“Ma’am…” Adriana started.
“Both of you out, now.”
I blinked as they both rushed by. Pulling up the study camera, I saw the First Lady clearly. However, the woman she was with cared more about our books, her features were obstructed due to the camera’s angle. One thing was disappointingly clear: I was mistaken, that woman was not her lover. The First Lady looked terrified, shaken, as if she were standing in front the devil herself.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she snapped feebly.
“Why?” the woman asked, pulling out a book. “I paid a whole lot of money for that plate of fish.”
The moment her lilting voice reached my ears, my heart began to race; I felt suffocated, I could hardly breathe. The healed bullet wound in my shoulder burned in recognition of her, Aviela—my mother’s voice. She stood there in her white suit and even whiter shoes while flipping through the pages of my book with her deceivingly pure white gloves.
“You know why!” The First Lady desperately wailed. “Someone could see us together and know—”
“And know what?” Aviela asked. “That you hired me to shoot your husband, their beloved President, between the eyes?”
Oh shit.
I wanted to go but my hand went to my stomach. So instead I reached for the phone.
“Callahan,” Liam answered monotonically.
“Get to the study now. Aviela’s there,” I told him before hanging up.
The First Lady grabbed the book from her hands, throwing it across the room. “That’s not what happened! I never asked you to kill him. He was going to leave me, he promised to help my political career! I asked you to help me secure my future!”
Grabbing a hold of her neck, Aviela pulled her face closer. “And here we are. You’re running, some may even go as far as to say you’ve already won the race for leader of the free world. That’s a pretty secured future in my eyes. Now, pick up that book before I snap your pathetic neck and find a new puppet.”
She threw her on to ground as if she were trash.
Gasping for air with her hands around her neck, the most powerful woman in the world crawled to the fallen book, and lifted it up above her head. Walking over, Aviela took it before taking a seat in my chair. She adjusted the scattered papers as if she couldn’t help herself.
Even though it was less than a few minutes since I placed the call, I couldn’t help but wonder what was taking Liam so long.
“What do you want from me?” the First Lady sobbed, not bothering to pick herself up. She continued to babble weakly in defeat, it was a stark difference from the woman who’d stood at the podium less than a half an hour ago. “You have no idea what you’ve done. What we’ve done. I can’t do this, they’re going to find out—”
“Oh shut up and take a Xanax. You’ve been doing great, the people love you and that big hair of yours.” Aviela grinned, kicking her feet up.
The moment Aviela spoke of her hair, she sat up, wiping her face and smoothing back the stray stands.
“See? Looking more presidential already.”
“When I win this election, I don’t want you coming around. So how much will it cost for you to disappear?” she asked resolutely, brushing her dress off, seemingly trying to regain some of her decorum.
Aviela smirked, standing up. “Nothing.”
“What?”
“Win and make sure the Callahan’s never get into the White House. That is how you pay me,” she told her before walking out of the room.
“No. No. No,” I hissed, trying to see where she went. Apparently, the bitch had taken down most of our old cameras. If it weren’t for the new ones Neal had installed, we wouldn’t have even caught her in the study.
“Damn it!” I screamed as Liam, Declan and Sedric entered the study to find it empty. As if he could feel my rage, Liam angrily paced across the room, grabbing the book Aviela had left on the desk.
“Find her,” he said through a clenched jaw before leaving the room.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. When the doors to the control room opened, I instantly threw my knife. Liam stared at the knife lodged in the wall by his head before looking up at me wide eyed.
“What did you find out from the Briars?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath.
Handing me my weapon, he looked at the monitors, putting his gun—which he had drawn before the knife hit the wall—away. “What was she doing?”
“What did you find out from the Briars?” I repeated.
“Mel…’
“She killed the President, Liam. She killed the leader of the free world, just to make sure we didn’t get the White House. Right now, I do not care about her. I want to know what’s going on, now!”
He looked over the screens, still searching for her. We both knew she was gone. There was no way we could get to her right now. Not like this. She had entered our home without us noticing; she could get out just as easily.
“She or an accomplice somehow found and disabled the old cameras in the study. They weren’t aware of the ones Neal just installed,” he whispered, clicking through the monitors. “She went down the west hallway but…”
“Liam,” I snapped impatiently.
“Your grandfather. He was a monopoly taking over the mafia,” he spat. “He’s been setting up marriages for decades, all with the single purpose of making sure no one family is too dominant. He’s trying to spread the wealth, drugs, and power.”
“So, basically he doesn’t like the fact that Google and Bing are in bed together,” I whispered, trying to figure out what this meant.
“Who’s Google and who’s Bing in this analogy?”
“Aviela had me at gunpoint. Shit, she shot me. Why didn’t she kill me? I doubt that it was her maternal instincts kicking in.” I could never even think of doing anything remotely harmful to my own child. How could she?
Leaning against the desk, he thought it over. “What happened when Caesar fell?”
“Everyone tried to become Caesar.”
“That’s why she didn’t kill you. Killing you right then and there would spark the need for revenge from those loyal to you. Killing us both would open the door to anarchy and more bloodshed, everyone will be trying to fill the shoes we’d leave behind.”
Running my hand through my hair, I tried my best to ignore the stabbing sensation I was feeling. “What does Ivan get out of this?” Why did he care? Where was his link in all this?”
“A kick out of controlling the Mafia without getting his hands dirty?” He frowned.
“There has to be more to this, right?”
He thought for a moment and shrugged. “Who knows, but at least we have something to hang around that woman’s neck. I wonder how the people will feel when they find out.”
“I think they’ll bring out the guillotine. I doubt she knows who Aviela really is. She might not even know her as Aviela. But that woman is just itching to confess, we just have to give her a soapbox to stand on.”
“I’d better call Neal and tell him not to bother with whatever half-assed plan he was working on.” He sighed, texting his idiotic brother.
“Not that it would have worked anyways. I’ve seen puppies who are more useful than he’s been. Though we have to give him credit for the cameras.”