“What’s so special about it? I haven’t even read it.”
There’s an invisible shift in the air. Whatever it is, I immediately know I said the wrong thing. I put my proverbial foot in my mouth, and it tastes like Pepsi.
“You’re arranging meetings to get it passed, and you didn’t read it? Do you even know what that bill’s threatening to do?” There’s venom in his voice and, for the first time since waking up, I’mscared of this man.
My body shrinks as I shake my head.
“Princess, you’re the dumbest smart person I’ve met.”
If that’s true, he hasn’t spent much time in Washington. If he wants me to be dumb, I’ll play dumb. I canLegally Blondemyself out of this.
“My job keeps me so busy,” I say with an extra softness in my voice. “I don’t have time to read dry legislation. I’ll read it right now if you want me to. And I’ll stop arranging meetings. But please let me go.”
“Do you think arranging meetings is what I care about?” He scoffs. “Princess, you’re not that important.”
“Stop calling me Princess!” I snap. “And if I’m not important, then why the hell am I here?”
He shakes his head at me slowly, and there’s something menacing about that cold, unseeing mask. “We’re going to send a message to the President that, if he doesn’t stop this bill, his daughter will end up at the bottom of the Potomac River.”
The blood drops from my face to my feet. “But… but you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And I won’t. I need him tothinkI’ll hurt you. Killing you won’t help the cause.”
If I weren’t chained up in his basement, I’d laugh in his face. However, I might need a soapbox to stand at eye level with him.
“My dad? He doesn’t give a fuck. He’d rather pass a bill and use my kidnapping to his advantage. You’d have better luck kidnapping our dog.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a dog, either.”
“Oh, good. Liberty will be relieved to hear that her furry behind is safe from you.”
There’s a long pause, and I can almost hear the gears in his head grinding as he thinks.
So, I continue. “Me getting kidnapped is going to boost his agenda. Why do you think I have the bare minimum Secret Service? My dadwantssomething bad to happen to me. Do you know how much sympathy he’d garner if I died? Everyone will pity the man who lost both of his daughters, one to a deranged psycho. So, let me go before anyone realizes I’m gone. They’ll think I dodged a bad date with Connor and be none the wiser that I ended up inV-for-Vendetta’sbasement.”
“Guy Fawkes.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what the press is calling me. The ‘American Guy Fawkes’. It would be less embarrassing if it weren’t for those 4chan idiots wearing the mask like a fucking Halloween costume. Man, I tell you, you use gunpowder one time to blow up a Supreme Court justice, and the press can’t even give you an original name.”
Blow up… Wait. No! This can’t be the guy.
“You… You’re the one who killed Diane Toner? The Justice my dad nominated?”
“Boom!” His fingers clump together, then separate like a mini explosion before the fingertips of his gloves touch together again.
Holy shit. This guy’s a murderer. My heart hammers so hard against my ribs like it wants to escape and abandon the rest of me.
“How many?” I don’t know if I want to know, but I feel like it’s something I should know.
“Just four.”
“Justfour!”
He counts on his fingers. “Governor Stanton, Justice Toner, Senator Green, and Senator Mindi.” He drops his hand. “Toner was the first time I usedgunpowder. Mindi was my second. I liked it as a signature, but it’s redundant to refer to me by some historical figure most Americans know nothing about.”
“You’re worried about being remembered?” Don’t serial killers want to be memorialized in some way?
