Confusion filled me. “Mom, I’m a grown adult, I can make my own decisions and I choose them. I’ll quit the campaign if I have to, but I want to be with them.”
My mother turned to shoot a panicked look at McDaniels and Collier and the head of her Secret Service cleared his throat, stepping forward. “That’s fine, Ms. Holloway, but I’m afraid yourparticipation in the campaign and your, ah,pack’semployment with the agency are two very different things.”
“Pardon?” I asked, my voice cracking as my brain struggled to catch up with the man’s words.
“Your relationship is a clear violation of a Secret Service agent’s code of ethics, and not only that they willfully used government property to transport you and themselves to this location,” he said, glancing at the front door. “That SUV out front with the tracker in it? That belongs to the U.S. government.”
I looked over at my mother. “You aren’t seriously going to do this, Mom.”
She didn’t look at me.
“I’m afraid,” Collier continued, almost gleefully as I felt my pack begin to panic as their careers began to teeter precariously in the balance. “That they do serve at the pleasure of the president.”
“Stop,” I said, putting my hand up in surrender. “I get it.”
“Lennon,” Maverick spoke for the first time, his voice a low rasp of pleading as he realized what I was about to do.
I shut them out. All of them.
Clamped down on my end of the bond and built a wall up strong enough that they couldn’t feel my despair.
I had made each of them promise they wouldn’t leave me and now here I was about to make that decision myself.
“I’ll finish out the campaign,” I said softly and I heard a chorus of angry exhales behind me.
“Lennon don’t do this,” Dallas said, reaching for my hand and I let him hold it for a moment, feeling the desperate pounding of his heartbeat where our pulses were connected at the wrist.
But I couldn’t say anything back and pulled my hand away.
“Gentlemen, you are officially on administrative leave until the end of the election,” my mother said grimly, still not looking atme. I knew I would find guilt in her eyes if she did. “We will figure out this whole mess after that point. I ask that you lie low, do not speak to the press, and I am sorry for this, but please do not speak to Lennon either.”
They protested, calling my name as Secret Service agents that I didn’t know seemed to flood my home, the home my grandparents had built just for me. The home that had bonded my new family together only for us to be torn apart only a week later.
“Lennon…” my mother tried after the house fell silent and I stood at the window staring out at the ocean.
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I told her, not looking at her.
“I’m trying to do what’s best for you, honey,” she said, drawing a comforting hand down the back of my head.
“Do Grandma and Grandpa think so?” I asked blankly. “Would Dad have thought so?”
It was a low blow, but I figured she deserved it after today.
I heard her sigh deeply.
“The helicopter takes off in fifteen minutes. Make sure you’re all packed up and the house is locked up.”
Then she was gone.
I was alone and all I wanted was my alphas who were probably angry because I had forced them to leave me when we’d promised to stay together.
Chapter Thirty One
The Pack’s Apartment — Washington D.C
One Week Until the Election…
Ihave been through many shitty things in my life.
