8. Rowan
eight
Rowan
N ine days, eight hours, and twenty-three minutes. That’s how long she’s been gone.
My body winces with exhaustion, never being able to rest for more than one hour at a time. If she’s not sleeping peacefully in our bed, how could I? I’ve never been a religious man, but this is the first time in my life when I pray to God. I pray that she’s still alive, because as much as I don’t even fucking want to consider it, I know she could be gone by the time I find her. They’d kill her just to spite me… just to break me and take control of the entire political plan I’d no longer care about. Without her I’m nothing, and now they know that.
“You know you have to stop doing this, right?” Maddox asks.
We’re parked in my car, in front of Dove’s apartment building, late at night. My combat boots are drenched in mud from when I buried Governor Castillo’s body after murdering him in his hotel room. By the time I finished the job, Maddox tracked me down and got in the passenger seat so we could talk.
“Do what?” I say, though I know exactly what he’s referring to.
“This. Coming here every night. She’s not… You know we can’t involve her in this kind of life.”
I won’t, so there’s no point talking about it, but the pain of knowing I can’t have her is better than feeling nothing at all. I look out toward the apartment block at the lit bedroom window on the fifth floor. She’s in there, and I know she smells like sugared strawberries and summer rain. And that she smiles… a lot. She wears pretty dresses and keeps her wavy hair long, sometimes wrapped with cute little ribbons. She drinks her coffee no earlier than ten so she can let her natural cortisol wake her up.
I know all these things and I shouldn’t because this girl simply can’t be mine.
“She has a big case tomorrow with her boss,” I say absently. “That’s probably why she’s still up.”
He sighs. “Fuck, Rowan, why are you doing this to yourself?”
The corner of my mouth goes up into a bittersweet smile.
“Because Dove is going to change the world someday. And I’ll be damned if I’m not here to watch.”
I open my eyes and tilt my face to the morning sky, the memory of that night fresh in my mind. Guilt presses down on me, and it’s getting harder and harder to push it aside. I’m in front of the Operations Center, a place I haven’t visited since I took over the military and gave up my special ops role. But now that I have the name of the asshole who took Dove, I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I glance down before answering.
“Fuck,” Maddox mutters, an afterthought of the last text message I sent him earlier.
Fuck is right.
Turns out, finding out who Dove’s kidnapper is wasn’t the hard part. The real problem is that to get to him, I need someone on board who’s hated my guts ever since I pulled him out of his job five years ago.
I grind my teeth as I pace around the special ops garage. Former Secretary of Defense David Foster will never agree to helping me with anything, let alone setting up a meeting on my behalf. Talk about burning bridges…
“Everybody wants something,” I tell Maddox. “Call him. Give him back the job Delaney fired him from.”
“That would mean firing you .”
I swallow hard, the weight of it settling in my chest. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built in my career, gone with one call. But they can take it all—rip it apart like a carcass tossed to the vultures—as long as Dove is back in my arms.
I grip the phone tighter, my knuckles white, my pacing frantic. My breath comes fast and uneven, and I have to let out a long sigh before I say, “Do it if it comes to that. I need to get to her, Maddox.”
Desperation must be pretty clear in my voice, judging by his response.
“Major Nathaniel Rourke,” Maddox deadpans. “Foster wants him pardoned for the war crimes he committed last year. He’s already expressed that plenty of times.”
I shake my head, turning to look at nothing in particular. “If you do that, you won’t get re-elected for a second term. Nate was found doing illegal arms deals with factions of the CCSI.”
“I know what he did.”
“Then you know I can’t ask you to do that. Give him my job, and that’s that. He’ll take it.”
A pause settles between us. My mind goes back to Dove, and it hurts. It fucking hurts to know I failed to protect her. Just like I failed to protect Cole. Just like I failed to protect my mother when my father used to beat her. Everyone I love ends up either broken… or dead.
I’m in our cramped living room, holding my breath as my father looks over my report card. Straight A’s, just like he wanted, but the look on his face makes my heart beat fast.
“I bet you think you’re the shit right now.” He scoffs. “But a piece of paper doesn’t make you a man. You’re still weak, Rowan. Everyone can see.”
Weak, he says. But I know I’m not weak. I’m fourteen and training harder than kids twice my age. I’m on track to be valedictorian. I run faster, hit harder, study longer—but it’s never enough.
The memory shifts.
I’m nineteen, bruised and aching everywhere, standing at attention in my army uniform. I’ve just been named the youngest squad leader in my unit. Everyone sees me for who I am, except him.
“Still a kid playing soldier,” he muttered when I told him. “You won’t know true power until you push yourself to the limit, then jump the fucking line.”
Maddox’s voice breaks through the haze of my memories, pulling me back to the present.
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll make it happen.”
“Get Secretary Foster to arrange a meeting between me and Mason Fletcher. That’s the name I got, and I know they know each other well enough. Tell Foster I want to strike some sort of deal. I was told Salister wants to work with me, so maybe I can bait him with something like that.”
“You think Fletcher would go for it?”
“He would at least meet with me to find out what I can offer them. That’s all I need, really. Just ten minutes in the same room with him.”
“Consider it done. And Rowan, anything else you need—”
I nod, even if he can’t see me. “I know. I’ll text back later.”
I pocket my phone and rush to find Hawke in the garage. If Foster agrees to arrange the meeting, we need to move fast. But first I need to get to the White House for one last stop.
The next day, I’m standing in front of an old liquor bar in the suburbs of Washington. I don’t know what deal Maddox and Secretary Foster landed on, but none of that matters right now. My fingertips flinch with all the rage flowing through me. I’m about to meet the man who did all of this for the first time.
Mason picked the hour, the exact booth where he wants to sit, and hand-selected his best men to come with him. Me, however? I’m only here with Hawke for now. Not because we’re cocky, but because our plan is much more intricate than simply drawing our guns.
Hawke and I scan the perimeter, then make our way inside. My eyes go around the almost empty room, locking with some tattooed guy in the back. Compared to the old, lonely men drinking at the bar, he stands out like a bull in a china shop. The frail twenty-something server wipes beer off the counter with quick, nervous motions. He knows some shit is about to go down.
Approaching the back of the worn-out room, the guy with the tattoo jerks his head as if to summon me to follow him into a private booth separated by a door. There are three men inside, all marked with the same EFW symbols I’ve come to know like the back of my hand. And there in the middle, at the crooked table, sits Mason Fletcher with a toothpick in his mouth.
Only one chair sits across from him, and I know it’s for me. Not wasting any time, I drag it with a loud screech and plop down, placing both arms on the table in front of him, my fingers interlaced.
Easy. Easy, I command my mind.
I want to rip his throat with my bare teeth. I want to break the fucking hands that touched Dove, and make him scream until his vocal cords snap. I want him down on his knees, begging for his life.
But first, we talk.
I clench my jaw, forcing myself to remain calm.
“You want something from me. What is it?” I ask, my voice a thunderous break in the silence.
He chews on his toothpick, taking his sweet fucking time.
“Glad to see we’ve got your attention,” he says. “After all these years, who would’ve thought a dumb bitch would be our bargaining chip with the country’s greatest commander?”
Easy.
Take it fucking easy.
I keep silent and so does he, watching for my reaction, but I give him none. He turns to the men behind him and laughs. The others smirk back, as if to stay in his graces.
“No, no, I apologize for that,” he says, turning back to me and waving a nonchalant hand in the air. “She’s your woman, after all.” He takes the toothpick out of his mouth. “You did well finding me. I swear, I keep asking myself if maybe Salister isn’t testing you right now. He knows you’re great in combat and that you’ve got a brilliant mind. But how well you hunt, well, this is the first time we get to see it in action.”
“Is that what you want? A hunter?”
“Nah. We’ve got plenty of those. You know what we want.” He looks to the side, then back at me. “A place in your party. We had it with President Delaney, and then you stole it from us. It’s only fair that you give it back.”
The door opens behind me and the server comes in with a shaky tray, two glasses, and a bottle of whiskey. Mason and I stay quiet, watching him place the glasses in front of us. Quickly, he opens the bottle and pours two fingers’ worth of alcohol into each glass, staining the table with a few drops as he rushes to back away.
“I-If I can bring you anything else—”
“Leave the bottle. And get the fuck out,” Mason says, his eyes trained on me.
Before he has time to react, one of his men snatches the bottle from the server’s hand. He leaves as quickly as he appeared, not making another sound.
I ask, “Speaker of the House?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“Chief of Staff, then.”
Another shake of his head. I wrap my hand around my glass, scoffing as the answer dawns on me.
“You want one of your men as vice president.”
He shrugs. “It should’ve been Camelia—she would’ve been Salister’s first choice. But that bitch turned her back on us. To become… what? The First Lady?” He lets out a short laugh. “She’s never been more powerless than she is now.”
If only he knew how much power Camelia Thorne holds over the president of this country. Maddox would fall to his goddamn knees for her, but they don’t need to know that.
I take a sip of my drink. “I’m in charge of the military. What makes you think I have the power to appoint a new vice president?”
“Ah, come now, don’t play dumb. Everyone here knows you and Maddox work together.”
I lean back in my chair, watching him. “I need proof that she’s alive.”
He chuckles. The laugh is low, and it makes my anger flare stronger.
“She’s alive. She’s been asking for you, in fact— ‘Rowan, Rowan, where is Rowan?’ ” he mocks in a high-pitched voice. “Don’t worry. She’s all yours when you get things done.”
She’s all mine now, you fucking rat.
His hand wraps around his own glass, bringing it up to his lips. I look away, frowning as I pretend to consider doing what he asked. “That won’t be enough. I need a video of her saying today’s date. Give me that, and I’ll convince Maddox to—”
His glass suddenly hits the table, empty and with his lip marks on the edges. He motions to the men behind him to fill it back up. “I don’t think you understand. This isn’t a negotiation. You asked me what I want, and I told you. Get it done, or don’t. Let’s see how much you actually want her back.”
I drum my fingers on the glass that’s still in my hand, looking into the void. Mason clears his throat, then puts the toothpick back in his mouth.
“Ah, isn’t this a nice sight? Rowan King, finally coming to terms with his place in the world. The EFW has been here for far longer than you’ve been alive. It was time you got a fucking taste of who we really—”
Cough.
Cough.
He bends over along the table, holding onto the edge as his coughing intensifies.
I only raise my eyebrows, watching him patiently.
“W-What…” Cough . “What the fuck did you do?”
The men behind him give each other looks as they stare at the bottle they took from the server, now depleted by their own thirst. It’s only a matter of time before they start coughing, too.
“The First Lady sends her regards,” I say, tilting the glass forward and spilling the poisoned whiskey on the wooden floor.
It’s why I stopped by the White House earlier. Not to meet with Maddox, but to get what I needed from Cam. She used to prepare this exact poison when working for The Hive. It’s fucking brutal on the human body. It kills you slowly over time, while your skin decomposes and you can’t move anything from the neck down. She also gave me the antidote, which I drank before getting out of the car. After that, all it took was to bribe the server to pour it in the whiskey, which Hawke did as soon as we all sat down.
“You motherfu—” Mason coughs blood on the floor, and I scrunch my nose at the sight.
“Now, now,” I say, eyeing the goons he brought with him. They make a move toward me, but they’re already weakening. Hawke steps in and knocks the first one down. “No need to be so upset. I brought the antidote, you see.” I take the half-empty vial from my chest pocket, flaunting it in front of him. “You might not get your vice president in the White House, but you can win back your life. Fair trade, don’t you think? A life for a life.”
I stand up and go around the table between us. Mason struggles to get up, but I kick him with my boot in the back, and he falls on his trembling arms.
“Where is she? Where the fuck did you take her?!” I shout, fisting his hair and pulling his head back while my boot still presses his body down onto the floor. “You think Salister gives a fuck about any of you? All he’s ever cared about is pushing his plans—his father’s plans, and his grandfather’s plans. Your loyalty means nothing to him. He sent his own daughter—his only child —to The Hive for training. Do you have any idea what the Matron puts those girls through? Or what happened to Gale Traveski? The man worshiped Salister like a god, only to end up demoted and buried in a box like a dead animal the moment he outlived his usefulness.”
He listens, no longer coughing but wheezing. The smell of burned flesh enters my nostrils.
“You’re a proud and hungry man, Mason. You’ve worked your ass off to get to where you are. If you die, all that hard work dies with you. But if you live, you might still be able to salvage it.”
I take my boot off him and let go of his head. I go around him, crouching, then uncap the vial.
“Open up. You only need a bit of this to stop your organs from failing.” He parts his lips, albeit slowly, and I pour some of the liquid in his mouth. I don’t actually intend to let him live, but I also won’t let him die from this poison. Hawke has already arranged for a special ops truck to come and pick him up. I’ll have him chained in my basement, where I get to torture him for as long as I fucking want.
“Already feeling better, aren’t you? Cam said you’ll need the whole bottle to recover. Will you take it, Mason, or will I have to dig a hole in the ground for you tonight?”
“W-West,” he wheezes out. “Westh-haven.”
Think. Think. Fucking think.
“Westhaven… in Montana… or in Maine? Where ?”
He chokes on the words, but I make out the sound Montana .
I stand up, noticing the rest of our crew come in to clear the room. I reach for my phone, making a call that’s been long overdue. It gets answered after two beeps, and I exit the old bar while I speak.
“President Delaney,” I drawl. “You owe me a favor. And I’m coming to collect.”