Page 3

Aurora

M y courage failed me at the door to his study. Lead filled my shoes, pinning them to the dark hardwood floor like concrete blocks. Try as I might, I couldn’t work myself free. I was too weighed down with fear.

Fear and denial.

After Janet had left, I’d forced myself to read through every word in every file. I’d watched every video, heard every conversation, and looked at every snapshot. Together, they painted a damning picture of the man I’d held up as a shining beacon to the world around me.

God, what a fool I was!

Even as I acknowledged it, a part of me rebelled, wanting to shout it all down and say it wasn’t so. That my father was still a good man. Someone must have put him up to it, made him do all those things. There was no way he would do it on his own.

This was the man who’d taught me everything I knew about politics. How to maneuver through conversations, to answer without making promises, to always keep the little people in mind, and so much more.

How could a man like that do all the things listed in that file?

“Daddy?” I knocked gently on the mostly closed door. “Are you in there?”

The light was on. There was nowhere else he would be, but I still didn’t want to barge in.

“Rory? Come in.”

I pushed open the heavy wooden door, the perfectly oiled hinges allowing it to slide inward without a noise and close behind me just as silently.

My father was seated behind his desk. At his back, a fire roared and crackled, warding off the cool evening chill and providing the only light. It was a sight I’d seen many times before, but now, it took on a darker, more sinister meaning in my mind. An omen of what he truly was.

“What can I do for my favorite daughter?” Senator Marcus Whitfield asked as he rose, coming around the desk to wrap me in a hug.

I let myself be enveloped in his arms. It felt so normal. He was my father.

And yet …

“Rory?” Pushing back slightly, he stared down at me. “What’s wrong?”

I looked down, then back up at him.

Eyes that I knew were dark blue looked near black in the darkness. Salt and pepper hair covered his face and head. He kept it trimmed short on his face but left it slightly longer on his head, the more to rub it into his peers that, at sixty-six, he still had a full head of hair, unlike many of them.

Always looking for an edge.

“Rory, you look pale. Are you feeling well?”

Grasping frantically at the fraying edges of my courage, I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Not at all.”

Concern creased his face, revealing the age lines his makeup usually softened. But he didn’t wear makeup at home. Not with family.

“Do I need to get a doctor? We can have one here immediately.”

I raised a hand. “No, Father. It’s not that. It’s that I heard something today. Something terrible, and I need to know it’s not true.”

Now, it was curiosity’s turn to weather his face. He knew me well. After the training he’d given me—and a lifetime of exposure to politics—there wasn’t much that could cause the sort of reaction I was having.

“What did you hear?”

“Someone sent me an anonymous email, Daddy. About Judge Porter. They said …”

“What did they say?”

Nobody else would have heard it. The only reason I did was because he was my father and I was his daughter. We’d talked many times in situations where he didn’t have to be “in character” and could let his guard down. Which he did for the briefest of moments.

But it was enough.

“They said you threatened him over this Sutter case. The murder suspect. That you told Porter to ensure the outcome was one you desired. You wouldn’t do that, though, would you?”

I looked up, trying to project hopefulness onto my face. I was just a girl who needed to hear that her Daddy was caught up in some other scheme or another where a rival had tried to implicate him in something bad.

“Now, why would I tell Porter to do something like that?” he asked, shaking his head.

My heart sank as I recognized the deflection tactic even as he tried to probe me for more information.

It was true. I knew it right then.

“Rory?”

“I believed in you,” I whispered hoarsely, taking a step back. “I believed you truly wanted to be the change you said. That you held yourself to higher levels than the rest.”

Stiff-shouldered to the point his suit was pulled tight against his shoulders, he stood upright.

“Tell me who’s forcing you to do this, Dad. Tell me who it is. I’ll help you bring them in. We can do this together.”

But the look on his face told me everything I already knew. The mask was gone, replaced with the hard immobility of stone as he stared at me.

“Who told you this?” he asked, his voice like steel.

I shook my head. “I still love you. We can fix this, Daddy. We can make it better. I’ll help you. I will. You can resign. Just leave politics behind. Just let it all go, and we’ll pretend like none of it ever happened.”

“Who. Told. You.” A hand landed on my shoulder, wrinkled with age but still full of power thanks to his daily workouts. It gripped tight enough I couldn’t easily shake free.

A warning.

“Aurora Whitefield. Who else has this information?” The coldness of his tone was unlike anything I’d ever heard from him before. Even when I was growing up and he’d had to discipline me, he’d never used such a voice.

“Nobody,” I replied. “I have the only copy.”

I was his daughter. Angry or not, he wasn’t going to do anything to hurt me.

“Good.” His head shifted slightly so he could look past me.

My head whirled around, and I gasped as I realized that Martin, the head of my father’s security detail, had slipped into the room at some point without me noticing.

“Daddy?” My voice was a squeak. “What’s going on?”

I’d thought he wouldn’t do anything to me. Not his only child. The child he’d raised on his own after my mother had died when I was twelve. I was his pride and joy. He’d told me on so many occasions.

“Rory,” he said, adopting the gentle tone of an adult doing some parenting that they were tired of. “You need to tell me who told you about Judge Porter. It’s very important.”

Everything was coming crashing down around me. The man I thought I knew, the father, the dad who’d always been there with me in private, so different from the public face he put on … that was the fraud I realized now as I stared into his face. His dark blue eyes were cold and devoid of any emotion, even for me.

I’d been lied to my entire life.

“I’m going to give you this one chance, Rory. You need to tell me what you know, then forget you ever heard it. Okay? If you do that, it’ll be okay.”

The condescension was too much.

“Okay? Okay ?” I laughed bitterly. “By that, you mean you’ll cover it up and continue to steal the money from the Appropriations Committee and use it to build up your influence? To buy your way to the top? Is that what this is all about?”

“Aurora …”

He used my full name. Like a stranger. The ice that had congealed in my stomach melted swiftly, running in streams as my temper stoked the fires of anger. “This goes against everything you taught me!”

Sighing, my father relented ever so slightly. Or so it appeared at first. His expression calmed, and he stepped back, resting on the edge of the desk, his fingers curling under the lip. Behind me, in silence, Martin waited, summoned by the raised voices.

“Times change, Rory. And you have to be prepared to change with them if you ever want to get something done.”

I stared at him, horror slowly spreading across my face as what he was saying dawned on me.

“Yes,” he said. “If you want, I could bring you in. We do this together. Father and daughter.”

I wanted to spit in his face with disgust. “If you were truly my father,” I said, holding back from screaming, “you would know I could never do anything like that. I still have principles I believe in.”

Finished, I turned to go.

But Martin was there. Blocking my way. The ex-special forces soldier didn’t look at all surprised by what he’d heard.

“Get out of my way, Martin,” I said, moving to go around him.

Moving like a predator, he blocked my way. His every body movement was moderated, using the least energy necessary to achieve his aims.

I ducked under him, but his arm wrapped easily around my waist. Opening my mouth to scream, I was suddenly bent over as a blow to my stomach drove all the air from my lungs.

Terrified, I instinctively turned to find my father. A man I’d always run to in times of danger.

But instead of my father, there was someone else.

Senator Marcus Whitfield.

“I’m sorry to do this,” the senator said calmly. “But I can’t have you spoiling my plans.”

He was going to kill me.

The senator must have seen the horror in my eyes. “No. I couldn’t kill you. You’re still my daughter.” Something glinted in the depths of his eyes, signaling an idea. “But perhaps there’s a way to ensure you never interfere while also not killing you or leaving you in a cell for the rest of your life.”

I struggled, and when a rush of air came back, I tried to scream, but Martin’s hand clamped firmly over my mouth.

“Goodbye, Aurora,” he said as he gestured at the door with his chin.

Without any effort whatsoever, the bodyguard hauled me from the room. The last sight I had of my father was of him sliding into the chair at his desk.

Behind him, the flames roared higher.