Chapter 18 Beck #2
“Agent Shaw is no longer a part of my detail,” she explains, lips twisting into a ball that only stays for a second before it smooths out and she continues. “Actually, I don’t have a detail anymore. Aubrey took them away.”
The last thing I want to do is let her go, but I’m left with no choice when she starts to pull away.
I follow her anxious steps as she walks the length of floor between me and Cal.
He’s finally parted with any notion of calm and positivity.
Thick brows drawn together to form a harsh, angry line that matches the fury boiling inside of me.
“He did what?” Cal growls.
“He recalled them,” Selene says, panic evident in her voice and in the flicking of her fingers.
“He just took them away. No one even notified me. I spent the entire morning searching for someone on the team, but they were all gone. Sam Granger finally took pity on me and explained that a memo went out saying I was refusing protection. Shaw and Morgan were fired, and the rest of their team was reassigned.”
I want to hit something. No, I need to hit someone.
Suddenly, I’m filled with the strongest sense of regret for not having caved Aubrey’s skull in when I had the chance.
Even with dark figures lingering in the shadows around him and unknown entities spending mind-boggling amounts of money to infiltrate his inner circle, he’s still carving out time to fuck with Selene.
I should have known she’d bear the brunt of it.
Firing us was pretty much all he could do to Cal and me without risking dragging his own shit out into the streets, but with Selene there are so many more options.
And because he thinks he owns her, because he resents her for having the audacity to disobey him by going to Kentucky and still being involved with us, it appears he’s hellbent on exploring them all, starting with mental warfare.
“He’s punishing you, taking away your only source of comfort and support, so you’re vulnerable and afraid.”
Her chin wobbles as she nods. “I know.”
“But what’s the goal?” Cal asks, wrapping an arm around Selene. She leans into his embrace, soothed by the touch. “Does he want her too afraid to leave the White House? Is he hoping she’ll get desperate enough out here on her own to try to come back into the fold?”
Selene scoffs. “I would never do that. I know too much about that depraved bastard.”
My gaze snaps to Cal’s, and we fall into one of those exchanges where no words are spoken but understanding is easily found. What we’ve both come to understand over the course of our careers is that knowledge isn’t just power, sometimes it’s a death sentence.
The icy, skeletal fingers of fear pierce my chest as I replay every accusation Selene launched at Aubrey in the sitting hall that day.
Each word was wrapped in conviction, drenched in certainty, delivered with the kind of authority that could shape minds and sway juries.
Her knowing is more than enough on its own, but when you pair the allegations with a violent attempt to silence the person making them, it’s as good as an admission of guilt.
I know. Cal knows it. And Aubrey does too, which is why he can’t risk Selene standing in front of a camera or sitting down with a reporter to share a theory that, by the time she’s done, will be accepted as fact.
“He wants you dead.”
Bile rises in my throat. The first time Valinsky made a threat against Diana, I heard the distant thunk of metal grooves sliding into place.
Cogs groaning as gears began turning, marching us slowly toward death.
I’d done everything I could to stop it, but Valinsky’s machine was bigger than I could ever be, built with fail safes and auxiliary power sources I couldn’t find or kill fast enough.
It was insurmountable. He was insurmountable, and he didn’t have a fraction of Aubrey’s power or influence.
I stare at Selene, this urgent need to take her, to hold her, to hide her building inside of me so fast, I can’t stop the words from coming.
“We need to run.”
Cal and Selene both look at me like I’ve lost it, and maybe I have.
Maybe I’m doing the thing Dr. Payne says I shouldn’t do and obsessing over things outside of my control.
Or maybe I’m just the only one who hears the churning of gears and the ticking of a clock counting down the hours until we lose everything.
“I’m not running, Beck,” Selene says, her chin lifted in defiance.
“Why not? You have done everything you set out to do, Selene. Your promise to AJ has been fulfilled, and the work will continue to happen well after you’ve left the White House. You can walk away. You can be free. You can be with us.”
She’d asked me for it before. Prior to the kidnapping and the election and the threats from Aubrey, she wanted to run away.
I see the moment so clearly now. A stunning gown, two stolen kisses, a bracelet meant to keep her safe, and an unspoken request to pick her up and take her away from all of this when she knew she couldn’t go.
I wish like hell I hadn’t talked her out of it.
“We’re not cut out for a life on the run,” she murmurs, her voice softened by memory as she returns to the circle of my arms. “That’s what you told me that night, and you were right to say it to me then, just like I’m right to say it to you now.
” She smiles, but the upturned line is riddled with sadness.
“I want to be free. I want to be with you and Cal. I want those things more than I want my next breath. If you’re right, and Aubrey wants me dead—”
The tips of my fingers dig into her waist. “I am,” I tell her without an ounce of doubt in my body.
She takes my face in her hands. “I believe you. It’s exactly where my mind went this morning, but Beck, you know just as well as I do that running won’t stop that desire in its tracks.”
“It’ll make it stronger,” Cal says, shrugging when I frown at him. “It’s the truth, Beck. Running makes the chase more enticing.”
“And staying is the same as locking yourself inside a trap,” I shoot back.
“I don’t understand how you two don’t see where we are right now.
This is dire straits. You have no security, no protection, no one in that fucking place that’s in your corner.
We’re on the outside of everything, if something happens…
.” My voice breaks, images of Selene falling over the railing in Charlie’s place flashing through my mind.
Tears burn at the back of my eyes. “I can’t save you. ”
Selene lifts up on the tips of her toes, offering me solace in the form of a sweet, licking kiss that does nothing but make me more desperate to pick her up, sling her over my shoulder and run away. When she pulls back, there’s a world of tender understanding in her eyes.
“You’ve already saved me, Beck. From Jacob, Charlie and Leigh Anne.
From guilt and grief and loneliness and even from myself.
I know there isn’t a battle you wouldn’t fight for me or a sanctuary you would keep me from, but I don’t want shelter, Beck, and I don’t need you to grab your sword and ride off to slay the dragon. ”
“But I will.”
“I know, baby, and I love you for it. Believe me. But Aubrey is my dragon, and I don’t want anyone else cutting off his fucking head.”
In the time that I’ve known her, Selene has given me a million different reasons not to bet against her.
When her top lip curls and the purest form of hatred hardens her eyes as she talks about ending her husband, I know that I’ve found reason one million and one.
Selene isn’t scared; she’s determined. She’s a general with a battle plan in hand that, hopefully, includes two soldiers prepared to die and kill for her.
A quiet sigh of resolve leaves me, and a victorious smile curves her lips when I say, “Read me in.”