Prologue #2
“POTUS asked us to cut it since it’s more of a rally speech talking point versus a ‘give us money’ speech thing,” she told me absentmindedly, barely paying attention to me as the tablet lit up her face.
I didn’t consider it just a talking point at all.
Staying silent, I waited until Livvy realized just how callous her off-handed comment had been and soon the beta’s head popped up and her eyes widened.
“Sorry, Len, I must be tired. That portion of the speech is actually set for your first rally speech after the primaries when POTUS outlines her plans for the next four years. You know she cares about it just as much as you do.”
I did know that, though with the five million other things Athena Holloway had to think about in a day, the daily lives of omegas was not usually at the top of the list.
In this day in age omegas could get jobs, buy their own property, and make choices about the alpha or alpha packs that they associated themselves with. Strict regulations when it came to omega centers had been put in place, allowing those of my designation to live more fulfilling lives.
But over the past ten years omega rights had been pushed back and forth by certain groups that held more ‘traditional’ values.
There were alphas in the world that would rather omegas be locked up in their alpha’s packhouses and kept barefoot and pregnant.
Livvy and the rest of those at the White House tried to keep me away from the articles written about me being a single omega in her mid-twenties with no plans to settle down, but I had seen them.
Let’s just say seeing me on lots of TVs pissed off lots of people and talking about the rights of my designation just made it worse.
As Livvy continued to chatter about the upcoming plans for the week, I couldn’t help but wonder if they had cut the speech because I had been so vocal in the past few months with off-the-cuff remarks at dinners and in interviews.
I opened my mouth to ask but stopped when Agent Brady slid into the seat opposite of us. “If we get you this ice cream, Lennon, you have to promise not to throw me under the bus if your mother kicks up a fuss.”
“I make no promises,” I told the beta man with a pert sniff. “You know how POTUS loves a good fuss.”
It was one of her many talents in life. When I was little she had spent most of her time fussing over me and Carter. Now she fussed over the entire country with a fervor that could impress even the angriest of mother hens.
As the motorcade pulled away from the curb Livvy was shoving my phone into my face. “Your brother is on the line.”
I took the phone, a grin already on my face. “I thought I told you to call me before the dinner, Car.”
“And last time I checked you’re the little sister and I’m the bigger brother,” Carter said on the other end of the line, his words distracted as the sound of explosions coming from a TV filled my ear. “But I’m pleased to report that I am still alive, despite my best efforts.”
“Your dark humor doesn’t faze me,” I told him dryly. “You know these daily check-ins are a must. Your program—”
He cut me off. “My program states that checking in with a trusted loved one is imperative to a healthy recovery blah, blah, blah. Come on, Lennie, it’s been ten months since my last slip up. You’d think that you could cut me some slack.”
I swallowed the heavy sigh that was threatening to bubble up in my chest. “Ten months and six days to be exact. I count them the same as you, Brother. Now you agreed to me being your check-in person when you left treatment, but if you’d rather have Grandpa or Grandma do it then…”
My words trailed off, waiting for Carter’s inevitable reply. “No! You’re the perfect person for the job. Have I told you lately how much I love and appreciate you, little sis?”
“No,” I sniffed with faux-offense. “You haven’t, and here I was thinking about maybe bringing you back some ice cream from Thomas Sweets.”
That changed his tune immediately. On the other end of the line the sounds of gunfire stopped abruptly, telling me he had paused his game.
“Get me some pistachio and my life is yours,” Carter said, his voice full of longing. “I don’t know how you always talk your security detail into taking you there. I’m barely allowed to leave the residence, let alone gallivant around D.C. as I please.”
“I’m just that talented,” I replied, not pointing out the obvious fact that Carter—even stone cold sober—was a flight risk. Even before he’d gotten himself mixed up with drugs in his teens he had spent most of his time trying to slip the security detail that we’d had since we were little.
I couldn’t remember a time when Agent Brady hadn’t been with me except for the few years when I had a different security team when my mother was the governor of Massachusetts, whereas Carter had been alive before our grandfather became vice president and could remember a time when he was able to go places freely without a constant escort.
Swallowing, I finally bit the bullet and asked the question that I’d been dreading. “So how are you really doing today, though? And be honest with me, Carter, because I’ll know if you’re bluffing.”
It was almost that time of the year again when everything usually went to shit for him.
We were just a couple of months away from the anniversary of our Dad’s death and that was usually all it took for him to go down a rough slide.
Last year had landed him right back in rehab and it had also been my first time witnessing Carter on a bender.
Prior to that our parents and grandparents had kept me pretty sheltered from it all. But I had decided when I found him on the floor of his bedroom that I wouldn’t be doing that anymore and I would support him just like our dad had.
Before he died, our dad had been his go-to person before me, keeping Carter on the straight and narrow and always lending an ear when Carter was having a hard time and he’d done a damn good job of it.
By comparison, I was a poor substitute. But it was my job now to keep Carter going because I wasn’t sure if our family could survive it if we lost him too.
“I’m good today, Lennie,” Carter answered softly but firmly. “Classes aren’t stressing me out as much this semester, and thankfully Mom and Grandpa are too busy with the campaign to bug me about much of anything.”
Carter had been in and out of university for years, trying everything under the sun in order to make our mother happy. This year, however, I’d convinced him to just do what he really wanted to do, which was music.
Carter was a gifted composer, and while not as lucrative a career as business or political science, it was what he really loved to do and man was he good at it. I had never met anyone who could string together music the way he could.
He had more creativity in his body than the rest of the Holloway family combined. Our grandmother liked to joke that he got it from her side of the family and I believed it because the rest of us were too analytical of a bunch.
I had decided a long time ago that I could handle the weight of expectations for both me and my brother so long as he was happy and healthy.
“They wouldn’t be bugging you anyways, Carter, they just want to check in with you,” I lied. “All we want is for you to be hap—”
I was cut off by the sudden screech of tires and the crunching of metal as the SUV spun wildly.
Livvy, who had a nasty habit of not wearing her seatbelt, flew from one end of the cab to the other with a scream as my phone slipped out of my hands and the vehicle began to tip over.
It crashed onto its side with a dull thud, causing me to hang limply from my seatbelt. Vaguely, I could hear Carter shouting on my phone that was lying on the window in front of me, but I was too distracted by the sound of loud popping happening outside.
“What’s happening?” I shouted over the noise as I tried to fumble with my seatbelt clip in order to free myself.
Agent Brady had already managed his own, dropping down onto what was now the floor of the vehicle with a grunt and rolling onto his knees as he stood and used his knife to cut me free. I slid down from my seat and into his arms as the sound grew closer and I realized that it wasn’t popping at all.
A shudder of fear filled my body.
“I’ve got Flicker with me in the overturned SUV, no perceived injuries on her person, but the assistant is hurt,” he said into his earpiece as he set me on my feet.
Glancing behind him I could see Livvy crumpled on the broken glass in an awkward position and she wasn’t moving.
I started to move around Agent Brady to help her but he grabbed my arm and yanked me away from her. “Lennon, you can’t help her right now, we need to evacuate the premises immediately.”
“What?” I asked, sounding stupid as shouts from outside filled my ears followed by more loud noises.
Brady gave me a rough shake. “Lennon, look at me.”
I glanced up at him, seeing how his face was etched into a mask of grim neutrality.
“There are men outside shooting at our men. Do you understand?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded.
This was always a possibility with who I was and who my mother was, I just never thought it would actually happen. Attacks like this only happened in crazy action movies… right?
“We’re going to leave the vehicle and make a beeline for the hotel across the street, okay?” Agent Brady asked, his hands gripping my arms firmly. “You just stay behind me and I’ll get you out of here.”
Before I could respond with a yes or a no, Brady was kicking out the shattered sunroof of the car and pulling me out into the surprisingly chilly night.
The scene outside of the SUV was pure chaos.
“Flicker is on the move, cover us,” Agent Brady said into his earpiece as we ducked low to avoid stray bullets.
Our battered vehicle was surrounded by the dark SUVs that the rest of my security detail drove and there were agents ducked behind their windows as they fended off gunfire from the several mismatched cars that were surrounding us in a half-circle.
Glancing over to the overturned car, I saw a red Jeep crunched into the bottom of it and a man that I didn’t recognize was slumped out of the passenger side door with a gunshot wound in his head.
“Don’t look, Lennon,” Agent Brady told me as he dragged me toward the hotel. People were running in all directions, trying to get away from the gunfight and seeing them made the panic I was barely fending off overwhelm me.
“Brady…” I said with a wheeze as I stumbled over my own feet, rolling my ankle in the ridiculous heels that my stylists had insisted I wear earlier that night.
Agent Brady hauled me back up, turning to me with a concerned look.
Then his expression froze as his body jerked forward once and I stared at him in confusion before yelping as he fell into me, knocking me off of my feet and onto the pavement with a rough thud.
“Brady?” I asked, the breath knocked out of my lungs as the mayhem continued around us.
I tried to push his dead weight off of me and failed.
“Brady,” I repeated again, trying to shake him awake.
Patting his back, I lifted a hand and found it slick with bright red blood.
With a jolt I realized I couldn’t even feel him breathing.
“Brady!” I shouted, my ragged breath hitching on a sob as the weight of him made my vision blurry.
The combination of not being able to inhale a complete breath and the overload of all of my senses was too much and I found my eyes rolling back in my head as everything went black.
Then I knew nothing except for the distant sound of gunfire and the shouts of the people around me.