“It’s fine,” Aubrey tells him. “Let her get it all out of her system. It’s best for her to be calm when she meets Phineas.”
“Phineas?”
“Yes, he wants to meet you.”
Threads of fear stitch together my organs as a wave of cool dread caresses my spine. Phineas Gambit is not a man I want to meet. Aubrey reads the panic in my eyes and smiles, settlingback into his seat now that I’ve been neutralized. The pad of my thumb finds the side of my index finger and before I can even get through the first flick, he sighs.
“Don’t start that shit, Selene.”
“Fuck you, Aubrey,” I spit, completing the motion he interrupted and doing it over and over again. Not because it’s soothing, because nothing could be soothing right now except the sight of Cal and Beck appearing to save me, but just to annoy the fuck out of my husband while he delivers me to the man who made it necessary for me to bury my child.
“Why did it have to be him?” I keep my focus on the city streets we’re now navigating, counting the buildings blurred by my tears to keep my composure. “It could have been anyone in your family. One of your nieces or nephews, your awful parents or your idiot brothers.Me.” My throat aches, throbbing around a sob I refuse to set free. “You could have chosenanyone. Why did it have to be him? Didn’t you see his sweet little face in your mind? Remember what it was like the first time you held him? Did you think about who he would have grown up to be? What he would have accomplished? What he and all those other people might have done with all the years you stole from them?”
The sob builds and finally breaks, caving my chest in, and I have to look at him. I have to see his face when I say this next thing.
“Didn’t you think about how much you loved him, Aubrey? Did you ever love him?”
He drums his fingers on his thigh then flicks guiltless blue eyes in my direction.
“Of course I loved him, Selene. I just love me more.”
There are no words after that. Just acceptance for what has happened and what is to come. I married a monster and birthed him a victim, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
However long, or short, that may be.
A chill runs through me at the realization that how much time I have left on this Earth isn’t up to me. My life, my future with Cal and Beck and Isis and Imani, it’s all in the hands of the men who destroyed the last family I built, and just like last time, I’m powerless to stop them. What’s different, though, is seeing it coming. It’s standing face to face with the designer of your demise and forcing yourself not to flinch when he examines you with empty, green eyes from the other end of his dining table.
“Your husband sat in that same chair some years ago,” Phineas says, swirling around a goblet full of blood red liquid with lazy rotations of his wrist. “When was that, Mr. President? January 2018?”
Aubrey, who chose a seat to the left of Phineas, nods. “The 12th to be exact.”
Everything about their tone suggests significance, and they wait patiently for me to figure it out. It doesn’t take long, of course, because there’s only one reason that date would mean anything to them and me.
My stomach rolls. “That’s the day you decided.”
“And we had the loveliest meal.”
A fond smile pulls at the corners of Cordelia’s mouth, and Travis Langham hums his agreement with her statement. I look around the table, no less disgusted by the people surrounding it than I was when I sat down minutes ago. They’re all immaculately dressed, eating and sipping wine. Aubrey has changed into a clean suit and gotten his wounds cleaned and covered with makeup. Meanwhile, I haven’t touched my plate and am still wearing Beck’s boxers and one of Cal’s t-shirts. I don’t even have on a bra or shoes.
And if I could feel anything besides the blue flames of anger licking at my ribs, I’d be humiliated, which is probably what they wanted me to be.
Phineas sits his glass on the table and steeples his fingers. “There was not much to decide. The Senator wanted to ascend quickly. I presented the most effective path.”
“Which involved taking the life of my child and twenty-seven other people.”
“There weren’t supposed to be that many casualties,” Langham explains, chewing loudly and with his mouth open. “The kid got a little trigger happy, if you know what I mean.”
“No, Officer Langham, I don’t know what you mean.”
He pulls a face, cutting his eye at Aubrey. “She really isn’t any fun, huh?”
“None.”
My hand clenches into a fist that Phineas studies with vivid interest. “I can only imagine the frustration you are feeling right now, Mrs. Taylor. All your enemies here in one place, and yet, you can do nothing to punish us for the crimes you worked so hard to prove we committed.”
“It is frustrating.”
The admission comes easily because I can’t see the point in lying. Being dishonest now would only be in service to my ego, and my focus is on getting out of here alive.
