“I will talk only to the senator,” Samira said.
“He’s a busy man,” Fitz said. “He doesn’t deal with minor concerns.”
“I am nominorconcern.” Damn her shaky voice. “He wants the name of my contact and he wants my silence. In exchange, I want reassurances. From him, face-to-face.”
“I can make you silent anytime I choose.”
“But you don’t know what information I have or where I’ve stored it or in whose hands it will end up if something happens to me. Do you think I would have come to you like this without taking precautions?” God, she sounded as desperate as she felt.
He linked his hands behind his back. “If you had any power over the senator you’d have used it by now, you’d have given your intel to the special counsel, the media. You have nothing.”
Saliva filled her mouth. She resisted the urge to swallow. “You think I want to put myself in the public eye like that? You think I like all this attention? You think I like living in fear?”
“I know for a fact that you don’t.”
“Then you know me better than I’d given you credit for. And you’ll understand that I want to come to a solution on the quiet, as I’m sure the senator does.”
He waited—stony faced but intrigued enough to find out where she was going with this. Hell,shehardly knew where she was going.
“There are three ways this will go away,” she said, her words racing along with her pulse. “One, I turn over what I have to the special counsel, which will require me to testify, which will lead to my entire life being dissected in the media, and that attention following me around forever. That’s not a win for either of us. Or, two, you buy my intel and my silence—money, a new identity and assurances that the people I love will be protected.”
“You said three ways. What’s the third?”
“You kill me, and all the dirt I have—on Hyland, on his daughter—will be delivered to the special counsel, the FBI and every major news outlet in America.”
“What makes you think we have the power to give you any of these things?”
“I’m not a fool,Matisse.” His brow flinched. “Oh, did I forget to mention? I have an intriguing dossier of evidence on you among my files. How would Jennifer, Grace and Toby feel if their husband and father was implicated in the LA terror attacks? I have proof of where you were that day—and it wasn’t at home on Sixth Street as you claimed, was it?” She eyeballed him, trying to cover for her bluff.
“I will need to see this evidence you claim to have before we enter any negotiations.”
She exhaled through her nose. Progress. She flicked her gaze pointedly at the laptop.
“Open it,” he said to the woman.
The woman laid it on the table and pulled the cover open. “It’s password-protected.”
Fitz raised his eyebrows at Samira.
“Some of this material is of a highly...personal nature,” Samira said. “I doubt the senator would be comfortable sharing it, even with you.”
He strode up to her, grabbed a chunk of her hair and yanked, forcing her head back, pressing her chin into his suit jacket. She gasped, pain shooting over her scalp. He smelled of strong cologne, like he’d sprayed in lieu of showering.
“Don’t have a panic attack, Samira,” he hissed.
She fought to keep her head from spinning. His outburst had to be a good sign—an attempt to reassert his power because he felt it slipping. She knew all about powerlessness. She breathed out, relaxed and let her lungs fill, breathed out, relaxed. He narrowed his eyes and released her with a shove, toppling her chair backward. Her cheek smacked into a cabinet. She sprawled onto the carpet and scrambled backward, sitting against the wall, drawing in her knees. She touched her palm to her cheek. Hot but not bleeding.
Fitz pulled out a phone and dialed. A second later he met her gaze, eyes wide, jaw dropped. Calling Hyland’s cell phone.
She pressed the soles of her feet hard onto the carpet, her back into the wall. “If you’re in any doubt about how far I can reach—how far Ihavereached—that’sjust the beginning.”
“What is it?” the woman asked Fitz.
He hung up, switched his phone to speaker and called again, eyeballing Samira. It went straight to Hyland’s message—hisnewmessage. Samira’s voice scratched out of the phone: “Regrettably, Senator Hyland is presentlydetainedand may be for quite some time.” She didn’t sound nearly as fearful as she’d felt when she’d recorded it, minutes before calling Hyland’s room—but then, she’d made three attempts before getting the words straight. His phone was now dismantled, the pieces dropped between the blades of an air vent in the swimmer’s room, along with Samira’s comms set, hurriedly stashed in the seconds it’d taken Fitz and his goons to push past the set of drawers she’d dragged in front of the door.
“Oh, I can also fix that once I’ve talked to the senator,” Samira said. “Or it might well get switched to something more incriminating, depending on how this next part goes.”
He snatched up his phone and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Eyeing Samira, the woman pulled out a chair and sat. She tapped the butt of her gun on the table.Don’t worry, lady. I’m not going anywhere.
