Whatever Massimo Manetti is—whatever he fears, wants, remembers—it isn't stored on a hard drive. It isn't accessible. Not even to me. I pull my hand back from the mouse like I've brushed against something sharp. Then I turn back to what I came here for: My father.
I start where it hurts least. Public records. Safe territory. Familiar. My father's voting history scrolls past the way it always has, clean lines, predictable arcs. Committee memberships. Co-sponsorships. Appearances. I've seen all of this before. Grew up with it. Dinner-table conversations dissecting policy. Talking points rehearsed before interviews. Press strategies discussedlike chess. This is the version of my father I've spent years defending.
I click through donations next. Campaign finance reports. PAC disclosures. Everything filed on time. Everything properly categorized. No red flags. No obvious irregularities. Nothing illegal.
My stomach clenches, slow and unmistakable, as if a buried part of me has always understood what this means and is bracing for impact: Everything is too clean. Bills that should have stalled glide through with barely a murmur. Opposition that should have fought tooth and nail quietly disappears. Amendments that should have sparked outrage never materialize. Names that should raise eyebrows don't, at least not on paper.
It's not corruption.
It's lubrication.
The kind that keeps things moving so smoothly, you don't notice the hands applying pressure. I lean back. My burning eyes take in the screen without seeing the words any longer while my mind starts to work, but before anything can settle, I hear a knock on the door. Soft and polite.
The door opens before I answer. A bear of a man steps in, closing it behind him with practiced discretion. He moves like someone trained to clear rooms, not enter them, broad shoulders, compact power, the kind of stillness that comes from knowing exactly where every exit is. He looks like the kind of man you see in recruitment posters or action movies. Black Ops. GI Joe. The kind of soldier who doesn't talk about what he's done because he doesn't have to. He meets my eyes without staring, assessing without being obvious.
"Max," he says. "Head of security for Massimo."
Not at the casino. Not for the building. For Massimo. That alone tells me everything.
"There's a Sean here," he continues. "He wants to see you."
My head snaps up. Sean. My stomach twists. The timing is almost funny. Almost. I should have expected my father to send him or someone, maybe Marianne, sooner rather than later. Instead of trying to call me or coming himself.
"Do I have to?" I hate that my voice isn't steadier, that even now it gives away the kind of vulnerability I always feel around Daddy's bodyguard.
Max doesn't hesitate. "Not if you don't want to."
For all I know, Max might be a cold-blooded killer, but right now, the way he looks at me is nothing but reassuring. It tells me that he has my back, that one word from me and Sean will disappear, no questions asked. For a moment, I wonder what Massimo did to inspire that kind of loyalty in a man. But it's quickly replaced by a feeling of power that I haven't felt… ever? The dangerous part is that I like it. Very much so.
"Then tell him to go fuck himself."
Max's mouth twitches. Then he grins, slow and unapologetic. "It'll be my pleasure, ma'am."
He turns to leave without another word. The door closes. Silence rushes back in, thicker than before. I turn back to the screen, to the immaculate rows of numbers and names and approvals, and feel the unease settle deeper, colder.
I'll be the first to admit I've never been my father's biggest fan. I've always loved him; I mean, he's my father. I think I always will in one form or another. Love doesn't disappear just because you start to see someone clearly. Love, I'm discovering, can live hand-in-hand with hate. It's just… thinner now. Like a photograph that was left out too long in the sun. The shape is still there, but the color isn't.
Looking back, I realize the clues were there. He's always been ambitious. Relentlessly so. Work came before everything else, before birthdays, before dinners, before quiet moments thatdidn't serve a purpose. The world beyond our front door always seemed to matter more than the one inside it.
I never fully appreciated before what that ambition cost my mother. Publicly, he adored her. He never missed an opportunity to praise her resilience, her grace, her strength in the face of her medical issues. He spoke about her like a testament, like proof of his own decency. Friends admired him for it. The press loved the story, a devoted husband standing by a fragile wife. But love isn't what you say when people are listening. Love is what you protect.
He never protected her from the quiet accusation that lived just beneath the surface: she had failed him by giving him only one child, and a daughter at that. No heir. No legacy in the way he'd imagined it. Her body had betrayed him, and he blamed her for it.
He never said it outright, of course. But he never corrected the assumptions when people joked about him needing a son. Never shut down the speculation. He let the silence do the work for him.
Even as a child, I felt it, the way conversations would subtly shift, the way his pride dimmed when the subject turned to family. The way my mother would smile a little too tightly, as if she were apologizing for something no one should ever have to apologize for.
She died a year after Amauri was born. But in that short time, she was an amazing grandmother who loved him fiercely. She held him like something miraculous. Like a second chance she hadn't been given.
I miss her sometimes. Or maybe I miss the version of her I built in my head. Because the truth is, she wasn't the mother she should have been. Not to me. Not when it mattered most. The day I confided in her—terrified, pregnant, unsure—she told my father. Before I was ready. Before I could decide what that meantfor my life. For my child. I told myself she was scared. That she thought she was protecting me. Protecting us. But something in me knew protection shouldn't feel like betrayal.
Even now, I don't know which memory to hold onto: the woman who rocked my son in the quiet hours, or the one who handed my secret to the man who she knew would use it. Maybe that's where I first learned how treachery rarely announces itself. How it slips in quietly and calls itself protection. How professions of love can look like loyalty while serving something else entirely.
His betrayal of her wasn't in the words he used. It was in the ones he didn't. Once you notice that kind of absence, you can't unsee it. Not in a marriage. Not in a family. And not, I'm beginning to realize, in a political career built on immaculate appearances and carefully curated truths.
Clean doesn't mean innocent. Clean doesn't mean untouched. Sometimes it just means someone else took care of the mess.
I still refuse to believe my father would work with the mafia. Or take bribes. Despite all his failures as a husband and parent, there has always been one truth about him that anchored me: he believed in doing the right thing. In changing the world for the better. That the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few. That mattered to him in a way nothing else ever did. Maybe that belief started as a child's justification, something I told myself to make it easier to accept how cold he could be. But it didn't disappear when I grew up. Not even when I went to him for help, and he told me to marry Carter or get an abortion, even then, I found a way to excuse him. I told myself he had to stay clean. Untouchable. That sacrifices were necessary if he was going to do any real good. Even now.
