Page 47 of Incisive

That’s more than she damn well deserves. Her whining isn’t gaining a single inch of traction with me tonight. Especially since she had our entire lives, before I was elected to national office, to actually behave like a loving sister and have a genuinely close relationship with me.

Only then did she suddenly start acting like she wanted to be part of my life, and that intensified when I became VPOTUS.

Except that ship has fricking sailed now. I won’t tolerate her bullshit.

I only got her tickets for the first three balls. Upon learning that she got snippy with me and said fine, she wouldn’t have any trouble getting tickets on her own. Which I guess speaks volumes about Stella’s ego.

Spoiler alert—she couldn’t. Not even as my sister and with her supposed high-level DC connections. Jordan discovered that intel.

When Stella realizes I’m looking her way she shoots me a withering death glare that would get her tackled by my detail were she nearly any other person on the planet. I offer her a cheeky smirk and raise the glass in my hand in her direction.

Anger darkens her gaze, furrows her brow, and she turns away like she thinks that’s punishing me.

As if.

God only knows what web of lies she’ll spin to our parents about tonight.

If she can even be bothered to talk to them. Right now I have bigger issues to deal with than my little sister pitching a temper tantrum all over Twitter and taking barely disguised potshots at me.

All of which I ignore. Because she hasn’t crossed a line—yet. She knows if it looks like we’re on the outs it’ll completely eliminate what pull she thinks has as my sister. When FNB contacted her and asked if her passive-aggressive tweets were directed at me she apparently told them to grow up and hung up on them.

Whatever.

And no, I willnotbe using Twitter while I’m in office. I’m following Shae’s lead. I’ll let Jordan handle posting to my social media accounts and he’ll only send out messages for events like holidays, condolences, or good news. And government-related information, such as announcing cabinet appointments, bills being signed or vetoed, things like that.

No editorializing.

Pecan pictures, however, are fine. We’ll be retweeting pictures from Shae’s account for the world’s most famous pet tortoise. I’ve already told Shae that when they travel and need a Pecan-sitter they can bring him here and he’ll have the run of the place.

I’ve given orders to my staff via Casey-Marie that official government social media accounts absolutely willnotbe used for petty bullshit, like inciting partisan fights, or attacking people, and especially not for spreading false information.

Wish I could control what Stella posts. I can’t, but damn, if only I could.

Speaking of Stella… My sister wanted to bring a date tonight, but after Secret Service ran a background check on the guy it turns out he was an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign country in eastern Europe.

Oh, too bad, his visa got revoked. In a matter of hours he was taken into custody by DHS, deported, and put on a plane back to his home country. Before the press got wind of it.

If he’d opted to fight the deportation he would’ve been arrested and jailed for tax fraud.

Which would’ve also implicated one of Stella’s largest clients.

I might have giggled when Leo informed me of that. I also felt more than a little satisfaction when I called Stella personally to update her about what happened and why her request to bring him was denied.

She hung up on me.

Felt even more satisfaction when she called me the next week whining about the situation and said she wanted to bring another date andreallywanted me to meet him.

I told her absofuckinglutely not.

In those exact words.

That’s when I informed her she couldn’t bring a plus-one to my inauguration, other than Mom and Dad, since she obviously couldn’t be trusted to pick someone who wouldn’t violate any laws, and I wasn’t about to get dragged into a scandal on her account.

Yes, Jordan and Leo were proud of me for taking that stand, too.

See? This old and worn-out dog can learn a few tricks when he tries hard enough.

I glance around. Immediately nearby are Several Secret Service agents from my detail, who are likely friends of Leo’s. I’ve told them Leo still gets full and unrestricted access to me, the way Jordan and Casey-Marie do. And Declan, of course, since he’s Casey-Marie’s deputy chief of staff.