Page 72 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)
“No, there were several other men. All of them in masks, except Harris. Two of them carried Selene off while the rest of them attacked me. They didn’t call me Rose Alton, my cover name. They called me Agent Monroe.”
“You remember that, but not how many of them there were?”
“Yes, Beck, my blown cover happened to stick out to me,” she grumbles. “They were on me so quick I didn’t have time to count them, to pull my weapon or anything else. All I could do was lie there and take it, hoping they didn’t kill me.”
Tears pool in her eyes, but I blink at her, unmoved. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
“What?!”
She tosses an outraged look at Cal, and he shrugs.
“It’s a fair question, Monroe. They had the time, and you were an incapacitated, and essentially unarmed, traitor who lied about who she is to get close to them.
Finding out you’re a fed would have constituted the ultimate act of betrayal, punishable by death. ”
“Or by torture and then death,” I drop in. “They should have taken you to be dealt with by Jacob, who would have killed you after finding out everything he needed to know about what you shared with us.”
Charlie bristles. “Why do you sound like you wanted that to happen?”
My answer is simple, perhaps the easiest words I’ll speak today.
“Because I would much rather be chasing down your murderer than looking for Selene and her kidnapper.”
She puts us out after that, and I’m not surprised, but I am annoyed that we have to go back to Selene and Aubrey’s home with nothing new to report to her parents and siblings.
They flew in as soon as the news of the kidnapping broke, joining the ranks of the countless groups of people now roaming the halls of the sprawling estate, which now feels too small because it’s teeming with people and empty because the one person who belongs in the center of all of this is nowhere to be found.
After checking in with Hicks, the FBI and the rest of our team, Cal and I head to the kitchen, which Justine, Albert, Robin, Jessica and Monique have claimed as their domain.
Well, Mama J claimed it, but the rest of the family is there to support.
Every day, Albert sits in the breakfast nook with his eyes on the TV mounted in the corner.
Monique takes over the space across from him, staring out the window instead of the laptop in front of her with emails from shareholders and investors asking for updates she doesn’t have.
Mama J spends the entire day cooking on a stove I’m sure Selene has never used before.
The meals range from extravagant to simple, and sometimes they make no sense for the time of day or the season, but no one complains.
Selene’s sisters, Robin and Jessica, jump in to help her when she allows it, but mostly they split their time between checking social media for updates and asking us for the details we leave out when talking to their parents.
When we walk into the kitchen, five pairs of hopeful eyes turn on us. Mama J is slicing vegetables at the island. The knife in her hand is sharp as hell, and yet it keeps rocking against the cutting board while her eyes are on us, pleading for answers about her child.
“Any news?”
Cal dips his head in shame. “No, ma’am.”
Her chin wobbles as she tries to put on a brave smile. “That’s okay. I know you two are working as hard as you can to get her home.”
The idea of her comforting us when we should be out there getting answers for her makes my stomach turn. It rumbles loudly, struggling to digest guilt, and Mama J mistakes it for hunger.
“Here, sit. I’m sure you two need to eat.”
She waves at the empty seats at the island next to Jessica and Robin, who are absently gnawing away at the assorted vegetables on their plates. There’s a lack of cohesion to the pairings and the knife work that reflects the state of their mother’s mind.
Robin, the middle child, notices me staring at her plate and purses her lips, waiting until the older woman has turned her back to us to address it. “She just needs something to do with her hands,” she explains.
Jessica bites down on what looks like half of a red bell pepper with the core still intact and sighs. “She doesn’t know how to sit still.”
“Never did,” Albert mutters gruffly from behind us while Monique hums her agreement.
Cal and I nod our understanding.
For four days now, we’ve been plagued with the need to do something, but have had no true idea of what exactly that something is.
Outside of tracking down useless leads pouring in from tip lines, we haven’t been doing anything besides this.
Sharing somber meals and snacks with the most important people in Selene’s life, wondering what it would be like to be an actual part of their family, if they would accept us as a unit.
Every time I follow that line of thought, I end up with a heart twisted into knots when I realize we might never get the chance to find out.
“Cal, you have to have some of these,” Mama J says, spinning around with a platter of something in her hands.
It slips from her fingers before I have the chance to identify the contents, and everyone in the room jumps when the sound of glass shattering surrounds us.
My eyes fly to her face only to find her gaze locked on a spot above my head.
I turn then, finding Albert frozen in place as well, a mug of coffee halfway to his lips.
“OH, MY BABY,” Mama J wails, stepping over glass and an assortment of Cal’s favorite fruits to get to the table where her husband is, to set her eyes on the TV screen where a news segment about Aubrey’s lead in the polls has shifted to a live stream that shows nothing but Selene’s face.