“Why did you do it, Brenda?” Kay asked, staring at her.
“Why did I do what?” Brenda responded.
“Why did you kill Michael?” Kay asked. She told Nico about her suspicion in the car, on the drive over, but saying it out loud to Brenda still stunned her. She had no idea at the time that anything other than suicide was what happened to Michael.
But even Brenda wasn’t willing to admit that level of guilt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“That’s you on that video,” Kay said. “Isn’t it, Brenda?” Then she walked closer to Brenda, with Nico staying close beside her. “Your silver earrings,” Kay added with bitterness, snatching one out of Brenda’s ear, “gave you away!”
Brenda grabbed her ear, surprised that Kay knew more than she thought.
But Kay kept talking. “You filmed that killing because you wanted to view it over and over again as a little memento of your revenge. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it Brenda? You knew Michael was a cheater. I left him because he cheated on me. I never dreamed you was one of his bitches too.”
“I wasn’t one of them. You were one of them! I was his only woman,” Brenda said. “I loved him.”
“But he didn’t love you,” said Kay. “He didn’t love anybody but himself.”
“He said he’d never cheat on me the way Eddie always did. He said I’d be his one and only. And I believed him. Until I found out it wasn’t true. It was never true.”
“So you killed him?” Kay asked.
Brenda stared at Kay. It was as if she had a choice. Go whole-hog denial, or tell it like it was. Brenda told it like it was. “Yes,” she said, tears appearing in her eyes. “I killed him. And called Eddie afterwards. Eddie made it look like it was a suicide.”
“But why would Eddie try to claim Kay killed the guy?” Nico asked. He knew Drake’s version. He wanted to hear the wife’s version too.
“He doctored that tape, so that it would look like her,” Brenda said. “We were going to first cash in, and then put that video out anyway. Just before the election. But it wasn’t about the money for Eddie. That was me. I wanted the money. And plenty of it. Eddie wanted revenge. We didn’t even think about those earrings I wore. We never thought about that. But when he found out you had gone to France, to see your boyfriend, he decided to kill you on foreign soil, which wouldn’t blow back on him, and release that video too. It was never about the money for him. Not when it came to you. It was about destroying you.”
“But why did he want to destroy Kay?” Nico asked. “What did she ever do to you?”
Brenda looked offended. “She did everything to me! And to my family. She’s about to become President. That was supposed to be Eddie’s throne, not hers! But she left his campaign in shambles when he needed her most. Rog left him too. And he lost. And he never recovered.”
“How did he find out she was in France?” Nico asked.
“One of his whores works for Kay. She put a bug in her office. He heard every conversation. I’m telling you he was obsessed with Kay.”
“Which whore?” Kay asked.
“Why your cute little press secretary. Tammy whatshername.”
Kay was floored. “That bitch!” She said out loud.
But Nico knew he would take care of whomever Tammy was later. Just like he would take care of Drake. But he had an immediate problem he had to take care of. “Why would Drake tell us there were no copies of that video,” Nico asked, “when he knew you had that video ready to go public? He had to know as soon as you went public, I was going to kill his ass.”
“I had my orders. When he found out those assassins in France failed to take her out, he gave me a list of reporters to call and told me, no matter what, to go public with that video today at five pm. And I was going to do it too.”
“But why risk his life over it?” Nico asked.
“Because he hate her!” Brenda yelled. “He would rather die than to see her in the White House. He would rather die than to see her alive. She destroyed his career. He’s convinced of it.”
Nico was staring at Brenda. She was the real loose cannon, in his view. “Carmine?”
Carmine looked at Nico. “Yes, sir, Boss?”
“Keep an eye on her,” he said, and then began searching the house himself. He searched every room, he looked under every bed, he looked into every closet. Once satisfied they were in that home alone, he made his way back up front. “Take Kay to the truck,” he said to Carmine. “I’ll be there in a sec.”
Carmine looked at Kay. Did she understand what Nico meant?
Kay was looking at Nico, and she understood perfectly well. It was one of those they come for us, I come for them moments. Something she knew was going to take her some serious getting used to. But what was the man to do? Let them continue to roam around as a violent threat to their safety and wellbeing? She understood. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Carmine, and they both left the home.
And then Nico pulled out a magnum, and began putting a silencer on it. “Where’s the video?” he asked Brenda Drake.
When Nico returned to the SUV, he called in for a cleanup crew as Carmine drove them away. Then he looked at Kay. She could tell, by that look in his eyes, that he hated when people forced his hand. He hated the things he had to do. “I have to leave the country,” he said to her.
Kay could hardly believe it. Those were the very same words he’d said to her when they broke up a decade ago. Her heart dropped.
“I have to leave,” he continued, “and let you work like you never worked before on the final leg to your victory. And then,” he added, and Kay waited for him to say it. And then I’ll turn you over to the voting public and stay away for good? Was that his plan again? She could hardly bear the thought.
“And then what?” she asked him when he continued to hesitate.
“And then,” he said, wrapping his arm around her, “you’ll get sworn in as President, give your acceptance speech, and then, as soon as you can get away, you’ll go on vacation, to the south of France, and spend two glorious weeks with me. And during the duration of your eight years in office, because you will certainly be reelected,” he boasted, “we’ll find a way to make it work for us. We’ll find a way, Kay. Sound good?”
Kay smiled a smile of relief. Her worse fear wasn’t realized. “Sounds wonderful,” she said. “I can live with that.”
Nico looked at her with all sincerity in his big, stark, violet eyes. “No, Kay,” he said. “We can live with it. From here on out, it’s you and me, babe. Working together. Fifty-fifty.”
Kay felt that sense of hopefulness she hadn’t felt in years. To finally have a life partner was music to her ears. It was all, in a way, she’d ever wanted. “We can live with that,” she said.
EPILOGUE
“America has spoken,” Kay began her speech as she stood at the podium in front of tens of thousands of adoring supporters in Grant Park, “and for the first time in history, it has elected the first woman to be your President!”
The crowd erupted in cheers that lasted two straight minutes. And Nico knew. He’d counted every second.
He sat in bed, his back against the headboard, watching the cheering. Kay gave that victory speech four months ago. She’d been sworn in on January 2Oth, and was now on vacation in the south of France. She was at Nico’s house, although the press thought she was staying at a resort in Monaco.
It had been a busy four months for Kay, and for Nico too, as they adjusted to their new way of life. Even before Kay gave that speech, but after election night, Tammy was fired as press secretary and ended up mysteriously attacked at home and hospitalized with severe injuries. And Eddie Drake and his wife Brenda both had not been seen since late October. Both would never be seen again. Nico saw to that. But to law enforcement, they were considered as missing persons. They came for Kay. Nico came for them. In a lot of ways, he suspected that would be the story of their lives going forward. He was going to be her protector. An
d she, ironically for a man’s man like him, was going to be his.
But mostly, he was still reveling in Kay’s victory. She won, and it was fair and square. And they were managing to keep their relationship undercover fairly easily. Thanks largely to their own efforts, but also to Rog Pettway, Kay’s brand new White House Chief of Staff, who knew how to handle Kay’s Secret Service detail.
“Finally she comes to feed her starving man,” Nico said gleefully when Kay finally made it back into the bedroom with their popcorn.
“If you were so hungry,” Kay said, as she got back in bed with Nico, “then you should have popped these suckers yourself.”
“Just give them to me woman,” Nico said, taking the bowl from her, and eating a handful at once.
Kay laughed, but when she tried to reach into the bowl for just one popcorn, he hugged the bowl away from her. She laughed again. Nobody relieved the stressors she had from a job loaded with them, like Nico.
And then she saw what he was watching. “Not again, Nico. You’re looking at my victory speech yet again?”
“Why not? You got a problem with that?”
“No. But I’m sure your television set is tired of that same old speech. You must have watched it a hundred times. And that’s just this weekend!”
He laughed, and tossed more popcorn into his mouth.
But then a determined look appeared on Kay’s face. “Vacation time will be up soon,” she said. “And I’ll have to get back to work.”
“Hate it?”
“The job? No. I love it. I have a platform to do a lot of good, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. But I hate not being able to spend my every waking moment with you.”
Nico smiled and placed his arm around her. “That will happen after the White House. But in the meantime,” he added, “I’ll do my darndest to make certain we spend as much time together as we possibly can. We’ll manage it okay.”
“And your private life?”
“Will remain private,” said Nico. “As will yours.”
“And if it doesn’t? If some brilliant reporter outs us?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said with a smile. “I have a lifetime of favors I can call in if that ever happens.”
Kay smiled too. “And you would, wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“For you? For us? Never underestimate the power of love,” Nico said. “I would.”
Kay felt so fortunate to have Nico in her corner that she kissed him and hugged him, and snuggled against him.
He looked at her. He loved it when she wasn’t afraid to show her affection full force. “For that, guess what?” he said.
“What?” she asked, looking at him.
“You can have some of my popcorn,” he said.
Kay laughed. And ate the remaining popcorn with him. And then they did something they were beginning to view as that wonderful ordinariness: they cuddled and watched movies.
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