Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kenna didn’t have any business clothes that accommodated her current situation, so she opted to pull a white button-down shirt on over a T-shirt and leave the buttons open.
She had a pair of black slacks with an elastic waist, but no matter what, this was going to be uncomfortable.
Thankfully, she still fit in her shoes and didn’t have to walk around with swollen feet all the time.
“You’ll need to wait in here.” The corrections officer opened the door for her.
The room had a single table, a lot like an interrogation room. Door on both sides, four chairs—two on either side.
“Thanks.” She’d left her jacket and everything else back at the entrance with security. No one could bring a weapon into a prison, or any electronic device. She’d printed out the image of the ghost she was looking for and had that in her pocket but nothing else.
She spotted movement through the window to her right first and remained standing.
Felicity Wuest shuffled down the hall, wearing orange and handcuffed at her hands and feet.
Not one of the lawyers she’d had close contact with, but if this woman had information Kenna could use to help her, then this trip would be worth it.
The officer pushed the door open, and Felicity entered, her hair hanging over her shoulders a darker blond than it’d been in Phoenix. No makeup, and she wore glasses with black rims. He tugged back the chair, and she sat.
Kenna said thank you, and he was about to say something when she folded her arms and spoke over him. “I’d like time with my client now.”
Both of them waited for him to shut the door.
Felicity lifted her gaze and looked at Kenna. “I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Felicity shuddered. “They killed Lisa and Beth.”
“I’m sorry.” Kenna bit her lip. These were the kind of people who had signed up for a lifelong fight with Dominatus. But that didn’t mean they wanted to end it gunned down as criminals. “What happened?”
Felicity closed her eyes and shuddered.
“Why don’t you start with the think tank?
” Kenna slid back a chair and sat across from the younger woman, who probably would’ve taken the position of paralegal or admin assistant rather than one of the lawyers.
She was what someone might think of as the weak link and yet out of the lawyers she was the one who’d survived long enough to be put in prison.
“Who invited you all to participate in the think tank?”
“It came from the government. We fully vetted the invitation, met with them and did our due diligence on checking them out. It seemed legit!” She gasped but hadn’t raised her voice.
If this got heated, the officer would come in and shut down their conversation.
Kenna patted the center of the table. “You did what you knew to do. We’ve all been duped by…them.”
Felicity scrunched up her nose, blinking back tears that moistened her eyes.
“You said the government hired you for it. Was it the military, or just the federal government?” Kenna sat back in her chair.
“The military, or so we thought. It was supposed to be about coming up with scenarios to predict how someone might try and destabilize the country. There was field work, research, and drafting extensive plans. And we had a deadline, so it all had to be done within just a few weeks. The director in charge told us that the president wanted it before the treaty with the Croatians.”
Kenna nodded. “Can you describe this director, or tell me who he is?”
“We had no idea who he was and didn’t meet him until we showed up, so we were trying to get his fingerprints or a DNA sample from him so we could run it and find out if he was who he said he was. There was no way to find out if the name he gave us was real.”
“You didn’t manage to get an ID?”
Felicity shook her head. “We couldn’t get the sample. Every day they searched us on the way out the door, and we weren’t able to take anything out with us. Not even a tissue.”
“I might have you describe him for a sketch artist. Would you be willing to do that?”
“Not like I have anything else to do.” Felicity tried to roll her shoulders, but the cuffs securing her to the table made that difficult.
“Everything you’ve told me so far is really helpful.”
“I need a real lawyer.” Felicity shot her a look. “No offense.”
“None taken.” She leaned forward a little. “I’ll do what I can.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“I’m not going to hide, and I have plenty of people around to protect me and to do the dangerous stuff so I can stay safe.
” Kenna glanced at the guard in the hall, watching them.
She wondered if he could read lips. “I’ve had enough of being threatened by these people, but I know I can’t fight them. ”
“We thought we were doing good.” Felicity shook her head.
“It was a setup for the bombing,” Kenna said. “So the feds would come up with enough evidence to detain you all.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know all of what was in the packet I received?”
Felicity nodded.
“I wouldn’t have much without it,” Kenna admitted.
She didn’t want to explain about her White House meeting, or the other job she’d been requested to do.
This woman needed to hope that they were doing everything they could, and not that Dominatus was manipulating them.
But Kenna needed to ask about the pictures in the packet.
She said, “Can you tell me what all those personnel dossiers were? The images are of real people, but it seemed like their details were made up.”
Felicity exhaled. “We needed a way to communicate when we realized the situation was turning against us. The images are all embedded with information. You need the right kind of program and a key.”
They’d already given over one key, but all it had done was open the files. “The same key that gave us access to the packet? That key?”
Felicity leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “Backward. The same code, but backward. You should be able to find the real information for each of the people embedded in the files with that.”
“Who are they?” Kenna asked. “Is each one part of the new generation?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The offspring Dominatus created? Are they the children?” The ones on the ghost’s hit list.
“They’re images the think tank put together. I don’t even know if they’re real people, but the notes embedded in them are.”
Kenna frowned. “One of them is one of the kids, for sure. I was just at his house. Although now it’s a crime scene.”
Felicity flinched. “What’s going on?”
“He was murdered by a killer who works for Dominatus. I know there’s a hit list, and you have a list of people and I figured they were connected.” But if they weren’t…
If the lawyers knew nothing about the offspring, or how they connected, it made no sense.
Felicity stared at the door for a moment, her gaze shifting. As though trying to puzzle this out the same way Kenna was.
“Okay. Here’s what we know.” Kenna figured they should start from the beginning. “You were hired to come up with a scenario that gave the feds evidence to arrest you.”
“An assassination plot that was stage one of a plan to destabilize the country.”
“But they’re already in charge.” The president was part of Dominatus. “So I don’t think the president is a target. They won on that count, murdering the previous one and putting her in charge.”
“Assassinating the president was never part of the plan.” Felicity shook her head. “The scenario had the Canadian prime minister as the next target, followed by the United Kingdom PM.”
“Let me guess,” Kenna said, “whoever is installed as their replacement is part of Dominatus, so now they control three major world powers.” She didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“That was never their aim before now, so I’m not sure why it would’ve changed. They were always content to operate in the shadows, to turn things in their favor slowly. And never through such overt means.”
“If someone is killing the next generation, it could be another part of the plan.” Kenna paused. “Or it’s a distraction meant to keep me from figuring out what they’re really after.”
She wouldn’t put it past Petyr or the president to try and distract her with a threat. Especially right now. Even if the ghost was out there killing people, it could still be a deadly plan to keep Kenna and her people occupied so they didn’t work out what Dominatus was really doing.
Kenna said, “What do you know about the Imperatoris vote?”
“They have a few contenders for the top spot,” Felicity said. “One is the Croatian president. If he becomes the head of the European Union in the next few years, no one will be surprised. Dominatus would have a foothold there as well.”
Kenna pushed out a long breath. “I didn’t want to get involved in international politics.” She shook her head. “Who wants the Croatian president dead?”
“Anyone running against him for Imperatoris would be my guest. They’re all in a battle for power, with differing views on how it should be run.”
Kenna figured the person who wanted control of most of the governments of the world was the top contender for the suspect behind all of this. The bombing and the lawyers being framed, the murders and anything else going on right now. “Do you have a list of suspects?”
Felicity smirked, but it seemed kind of sad. “That’s what they are. And yet I’m the one going to prison for life.”
Kenna wanted to tell her to watch her back, but what she needed was evidence that they’d been framed so she could get them released. “How many of you were arrested?”
“Three.” Felicity’s eyes rimmed with tears. “Someone knows who they all are, but their name will be on the list. If you track them down, how do you know you’re not staring the culprit in the face?”
Kenna had friends who would track down each one of the suspects, assassinate them all, and head home to celebrate a job well done. She wasn’t going to call Preston Lightwood or anyone with Miami Security International—or what was left of them.
That might have been exactly what the lawyers were also planning. It put Zeyla and Amara’s motives into the “suspect” column. All because Kenna had been ignoring the fight and trying to live her life on her terms.
“Would killing anyone vying for Imperatoris even solve the problem?” Kenna asked. “Someone else would just fill the void and take control of the organization.”
“So instead of someone who parses out information to individual groups, we’ve got a unifying figure.
Let’s call him Hitler for the sake of this scenario.
” All the upset Felicity had been feeling a second ago was gone now.
“What guarantee do any of us have that Hitler is even the worst option to be the new head of Dominatus? What if we choose wrong and end up making it all so much more terrifying?”
“Does anyone know who they all are?”
“I suppose they do, among themselves they’re aware of who the competition is. I figure that’s why one is trying to kill the competition and framing us for the attempt. They’ve probably got someone else out there pulling off parts two and three of the plan.”
“And if they’re all taken out, then we have no idea if we’ve unleashed a worse monster on the world.”
Felicity shrugged. “We don’t know who’s in the wings, holding out for the right time to take over.”
“Is Petyr the best option?” Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the man who considered himself to be her father was the leader of Dominatus. It could be awful, but not nearly as horrifying as the alternative possibilities. That was the essence of what Felicity had said.
“I suppose if I’m in here, it doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve got other problems.”
“I’ll decode the images,” Kenna said. “We’ll do the work to prove you were all framed. You don’t need to spend the rest of your life in here.”
Felicity stood, the chains jingling as she rose. “Just donate some books to the prison library. I’ll need something to do.” She turned to the side and yelled for the guard.
He escorted her out, leaving Kenna alone in the room, trying to figure out this whole mess.
Time to get to work.