Page 30 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)
“Last night on the plane. You were sleeping, and I guess they thought I was asleep too, otherwise they wouldn’t have said a word, but I overheard Ortega and Anderson talking shit.”
“About?”
“You. And Selene. Specifically, about the moment before she walked into the venue when you were holding her hand. Apparently, there are pictures, and they were wondering what you said to her. From there, it devolved into speculations about her using you to get back at Aubrey for cheating.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I would have wanted to defend you, which would have only made it look like you’re doing something you need to be defended from.”
The muscle in his jaw pulses. “I hear you.”
For the first time in a while, I believe he’s listening, that he’s taking my concerns seriously. “I know you care about her, Drake, but a little distance might be good. We should talk to Hicks about it.”
“He won’t put us on Aubrey because he wants the Presidential detail for himself.” He scrubs at his jaw roughly. “I’ll just have to do a better job of keeping my shit together around her.”
“Cal.”
“I can do it, Beck. I promise.”
There’s no point in arguing with him, especially when he’s right about Hicks trying to parlay leading this detail into the most coveted one in the Service, so I concede with a resigned sigh that puts an end to the entire discussion.
We resume our run in silence and the tension that hung between us yesterday joins as an unwelcome third, sticking around through two miles, joining us at the table when we stop at a cafe for water and a light breakfast.
Unlike last time, there’s no talk of adorable nieces to dispel the negative energy, so we have to sit in it, eating our food without exchanging a word until Cal curses and throws his phone onto the table, sliding it towards me.
“Look at this shit.”
Picking up the phone, I study the screen, arching a brow when I realize that he’s on Selene’s Instagram page. “This is your version of doing better? Stalking her online?”
He glares at me. “I check her socials every day to keep an eye out for any potential threats. You know this.”
I do know. Usually, we go through them together, splitting up the platforms and comparing notes, making sure the tech guys, whose job it actually is to sort through it all, didn’t miss anything important in their daily reports.
From the looks of the comments underneath the post Cal has pulled up on his phone, today’s report is going to be a fucking mess.
“Holy shit,” I whisper as my thumb moves over the screen, revealing one hateful comment after the other. “How have none of these been flagged or reported yet?”
“I don’t know.”
Cal’s leg is shaking so hard it’s making the table vibrate, and I would try to calm him down, but I don’t have a shred of calm inside of me.
All of it disappeared when I saw the first response to Selene’s post celebrating the successful launch of her facial recognition software.
In the photo, she’s on stage with her best friend Monique and the rest of their team.
Everyone is smiling and happy, proud that years of work have come together in this moment.
The positivity and light radiating from the digital still stand out in stark contrast against the darkness of the death threats below it.
Death threats.
Hundreds of them. Hundreds of people wishing for the end of a person’s life because she dared to speak out about the need for gun control in a country where someone murdering children with assault rifles is a common occurrence.
Some of them are simple and lacking in creativity, but others are more graphic, racially charged torture porn that’s ripe with depravity.
As I scroll, a red, hot anger flares in my gut.
Building and burning its way through me until all I can see, all I can taste, all I can feel is a primal surge of protectiveness that makes no sense to me because, as far as I know, Selene isn’t in any real danger at the moment.
When it threatens to overtake me, to send me sprinting back to the hotel to put eyes on her, I toss the phone back on the table and rub at my temples.
“Hicks needs to see those,” I growl.
“He probably already has. He gets the same reports we do. The question is, is he going to do anything about it?”
We share a look, both of us knowing that the answer is no.
Hicks actively ignores those reports and refuses to account for them when he’s allocating security resources.
Everything he does relays his belief that Selene’s safety is not a priority.
It’s not uncommon for spouses or family members to be designated as secondary in details like this, but the threats posed to Selene online are the whole reason why we were assigned to the Taylors in the first place.
That her safety is now treated as an afterthought by everyone but me and Cal pisses me off.
For what seems like the millionth time since he spoke them, Cal’s words from the green room ring in my head. Alone. Apart. Other. He’d been trying to tell me then that Selene was like us, and I see his point now. But I also see something else.
The similarities between the brilliant, beautiful Black woman we’ve been tasked to protect and the brilliant, beautiful Black woman I grieve every day.
The one who would still be here if it weren’t for the same kind of inaction and nonchalance that poses a threat to Selene’s life today.
Part of the reason why I don’t get along with Hicks is because he reminds me of my old supervisor, Robert Spring.
We started off on the wrong foot on my first day as a behavioral analyst, and we never found the right one.
That mutual hostility was at an all-time high when we started to investigate a string of murders happening right in our backyard.
All of the victims were white, female sex workers with a history of drug addiction.
The killer raped and strangled them before displaying their bodies in parks around the city.
It was a high-profile case, but it took us forever to catch a break.
Finally, a witness, a girl who’d survived an interaction with the killer before he’d gotten his MO down, came forward, leading us to a man named Alan Valinsky.
I knew Valinsky was guilty from the moment we met, but we could never pin anything on him.
The guy got a kick out of coming in after every new kill, volunteering airtight alibis and playing the good, helpful citizen, always refusing to talk to anyone but me.
After months of coming up empty, Spring ordered me to leave Valinsky alone, but I didn’t listen.
I kept digging into him, finding and interviewing everyone who ever knew him, including his first wife, who left him after the birth of their son.
The next time we saw each other, I brought up her name, and his cool, calm demeanor broke, exposing a nasty temper.
I told him that was why his wife had left, and then asked him what it was like knowing he’d never see her or his son again.
He’d only grinned and walked away, leaving me with a warning about how quickly others’ misfortunes could become our own.
That’s when I knew Diana was in his crosshairs.
I begged Spring for a protective detail, only to be reprimanded for harassing an innocent civilian, and two months later, my wife was dead.
I still remember the smile on Valinsky’s face when I walked into our bedroom and found him standing over her.
The way he laughed when I cuffed him and broke crime scene protocol just so I could hold her one last time.
Spring came to the funeral to pay his respects and pulled me aside, telling me there was no way we could have known this would happen. I punched him in the face and proceeded to try and tear him apart with my bare hands.
My transfer paperwork was filed the next day.
That transfer led me to Cal. It put me on a path to Selene, made it so I have no choice but to stand between her and the world in a way I never got to do for Diana.