Page 73 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)

CAL

S ince I met her, there’s never been a time when I didn’t want to look at Selene.

When I didn’t want to study the lines of her face and learn the intricacies of the few expressions she gives freely.

When I didn’t want to stare into her eyes and name every shade of brown and gold that resides there.

When I didn’t want to marvel at her beauty and thank God for allowing me the chance to witness her.

I don’t want to witness her like this.

A gash in her forehead with dried blood around the edges.

A bruise under her eye. A fresh cut on her lip that suggests someone recently hit her in the face.

A gun pressed into her temple, the glint of silver menacing and loud even before the pale hand holding it pushes down, digging the metal into her skin.

Albert’s breathing turns shallow, and Monique rushes around the table on wobbling knees to put her arms around his shoulders because his daughters are busy holding their mother up.

She’s wailing loudly. Her body nothing more than a crumpled heap that seems determined to sink to the floor.

Jessica and Robin don’t let that happen, though; they keep her upright even as their own tears fall, even as the weight of their own fear tries to collapse their muscles and steal their strength.

Finding the remote, I turn up the volume so I can hear what’s being said.

There’s a paper in Selene’s hands, but she’s not the one speaking.

She’s staring into the camera with a resolute glare while the man beside her, whose face we can’t see because the angle of the camera only captures his body from the waist up, and the hand holding the gun.

It doesn’t matter that we can’t see his face; I know the man is Jacob Marsh.

There’s more confidence in his voice now than there was years ago when we interviewed him about his dad.

No ripples of anxiety or stumbling over his words, just a cool, calm, and collected tone laced with hatred and entitlement while he recites his version of his father’s rhetoric.

He’s updated it some, but at its core it’s the same white supremacy, bullets, bloodshed and Second Amendment rights bullshit that has plagued this country for far too long.

“My father is a patriot,” he’s saying now. “He loves this country. He believes in the America that libtards like Mrs. Taylor here want to take from us….”

I tune him out, focusing on Selene, forcing myself to pay attention to her breathing and the size of her pupils.

She hasn’t been drugged, and she doesn’t seem to be suffering from any worrying side effects of her injuries, which would be a relief if there wasn’t a gun to her head.

Beck is beside me, his body tense and his eyes on the TV.

Unlike me, he’s not staring at Selene but looking past her, taking in her surroundings.

There’s not much to see, but if there is anything to be found, he’ll find it.

“That’s enough from me, don’t you think?

” Jacob asks Selene, running a hand over her hair.

She flinches away, and I feel my hands turn to fists, clenching with the need to find and hurt him as I make a silent promise to kiss her everywhere he’s touched her, to use my love to erase her trauma.

“You have something to say to the world, right, Selene ?”

He says her name like a slur, desecrating every sacred syllable with his hateful tongue. She shakes her head in response, her eyes still hard, still locked on the screen. She’s trying to be strong, but I know she’s scared.

Jacob presses the muzzle of the gun into her temple so hard that I can see the skin and tissue underneath it caving. “Read it,” he growls, leaning down to put his lips to her ear.

Everyone in the room takes a collective breath of shock as she brings the paper up and inadvertently exposes the ligature marks on her wrists. They had to have had her tied up for days. I’m sure the wounds are painful and probably close to being infected if they aren’t already.

Mama J turns her head into Robin’s neck. “I can’t look.”

Jessica rubs her back, cooing softly in her ear that everything will be okay. I wish someone would tell me that. I wish I could believe them if they did.

Selene inhales shakily, and the paper trembles under the weight of her breath when she exhales “My name is Selene Taylor. It is November 5th, and I’m going to die today.

This is not hyperbole or exaggeration. This is a fact.

My death—” her throat constricts, closing around the words that must feel so wrong in her mouth.

Once again, there’s the press of the gun, and Jacob’s insistence, and she starts again, infusing steel into her vocal cords.

“My death is imminent and will be televised. There will be no negotiations or ransom demands; there will be no saving me. By the time my husband, Aubrey Taylor, is elected President of the United States of America, he will be a widower, free from the constraints of the liberal idealism and political correctness I have imposed on him and planned to use my influence as First Lady to force on the rest of the world. Do not grieve me, this is what I deserve.”

The feed cuts off instantly, revealing a terrified news anchor on the left side of the screen and Aubrey on the right.

“Is that motherfucker seriously on TV right now?” Monique shouts, letting go of Albert to storm out of the room, presumably to find Aubrey and curse him out for not even taking a moment to come and comfort his wife’s family before he addressed the fucking world.

Jessica, Robin, and Mama J all go running behind her, leaving Beck and I alone in the kitchen with Albert. He’s a man of few words, so it shocks me when his voice fills the quiet left by the departure of the women.

“Four days I’ve been here, watching my Justine flit from one corner of this house to the other.

Four days I’ve sat at this table across from Monique, listening to her take calls and answer questions people don’t have no damn business asking.

Four days I’ve seen my girls whisper prayers for their big sister, hoping we’ll get her back so they can have a chance to love each other better.

” He lifts a gnarled hand to his mouth and shakes his head as he fights back a wave of emotion.

“Four days I’ve seen that husband of hers do everything but come in this room and face us.

He don’t even act like he misses her. All he cares about is this damn election while my baby is?—”

The words won’t come. We don’t need them. Silence stretches between the three of us while Albert gathers himself. He’s bouncing his leg and tapping his fist on the table at the same speed until his nervous system is regulated.

“Do you two care for my daughter as much as you look like you do?” he asks, shifting in his seat to turn wary brown eyes on us.

Beck and I both nod, unable to say more for a million different reasons.

Chief among them is our awareness of the contract Aubrey and Selene signed.

It feels stupid to think of it now, to be worried about legalities and potential public fallout when the very people Aubrey and Jordan plan to weaponize against Selene in the event of a breach of contract are the ones who might watch her die in a few hours.

Luckily, Albert doesn’t want our verbal assurances.

He rises from his seat, heading toward the opening that everyone else just disappeared through.

He stops short, pausing just beside Beck and me so that we’re all shoulder to shoulder.

A line of men who have held Selene and kept her safe, who have comforted her with bone-crushing hugs when words wouldn’t suffice, who love her more than anything and will be shattered if her ominous speech becomes a reality.

“Then please,” he begs, voice breaking over the words. “Bring my baby girl home.”

“We will,” I promise, praying the vow isn’t empty as the older man shuffles away.

As soon as we’re alone, Beck starts to pace with his fingers linked behind his head.

“I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”

“Not if I kill him first.”

Onyx eyes flick to my face. “Your bullet in his head, mine in his heart?”

“Works for me.”

With that settled, Beck shifts gears, running through everything he noticed.

“He’s keeping her tied up. Did you see the ligature marks?”

I nod. “They’re pretty deep. She’s been restrained for days.”

“Probably infected.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. We’ll need to have a medic with us when we find her.”

Beck pauses in front of me, despair and worry rolling off of him in poignant waves that threaten to swallow us both whole.

My heart aches for him, for the pieces of him that broke when he lost Diana and are threatening to shatter once more.

I helped him put them back together once, and it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible because that grief wasn’t mine, but this?

If something happens to Selene, this grief will be mine, and I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to put Beck back together because I’ll be broken too.

“What if we don’t?”

I want to tell him not to lend his voice to that possibility, not to even think it, but I can’t because my mind is in the same place.

I knew when I met Selene that I’d be forever changed by her.

I thought it would be her life, then hoped it would be her love, and now I’m staring down a reality where her death destroys me.

I don’t know how I’ll come back from that, how Beck will, but I’m sure that we’ll do it like we worked the Marsh case, like we saved President Warner, like we fell in love with Selene Taylor: together.

“Come here.”

I don’t give him a chance to refuse because he needs the embrace as much as I do.

I just wrap my fingers around the nape of his neck and pull him into me.

He sinks into my shoulder and wraps his arms around my middle, not considering for even a moment, what might happen if someone walks in here and sees us.

I wish I could appreciate the moment more, could fully bask in the freedom that comes with simply not giving a fuck, but I can’t because I know the fear of being found out has only been suspended because the fear of losing Selene, of reliving the trauma he experienced when he lost Diana has taken precedence.

Not for the first time, I find myself wishing I had been a part of his life when he was hunting down Valinsky.

We would have been able to stop him together, to reach him before he reached Diana.

And it doesn’t matter that her being alive would have changed what Beck and I are to each other, because I love him.

I love him, and in every situation, in every instance, I will do whatever is necessary to spare him the pain of loss.

I wish I could guarantee that he will be spared today, that we both will.

As if on cue, my phone chooses that moment to start ringing. Beck pulls away so that I can take the call, a tempered hopefulness trying to take over his expression. I turn the phone to him so he can see the screen.

“Charlie’s calling.”

He frowns, still frustrated with her from earlier, then shrugs like he knows things can’t get any worse, but they might get better. “Answer it.”

I connect the call and put her on speaker.

“What’s up, Monroe?”

She doesn’t return my greeting, forging straight ahead to the reason for her call. “I know where they are.”