leverage to force Ty to complete their deal.  Caught in a no-win situation, Ty must find a way to save himself, his brother, and the woman, but with the Russian Mafia, even two out of three makes for very long odds.

THE MISTAKEN is an equally plot and character-driven tale of betrayal, vengeance, forgiveness, and transformation as Tyler struggles to atone for his sins and reclaim the man he once was from the villain he’s become.

First 250:

God, I didn’t want to do this.  Just thinking about it had my gut tied in knots, but I was out of options.  My brother had given me no choice.  I was tired of his promises, sick of his attitude, of everything always being someone else’s fault, never his.  While my fiancée, Jillian, and I had discussed what I should say to him, I continued to rehearse, point by point, during my short commute home.  But who was I kidding?  I knew damn well, no matter what I said, my brother would throw every word right back in my face, like he always did.  But I didn’t care anymore.  After four long weeks, he had overstayed his welcome, and now it was time for Nick to leave.

The confrontation loomed only minutes away, and I was dreading it.  And if that wasn’t enough, there was the fog.  Cold and persistent, it clung to the road like a drowning man to driftwood.  It was the one thing I’d never grown accustomed to here in San Francisco, the summer fog burning off each afternoon only to reappear a few hours later, denser than ever.  Add to it the waning twilight and you couldn’t see much at all, just indistinct shapes of black and grey.  I could barely make out the colorful Victorian facades standing shoulder to shoulder along my street.  The painted ladies simply faded into the mist.

I pulled into my driveway and shifted into park, a long sigh escaping at the thought of what waited for me inside.  …