And the evidence is there. Look at his record. In a single year, he successfully pushed through legislation that all but erasedhuman trafficking from the United States. Not weakened it. Not slowed it down. Destroyed it. That doesn't happen without conviction. Without someone willing to take the hits and keep moving.
So no—whatever my father is, he isn't corrupt. He's a decent man. A moral one. That has to be true. Ineedthat to be true.
Yet, the doubt is there. Simmering and festering. One question keeps entering my mind as I stare at the evidence of a world that never pretends to be innocent: how long has my father been protected? And by whom? And why. Hesitantly, I open a second tab. Campaign donors. PACs. Cross-reference addresses. New York pops up more than it should. I swallow, not willing to go there yet.Amauri, my heart screams. Amauri. Whatever this is, whatever I find, whatever of my illusions get destroyed, this isn't about me. This is about finding my son.
To stall, I open my email.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I don't panic. I take a deep breath and try again. Slowly, I enter the required letters, making sure my fingers are steady and not hitting the wrong buttons.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I'm pretty sure I know where this is going, but I try to reset the password anyway.
Access Denied
My bandaged fist slams on the desk.Really, Daddy? Really?
I try his login.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I don't bother to try again. I went slow and steady when I entered the required information. Marianne Hall is next on my list.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
The anger doesn't leave when I push away from the desk. It just changes temperature. Heat cools into something sharper. Sharper turns restless. I know the feeling well enough to recognize the danger in it. This is the part where my thoughts start running faster than I can keep them in order, where questions multiply instead of resolving. I need to move before I spiral. Before the noise in my head gets loud enough to drown out what little control I still have.
I stand. Pace once. Then stop again in front of Massimo's desk, my hands curl into fists at the edge. The surface is charcoal-gray marble, smooth and cold beneath my fingertips. The wood beneath it is dark, almost ashen. The desk itself isn't ostentatious. Not oversized. Not curved into dominance like so many executive desks I've seen in my father's offices over the years. It's just a long, elegant piece of furniture positioned against the side wall, angled so it faces both the entrance and the window at the same time.
No blind spots.
The rest of the office follows the same philosophy. Dark leather couches arranged for conversation, not comfort. Chrome tables, minimal and sharp. A bar tucked neatly into the corner, stocked but not flaunted. Nothing extravagant. Nothing unnecessary. Everything is deliberate. The entire space screams one word: control.
My gaze drifts back to the desk. Control. I need some. And leverage. For Amauri. As much as I want to sink into the false comfort of hope—to tell myself that Massimo will do what men like him do best, that he'll unleash violence and retrieve my son from wherever he's being held—I can't afford that kind of passivity. He's already made it perfectly clear that, under different circumstances, he'd like nothing better than to kill me.
I don't doubt it.
Even though I'd make that sacrifice without hesitation if it meant saving Amauri, I'd still very much like to stay alive long enough to raise him. To be part of his life. To watch him grow into something more than collateral damage in a war he never asked to be part of. That means I need information. Not just about my father. About Massimo, too. Power doesn't belong to the man with the biggest gun. It belongs to the one who knows where the pressure points are. I've spent too long being pliant. Too long letting other people decide what I'm allowed to know, what I'm allowed to survive. Complacency kept me breathing. It won't save my son.
The old Jenna—the one who questioned, who pushed back, who refused to accept neatly packaged truths—she didn't disappear. She just learned how dangerous it was to exist. It's time she returns. I turn my attention to the desk and start opening drawers. The first slides out easily, perfectly aligned pens, a spare phone, nothing personal. The second is the same. Documents, neatly clipped. Clean. Efficient. A man who leavesnothing behind by accident. The third drawer doesn't open. I pull again, harder this time. Locked.
I stare at it for a second longer than necessary. A challenge. The corner of my mouth twitches despite myself. I kneel, inspecting the lock, irritation bleeding into focus. Once upon a time—before Carter, before politics swallowed my name whole—I wanted to be a writer. I'd started a thriller, convinced I was going to be brilliant at it. I never finished the book, but I finished the research.
Lock picking had been part of it. I practiced on my father's desk and my mother's vanity.
I straighten a hairpin against the desk edge—while cursing the remaining hand wrappings—my fingers move almost on instinct. Tension. Pressure. A careful twist, and the lock clicks open. I still for a moment, surprised by how easily it came back to me. Then I pull the drawer open. Inside, beneath a thin stack of papers, is something soft and worn at the edges. An envelope, folded too many times. I recognize it instantly. A photo booth strip.
My breath stutters.
I pull it out slowly, like it might disappear if I move too fast. It's us. Massimo and I are pressed together in a too-small frame, laughing, kissing, foreheads touching like the world had already narrowed down to just that space. My hair is longer. His expression is unguarded in a way I'd almost forgotten existed.
God.
We were so happy.
This was taken just days before he vanished. I trace the edge of the photo with my thumb, my chest tight. I was pregnant then. I didn't know it yet, but my body did. Looking at the picture now, I can see it on my face. The softness. The quiet certainty I'd mistaken for happiness alone. And the way he's looking at me?—
