by Eden Butler
I was almost to a bend and spotted a small cropping of rocks near clear, visible water when I turned, throwing another look over my shoulder, stumbling only once against a cluster of river rock scattered near an embankment. Then, because it was my luck, and my luck was only ever bad, I crashed head first into a large body.
“Shit!” I said, bouncing off the man in front of me to land on my ass.
“Ma’am,” he said, face stony, unfriendly, reaching down to grab my arms. “Time to hustle.”
THREE
Liz
I hadn’t meant to scream. It was a mistake that cost me.
“Enough,” Phil said, standing behind me with his hand over my mouth. “Mrs. Harris, I’m not going to hurt you.” He leaned close enough to catch my gaze and hold it. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” The older man didn’t back away, not until I blinked and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “You good?”
Another nod and Phil took his hand away from my face, holding both up as though he’d just surrendered everything he had to his name.
“I’ve got a Jeep waiting three clicks from the base of the mountain.” He nodded behind him, affecting the same sweet, sullen expression he’d worn the entire time he’d watched over me at the White House. “My job is to get you out of the country and away from...”
“You son of a...” We both heard, Phil jerking his attention away from me and to the rip of growls and screaming happening behind us.
“Come on,” he said, voice low, nearly at a whisper. “They’re getting close.”
“Who is?” I asked, trailing behind him because I knew him. Because, after six years on my detail, Phil, I’d always believed, had been trustworthy. He might be an agent, but in my bones, I didn’t feel I needed to worry about him being here.
“Ma’am?” Phil whined, pausing long enough to usher me down the mountain.
“Stop,” I said, holding onto the agent’s sleeve to get him to face me. He might be trustworthy, but I’d just been duped by the man I loved. No way was I going to trust Phil blindly. I wanted answers and I’d get them or give him the slip.
Phil was out of his element. There was no backup, no fellow agents he could whisper a command to in his microphone. I took advantage.
“Ma’am, we’ve only got...”
“Phil, my husband is dead, and someone is trying to get me the same way.” I turned back toward the cabin when another gunshot, then a loud, surprised scream rang out. “And Cruz...”
“Solano wants you gone.”
When I swung around, eyes wide as I watched Phil shake his head, a frown formed when I moved out of his reach. The admission shouldn’t have surprised me, but I found myself unable to speak, unable to do anything really but watch Phil.
Nostrils flaring, I recovered. “Yeah,” I said, feeling light-headed again. “That’s the problem, right?”
“Mrs. Harris...” he started, frowning when I continued to step away from him. “I don’t mean...”
“Did you know?” I asked him when the frown froze on his face.
“Know what, ma’am?”
“That Cruz killed my husband.”
It took Phil several long moments—which he filled up by watching me, mouth dropping open before he rushed to close it. “Who put that fool idea in your head,” he said, clearing his throat to adjust his tone, “uh...ma’am?”
“The pictures. I saw them on his phone. The ones from whoever hired him for the job. They were trying to remind him, I guess, of commitments he didn’t seem capable of keeping. They...” I blinked, rubbing my eyes in my lids. “They were of him standing over us as Lincoln lay dying. Cruz...he looked so guilty. He...”
Phil held up a hand, throwing a flashing glare to his right. The sound of more car doors rang out through the forest and I followed the older agent as he moved forward.
“Where is he?” a voice sounded, one that was polished, familiar.
When Phil tried getting me away from the commotion, I dug my heels in, refusing to let him move me bodily, away from the threatening sound of the voices behind us.
“Bring him here.” I heard and again that voice gave me pause.
“Ma’am...please,” Phil whispered, holding my arm steady when I slipped down a small embankment, cursing under his breath. He followed as I moved closer to the sound of voices and the thumping car doors. I was being irrational, unsafe, but needed to see who had started this. I needed to watch the person responsible for my husband’s death.
“Who are they?” I asked Phil when he caught up to me and squatted at my side in front of a small grouping of trees beyond the embankment, closer to rising voices that argued down the ridge below us.
“Where is she, Solano?” I heard and the laugh that came after a noise that had to be bone against skin reminded me of the night in Lincoln’s office, when Ben Miller discovered the truth about my husband and Miller’s daughter, Leta.
He’d clocked Lincoln. The sound hadn’t left me.
“Miller?” I asked Phil, pulling him closer as we squatted. “The Secretary of Defense?” The agent shrugged but didn’t tell me I was wrong. “What’s going on?”
Phil looked between my face and the activity below us. He nodded, eyebrows moving together when Nelson and one of his men pulled Cruz toward Miller.
Miller had retired from the Marines and took the Secretary of Defense job just two years after that. He was a darker-skinned black man with white hair and hazel eyes. I’d always thought he was handsome, and often he’d give me a smile or tell me a corny joke that reminded me of my own father and how he’d been when I was a teenager.
But time and the experience of war showed in the deep lines around Miller’s eyes and across his forehead. But he was no simple military man. Like many men his age, well past sixty, he had an old-school polish that lent weight to the confident swagger he seemed to carry with him. I’d only seen him angry once before—the day he’d resigned from his duties because my husband had bedded Miller’s daughter and the retired military general had taken out his insult on the president’s jaw.
“Phil...” I asked when the agent didn’t answer my question. I moved my head, narrowing my eyes with the hope he’d get how serious I was. I wasn’t going to have this “national security” crap. Not now. Not when my life depended on me getting at the truth.
“Miller hated Lincoln, but he wasn’t the only one,” Phil said through a breath. “Vice president...I mean, President Gable and his wife...”
“Bella?”
“Ma’am, really, the less you know...”
I grabbed Phil’s arm. “Just tell me the truth. Did Cruz kill Lincoln?” He shook his head, pressing his lips together that he worried something I shouldn’t know would leave his mouth. “Phil,” I tried agains, moving closer to him. “Is Cruz trying to...”
Phil cut me off with a shake of his head. “Solano is the best man I’ve ever known, ma’am, and he’d slit his own throat before he intentionally hurt you.”
The older agent had been on my husband’s detail longer than even Cruz. He’d served many other presidents and their families, and he’d become close to both me and Lincoln. If I trusted anyone in this world, it was Phil.
Phil and Cruz.
“You should have done the job,” Miller said, down on that embankment, and I leaned forward, Phil at my back to get a better look at the former Secretary of Defense taunting Cruz. “We could have avoided this mess if you’d just done your job.”
“My job,” Cruz said, spitting on the ground next to Miller’s feet. “Isn’t to murder innocent people...”
“Innocent...” Miller said, sounding astonished. “My grandson looks just like that whoring bastard. He had to go.”
“That had nothing to do with Lia. Or me.”
“You were the closest. We needed you to take him out.”
Son? I thought, disappointment and guilt running through my veins like poison. Most fathers wouldn’t want their daughters sleeping with liars. They ce
rtainly wouldn’t want them having children that were daily reminders of the disappointment they’d caused. If I knew my husband and how he’d covered up indiscretions in the past, I imagined how the news of Leta’s pregnancy had been handled. Likely, not well.
There were no real Olivia Popes in D.C. Not for the Harris administration.
“Mrs. Gable had the intel about you and your activities with the First Lady and how you’d both been discovered.” He looked away, smiling to himself. “I would have liked to see that bastard’s reaction when he found you with his pretty wife.” He scratched his chin. “She’s a beautiful woman; I could see why you’d be tempted. Never understood how Harris managed to convince her to marry him.”
“Get to your point...” Cruz said, sounding angry, looking fierce with his mouth curled up as he pushed against Nelson’s death grip and the gun he held at Cruz’s rib.
“My point, Solano, is that you should have never grown a conscience. You should have...”
“Done nothing when Gable’s donations to the Russian white nationalists came to my attention?”
Miller looked uncomfortable then, shooting his gaze to Nelson, then at the agent behind him. From what I could tell, two other men were on the ground, either dead or out cold, one of which looking every bit a pincushion with what I recognized as Cruz’s large, blade knife sticking out of his thigh.
“No...no one will ever believe you,” Miller tried, as though he was fine with what Gable had been up to. If Cruz was to be believed, then the current President of the United States was a white nationalist asshole happily funding terrorist cells in Russia. Of course, Miller wouldn’t be happy about that shit. What sane person would? Still, he seemed compelled to ignore the subtle accusation in Cruz’s tone and continued with his threats. “Besides, you’ll be dead before you can leak that intel.”
“You willing to risk your freedom and his on that?” Cruz stared back at Miller with a slow, sinister grin sliding across his mouth. He had something on them and from the way Miller frowned, how Nelson jerked Cruz again, they all knew what that something was.
“What’s he got?” I asked Phil, leaning toward him, but unable to move my gaze from Cruz’s smug smile.
“Ma’am...” Phil started, going quiet for long enough that I glanced at him. “I shouldn’t.”
“You said he was a good man.” I motioned to Cruz, watching Phil’s expression for an agreement. When he nodded once, I continued, “So tell me why he’d risk his life, and his freedom, to expose these assholes.”
“You.”
I blinked, my face tightening as I frowned. “I don’t...”
“You were their leverage. It’s why I took extra precaution after the assassination. We all did. We’d been lazy about security that night. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. That and...” He swallowed, head down like he couldn’t stand thinking of the night Lincoln died. When I touched his hand, Phil looked up again.
“How many times do I have to tell you, it wasn’t your fault?”
He inhaled, lips pressed together before he looked away. “Me and Johnson, we were the only ones Cruz trusted. Gable came to him with the assignment to take President Harris out. Naturally, he refused, but then...they threatened you. That’s when he approached me.” Phil rubbed the back of his neck, as though the tension had grown too tight in his muscles there. “Cruz would’ve exposed them himself, but they threatened you. You...were...you are his weak point.”
Below us, Miller muttered something to Nelson as he and his men searched Cruz, holding his hands over his head, periodically yelling “find it!” or “find her” as they moved. At my side. Phil sighed, making a noise that sounded exhausted.
“Get on your knees,” Nelson told Cruz, bringing both our attention to the men below us. I gripped Phil’s arm again, my heart beating so hard I thought it might rattle against my lungs. He pulled out a phone from his coat pocket and moved his thumb along the screen.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he said, waving the phone at me. I made out the page loaded and the draft of an email. The message was blind carbon copied to hundreds of people, a few news outlets among them. “He’d do anything to keep you safe and wanted you out of the country before any of this got out.”
“What are you...”
“You stay here.” Phil stood then, offering me a sweet half-smile he’d given me a hundred times over the years. I’d only seen that expression from one other man—my father and the look worried me. “When I told you he was a good man, ma’am, I wasn’t lying.” Phil moved his hand, the phone screen blinking before he adjusted his jacket and shrugged. “Solano’s gonna be pissed you’re not out of the country, but, hell, sometimes we have to break protocol to get the job done.” Then Phil nodded to me and turned, hands over his head in surrender as he marched straight down the embankment and into the small gathering of murderers.
FOUR
Cruz
There was bad—like me on my knees with that asshole Nelson’s Glock at my temple, his finger pressed hard against the trigger, and then there was ‘oh, fuck me’ bad. The second bad came right at me with the break of several twigs snapping under his feet as Phil moved out of the thick woods.
“Michaels?” Nelson said, shooting confused, worried glances from Phil, standing in front of us with his hands up over his head and a cell gripped in his palm, and Miller, jaw flexing, pulse throbbing fast in his neck. “What are you...”
“I got info,” Phil said, motioning to Miller with his cell. “Got a way for all of us to get out of here.”
Miller hesitated, and I suspected that cynical, cautious Marine was pulling on decades of counter play to figure out what the agent wanted and how to best make sure he not get whatever that was. Me? I only cared about what Phil didn’t have. Namely, Lia.
Phil was supposed to meet us at ten, on the other side of the mountain base. We’d arranged it the second I knew things had leveled up between me and Lia. She’d given me her body, she’d given me her promise that we were end game and the second she fell asleep, I alerted Phil that go-time had kicked off. Our plan was set and needed to be engaged.
I just didn’t expect Nelson to follow so quickly. Damn sure didn’t think Miller himself would make an appearance, but he’d always been a “do it my damn self” kind of man.
So had Phil.
He shot me a look, followed behind the small nudge of his head, a tell he had that alerted me to Lia’s condition. Good. Safe, unless I read that wrong.
“Show me,” Miller said, his guard down. Clearly, he knew nothing about Phil Michaels or at least, he didn’t care. Miller was short for an average-sized man and that clearly had messed with his head. I’d seen him provoke men twice his size, all, his subordinates, just to embarrass or humiliate them. But Phil wasn’t a man easily intimidated. That meant Miller would push, and he’d likely end up on his ass because of it.
When he came within two feet of Phil, Miller nodded, bringing Nelson’s last remaining agent to his side.
“Give me that phone,” Miller told the man, grabbing it from Phil’s hand when the agent offered it to him. He held it between his long fingers, thumbing across the screen. In his other hand, Miller held a gun, pointed at Phil’s chest. The gun got lower and lower the longer Miller kept his attention on the phone. “How do I know this is the only one?”
“You don’t,” Phil said, gaze shifting at me, then to Nelson, and the agent as his side. He was sizing up the situation, getting the lay of things. It wasn’t ideal for an attack, but then you never get to plan a spontaneous battle, especially not one that has you at a disadvantage.
I caught the way the older agent looked at Nelson, spotting the gun in his hand, the one resting against my temple, and the bulk from his ankle holster at both feet. The agent keeping Phil on check had the gun in his hand and one under his jacket, if that bump near his back was what I thought it might be. I didn’t know what Phil was carrying, but I knew I had nothing on me. No gun. No ammo and my blade protruded
from some green agent Nelson had sent tailing me. Asshole was short and squat with massive thighs that took my knife like he was made of hot butter, giving me time enough to grip his empty gun and slam the butt across his temple, knocking him out.
The area was small, but open. There was no hiding or seclusion except for the stretch of trees that Phil had moved out of and even that was at our side. Miller and Nelson had their backs to those trees, their focus on me now, not what a vulnerability they put themselves in.
“And the First Lady?” Miller finally said, throwing Phil’s phone to the ground.
“She got away.” My stomach tightened. I took a half second to appreciate how expertly Phil lied. No twitches, no tells that would give away the truth at all.
Then, that half second passed.
“Pity,” Miller said, slamming his boot against Phil’s phone before he lifted his gun and shot the older agent in the chest.
“You son of a whore!” I screamed, my insides burning with rage, teeth gritting when Nelson punched me, hovering, both hands on his gun now as he aimed it at me. My mind played tricks on me, had thoughts and images flaring to life, like it knew these moments would be my last. I barely registered the flash of Lia’s face and the smell of her skin as Nelson stepped closer.
She was real and right and had been the only good thing in my life.
Lia squashed the noise. She killed the chaos and seeing her smile and those dark, rich eyes reminded me why I fought so hard to keep Miller and Gable from hurting her. I loved her. More than anything on this planet, I loved her.
I’d go on loving her...
“No messages sent,” Miller said, standing next to Nelson.
On the ground behind him, I spotted Phil laying still and swore I heard the crunch of rock and dead leaves before I looked back at Miller. “You’re out of time and options, Solano.”
“Any last words?” Nelson asked, cocking back the hammer on his gun, then frowning when I couldn’t keep the laugh from rumbling up from my chest and out of my mouth. Nelson looked at Miller, both men carried confused, cautious frowns over their mouths. “The fuck is so funny, asshole?” Nelson asked, readjusting his stance.
