SLADE
FOUR YEARS LATER
Three hesitant knocks disturb the silence in my office. I pause the email I’m typing and lean back against the polished leather chair. Smoothing my palms over the armrests, worn from my repeated periodic gestures, I stare at the door until it pops open.
Elliot’s head pokes in, his black curly hair falling over the front of his forehead. “Excuse me, Congressman. Do you have those policy briefings I dropped off earlier signed?”
I tilt my head toward the corner of the oak desk where the papers are stacked.
He snaps his fingers before pointing there and scurrying into my office to grab them. With a brief pause, he stalls his retreat. “Can I get you any dinner, Mr. DuPont?”
Ah, Elliot. Doing his best to take care of me.
He was the only hire I had any say in when I was reelected two years ago. Henry DuPont took the reins of constructing my team, but my personal assistant was mine. Or perhaps that’s an illusion too.
He’s short and scrawny—in a twelve-year-old-like way. His thin frame appears out of place in the suit-drenched world of politics, but what he lacks in presence, he makes up for in competence.
I study him, his bushy eyebrows still raised in question. His suit is too big at the shoulders and hangs in a boxy rectangle as he slumps over, turned away from the massive statement desk. He isn’t intimidating and not the type to command attention, but he’s invaluable.
Sliding back the cuff of my suit, the fading light catches the polished white gold of my Rolex as I check the time—7:30 p.m.—the faint reflection of my thick glasses distorting the curved sapphire crystal. I should go anyway. I’m expected at a certain time on Fridays.
The second hand creeps forward, steady and unbothered by my pulse ticking up, or my breath coming in a little too shallow.
“Mr. DuPont?”
I jolt, shoulders tensing, then shake my head.
“Well, all right. Have a good night, Congressman.”
He hunches over the signed briefings, then hurries out of the office, gently closing the solid wood door behind him.
I stand, tucking my hands into my pockets, and glance around. The mahogany-paneled walls don’t feel much different from the metal bars of a prison.
It was my grandfather’s, all the years he was in office, and there’s a sense of old-money prestige here, high above the Chicago skyline. Worn-in leather, heirloom furniture, monogrammed tumblers, rare oil paintings … It all contributes to the giant punch line:This was handed to you.
Glass wraps the corner of the suite, the sweeping view of other towers and steel buildings jutting upward. Lake Michigan glimmers in the distance under the darkening sky, and a mass of clouds thickens.
I lean my shoulder against the cool window, tracking the city’s movement beneath me. Chicago’s pulse is constant—gritty, restless, and unrelenting. Rough around the edges with an underbelly the world isn’t ready to know. Power isn’t earned or elected. It’s clawed for and held onto by powerful names willing to sacrifice and bleed for it.
Chicago is alive, and from up here, I watch its heartbeat.
Trudging back to my desk, I close my laptop and tuck it away before shifting to the steel bar nestled between the wall of built-in shelves around it. I reach for a crystal decanter of scotch and swirl the amber liquid, inhaling the smoky, oak-aged warmth.
After pouring a healthy tumbler, I sip my drink while letting my fingers skim over the stiff leather-bound books on the shelves. A cigar box sits on a middle shelf with DuPont embellished on the front, and I slide it toward me with my free hand. The wood is smooth and cool, polished to an almost glass-like texture. The hinges click as I lift the lid, the scent hitting me. Rich and earthy, the smell of aged tobacco, cedar, and something bitter wafts out.
It takes me back.
I was sixteen when my grandfather let me have one. He pulled it from this same box, and I remember I was impressed at the practiced efficiency with which he clipped the end with a gold cutter. The thick smoke curled in the air between us as we sat on the balcony of his penthouse, the city lights flickering on the horizon. He took a long draw, exhaled slowly, then turned to me with that cold glint in his eye. The one that always made me feel like I was being tested, or worse, groomed.
“Power and wealth,” he said, voice low, “aren’t earned, boy. You take it—and once you’ve got it, hold on. Doesn’t matter who is in the way. Doesn’t matter who bleeds. Just don’t let it be you.”
I didn’t say anything then. I didn’t have to. The smoke mixed with his words said enough.
Why he felt the need to impart this so-called wisdom was lost on me at that young age, but I finally learned. Finally grasped why he felt the need to mold me into his image to create a dupe. I picked up on it throughout the years as he raised me. My mother was a disappointment to him, pursuing art and love over political power and motherhood.
Now, as I run my thumb along the edge of the box, breathing in the same scent to the tune of the same lesson, I wonder …What does he think of me now?
A photo of me with my grandfather and the President of the United States sits on the same shelf, among others with him and our team. Campaign photos, election parties, and roundtable discussions—they all feel like the superficial top layer of who I am. But underneath …
