Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte
The morning air in New York was unusually still, like the city itself was holding its breath. I stepped through the main entrance of the United Nations building flanked by my handlers, and the lobby buzzed with a strange electricity—whispers too urgent to be casual, glances too pointed to ignore.
“Ambassador Tyler,” a staffer greeted, but their voice cracked, uncertain. Another ran past without even looking at me.
Something was off.
My heels clicked briskly as I crossed through security, past the mosaic of international flags. But this morning, it felt like walking into enemy territory.
Katya’s perfume still lingered on my skin.
I couldn’t help but replay the memory—her fingers tracing my collarbone, the curve of her lips against my neck, the way her laughter melted into mine until the outside world ceased to exist. If only things had ended on a better note last night, but for now I was happy we’d come to a truce.
Katya would keep quiet about our affair. Or was it a tryst? What the hell was happening between us? Damn, I wished I had the time to examine the events of last night more closely, but I needed to figure out what was happening here at work first.
As soon as I opened the door to my office, chaos ensued.
Phones were ringing nonstop. Daniella’s voice was rising above the others, trying to coordinate something.
Benicio stood frozen by the window, his tablet in hand and a pale look on his face.
Aisha Khan was pacing so quickly I worried she’d wear a trench into the carpet.
Everyone was talking over everyone else, all at once.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, louder than I intended.
No one answered. They were too preoccupied to answer, or maybe they were unsure how to tell me.
My chief of staff Jamie burst through the door like a man possessed, breathless and wild-eyed. “Out. Everyone leave. Now.”
There was a pause—then a scuffle of chairs, laptops snapping shut, murmurs as my staff filed out quickly. Jamie slammed the door behind them, turned, and looked at me with a weight I hadn’t seen since the day I was confirmed as the ambassador.
He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ve got a situation.”
“Obviously,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm. “Tell me.”
He tossed a thick folder on my desk and slid his phone over next to it, the screen open to an encrypted message thread.
“As of 4:00 a.m. EST, verified intelligence out of Berlin and corroborated by MI6 indicates that Belaruska successfully interfered in the democratic elections of a major Western power. The data trail is messy, but it looks like they funneled disinformation through a consortium of shell media companies, digital bots, and—get this—paid influencers. They tipped the scale just enough to get their preferred candidate over the edge.”
My pulse slammed into overdrive. “Which country?”
He hesitated. “France. But it doesn’t stop there.”
I sat down, already dreading what came next.
“There’s also evidence—nothing definitive yet—that they used the same playbook last year. Here. In the U.S.”
I blinked. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying the current administration might be the result of foreign tampering.” He leaned in. “And not just tampering. Strategic engineering.”
I stared at the papers, trying to will the words into something less catastrophic.
Jamie kept going. “And here’s the kicker—our analysts are almost certain Belaruska was not acting alone. They had help. Financial, technical, possibly even logistical coordination from inside the States. Think tanks. Private donors. Maybe even people in the administration itself.”
A chill cut down my spine like ice water. The room suddenly felt a hundred degrees colder. “This... this is explosive, Jamie. If this goes public—”
“Exactly,” he said, eyes dark. “That’s why the Secretary of State wants to talk to you. Now. No delay.”
“Is it damage control or war footing?”
He didn’t answer.
I braced myself as Jamie connected the secure line to Whitaker’s office.
The screen on the opposite wall flickered for a moment before the Secretary of State’s scowling face came into view.
Deep wrinkles framed his mouth like parentheses around decades of contempt, and his eyes—small, squinty, calculating—narrowed when he saw me.
“Ambassador Tyler,” he drawled, the Southern lilt in his voice thicker than usual. “Glad to see you’re finally awake.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Good morning, Mr. Secretary.”
“Don’t know if ‘good’ applies today,” he said, leaning back in his oversized leather chair. “We’ve got ourselves a hell of a problem. And unfortunately, it’s landed in your lap.”
“I’ve been briefed,” I said evenly. “I assume this call is to discuss our response.”
Whitaker chuckled, though there was no humor in it. “Oh, I’ve got about fifteen memos from every agency under the sun tellin’ me what they think the response should be. Most of ‘em want to make a damn spectacle.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think we oughta keep our mouths shut and let the dust settle. No need to rile up the hornet’s nest unless we absolutely must. But that’s not gonna fly this time.
” He picked something out of his teeth with a pen cap, then tossed it aside like the conversation bored him.
“Belaruska pushed too far. The French are already on the verge of invoking Article Five of the North Atlantic Charter. They’re furious.
And if we don’t get ahead of this—fast—we’re gonna look like collaborators. ”
I sat back, folding my arms. “So what do you want from me, Mr. Secretary?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re gonna give a speech. Address the General Assembly. Full condemnation of Belaruska’s interference. We’ll write it in a way that doesn’t implicate us, of course.”
Jesus. Does the administration have anything to do with this?
Before I could stop myself I blurted out, “What if the press connects the dots?” I took a deep breath and continued.
“What if someone puts together the timelines and figures out that Belaruska’s been playing puppet master across multiple democracies—including ours? ”
His voice turned sharp. “You stick to the goddamn speech, Charlotte. Let me worry about managing the narrative. You don’t go off-script. You don’t get emotional. And you sure as hell don’t start grandstandin’. You deliver what we tell you to deliver. Clear?”
I slowly nodded. “Crystal.”
He leaned forward, his face filling the screen. “You’re a political appointee, not a prophet. You’re not there to speak truth to power. The ambassador is there to protect the image of this administration and this country. Don’t forget that.”
My jaw clenched. I smiled anyway.
“I understand perfectly.”
“Good.” He grunted, reached for something off screen—probably a tumbler of bourbon, knowing Whitaker—and added, “Draft’s already being written. You’re scheduled for the floor tomorrow morning.”
The screen went black.
I sat there in silence, the dull hum of the office leaking back in through the walls. Jamie said nothing, but I could feel his eyes on me. Waiting.
“I’ll write my own draft,” I said finally, standing.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to go off-script?”
“I’ll give them what they want,” I said, wishing this crisis could’ve waited for another day or two. “But I’ll do it my way.”
Jamie smiled, just a little. “That’s the Tyler I know.”
“Get Daniella and Aisha. I want to workshop the speech this afternoon.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It wasn’t even noon yet, and I’d already downed three cups of coffee.
My legal pad was covered in scratched-out ideas and half-formed arguments.
The speech I wanted to give—the one that would actually matter—kept trying to surface, but I pushed it back down each time.
Play by the rules, Charlotte. Don’t rock the boat.
The intercom on my desk buzzed, startling me from my thoughts.
“Ambassador Tyler?” My secretary’s voice crackled through the speaker. “The speech for tomorrow’s General Assembly just came in from State. They’ve marked it urgent.”
I pressed the button. “Thank you. Send it through.”
A moment later, my email pinged. I clicked on the attachment, a document with the presidential seal watermarked in the background. As I scrolled through the text, my stomach sank lower with each paragraph.
It was worse than I’d expected—a masterclass in diplomatic doublespeak.
A speech that used a thousand words to say absolutely nothing.
Where Whitaker had promised condemnation, there were only “expressions of concern.” Where there should have been demands for accountability, there were vague references to “international norms.” The section on election interference was so watered down it might as well have been discussing a parking violation.
I was still reading when Jamie knocked and entered without waiting for an answer.
“Did you get it?” he asked, dropping into the chair across from my desk.
I turned my laptop toward him. “See for yourself.”
He leaned forward, eyes scanning rapidly. His face darkened as he read, jaw tightening with each page. Finally, he pushed the laptop back toward me and let out a low whistle.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “This is complete bullshit.”
“It’s not even that,” I said, rubbing my temples. “It’s calculated bullshit. Look at paragraph four—they acknowledge ‘concerning reports’ but then immediately pivot to calling for ‘restraint on all sides.’” I jabbed a finger at the screen. “All sides? France did nothing except have an election!”
Jamie shook his head. “It’s the same playbook they always use. Muddy the waters. Create false equivalencies. Make it impossible for anyone to pin down what they actually stand for.”
“And I’m supposed to stand up there and deliver this with a straight face?
” I stood up and paced in front of the window.
From the forty-second floor, New York looked deceptively peaceful—a geometric grid bathed in autumn sunlight, millions of lives continuing as normal while democracy itself was under attack.
“It’s insulting. To me, to the General Assembly, to every voter in every country Belaruska has targeted. ”
“So, what are you going to do?” Jamie asked, his voice quieter now. When I turned, he was watching me carefully. “Are you going to deliver this speech as written, Charlotte?”
I didn’t answer Jamie immediately. Instead, I pressed my fingertips against the cool glass of the window. The pressure behind my eyes intensified, a soft pounding that radiated outward. Please, not now. I couldn’t afford a migraine today of all days.
“Charlotte?” Jamie’s voice seemed to come from somewhere distant.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and suddenly there she was—Katya. Her blue eyes flashing with that familiar defiance, hair falling across her face as she leaned toward me and spoke. “Politics is not about being liked,” she’d probably say. “It’s about doing what’s necessary when no one else will.”
Katya would laugh at this speech. She’d toss it aside without a second thought, stand before the General Assembly, and speak the unvarnished truth regardless of the consequences.
She’d expose Belaruska’s interference with fierce clarity, name the collaborators without hesitation.
Katya would never compromise her principles for political expediency.
And what would she think of me if I delivered this sanitized, toothless version of events?
The thought made my chest tighten. Last night, lying in her arms, I’d felt like a different person—someone braver, truer to myself.
Well, except for the part where I asked her to say nothing about us.
That smacked of cowardice on my part. And now I was back to being the good soldier, following orders, playing the diplomatic game.
“I can see the wheels turning,” Jamie said, breaking into my thoughts. “What are you thinking?”
That I was as strong as Katya.
I turned to face him and sighed. “I’m thinking about all the ways this could go wrong.”
“If you deliver this speech as written? Or if you don’t?”
“Both.” I returned to my desk, picking up a pen and tapping it against the legal pad. “If I go off-script, Whitaker will have my head. The administration could fire me. My career would be over.”
“And if you don’t?”
I looked down at my notes, where I’d scribbled and crossed out and rewritten what I truly wanted to say. “Then I betray everything I believe in. I become complicit.”
The pounding in my head intensified. I reached for the bottle of ibuprofen in my drawer, swallowing three pills dry.
“Headache?” Jamie asked.
“It’s nothing.” I waved him off. “Just tension.”
But it was more than tension. It was the physical manifestation of my moral dilemma—the pain of being pulled in opposite directions. My career versus my conscience. My ambition versus my integrity.
Katya would say there was no dilemma at all. I could hear her voice so clearly: “Some things are more important than careers, Charlotte. Like the truth. Isn’t that what your country was founded on? Democracy is all about the truth. Act like the ambassador and condemn this crap.”
She was right, of course. But did I have the courage to speak up? Especially if Belaruska had covertly interfered in our elections?
“Charlotte?” Jamie locked his eyes with mine. “I know you want to do what’s right, but keep in mind that if the current administration hadn’t been elected, you wouldn’t be the ambassador right now. Are you sure you want to take on the secretary of state? Or worse, the president?”