Page 111 of The Ruling Class

I couldn’t look away from the screen, the armed men.

Henry sat down beside me. “I would venture to guess that Kostas decided to make it harder for the president to ignore his demands,” he said.

Ivy had promised Kostas that she would tell him exactly how to handle this situation. I wondered if she’d been the one to suggest taking the situation public.

I will hate you forever if you leave me now,Ivy,I thought, wishing she could hear me. My eyes were dry. So was my throat. I had nothing left but the words repeating themselves over and over again in my head. I’d done everything right. I’dfixedthis. Help was coming.

She didn’t get to leave me again.

On-screen, the reporter kept throwing information at us. The Washington Monument had been closed for construction. No one was sure how many people were inside, but there was a bomb.

The bomb strapped to Ivy’s chest.

I looked at the clock on the wall, like it could tell me when the deal I’d struck with Keyes would come through. Even for a man known for making things happen, conjuring a governor’s pardon out of nowhere took time.

Time Ivy might not have.

“We don’t have to watch.” Vivvie reached for the remote. I pulled it back.

“Yes,” I said simply, “we do.”

The four of us sat, one next to the other, our eyes locked on the screen. Vivvie’s hand worked its way into mine. On my other side, Henry surprised me by doing the same.

I held on—like a person dangling from the edge of a skyscraper, like a drowning man reaching for a hand to pull him to shore.

The press couldn’t get close. The Capitol loomed in the background. The SWAT team, the FBI … I didn’t know who else was there, trying to talk Ivy’s captor into releasing her, into not setting off the bomb.

If it had been just her, if it hadn’t been public, would they have just let her die? Would they have swept it under the rug, covered it up?It hurt to ask myself the question. It hurt even more to know that the answer was almost certainly yes.

“John!” the woman on the screen addressed the station’s news anchor excitedly. “Something is happening. Something is definitely happening.”

Far away, behind the blockade, there was movement. Guns were raised. A door was opening. I couldn’t make out the features on anyone’s face.

My phone buzzed, alerting me to arrival of a new text.It’s done. WK.William Keyes.

I stopped breathing. I stopped blinking. I stopped thinking. I stopped hoping.

All I could do was sit there as the reporter continued yelling at the camera, telling us that someone was coming out.

“We have confirmation that the hostage is female,” the reporter was saying. “I’m hearing unconfirmed reports that there’s a bomb strapped to her chest.”

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t tell what was happening. There was a flurry of movement on-screen.

“I don’t see her,” I said, wheezing the words out. “I don’t see her.”

If the others responded, I didn’t hear them. My ears rang. Suddenly, I was on my feet, but I didn’t remember standing.

“The hostage is safe,” the reporter said suddenly. “I repeat, John, we are hearing reports that the bomb has been disarmed and the hostage is safe.”

My body didn’t relax. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t riskbelieving what she was telling me—then the camera panned. It zoomed in, and just for a moment, I saw her.Ivy.

The shot was grainy. All I could make out was her hair, a hint of her features, but the way she moved, the way she stood—it was Ivy.

I sank back into the sofa.It’s done, the text had said. Kostas had gotten what he wanted. He’d let Ivy go. Not because of the president, or the hostage negotiators, or the SWAT team, or the FBI.

Because somehow he’d gotten word that his son had been pardoned.

Because of William Keyes.