Chapter 6 JENNA #2
Before he can answer, his phone dings with an incoming message. I see it before he can turn it away. Carter. Strapped into a helicopter seat, face pale, jaw clenched. A harness cutting across his chest. And beside him—
"Amauri," I whisper.
My son's eyes are huge, terrified, too bright in the harsh cabin light. His hands are clenched in his lap like he's trying very hard not to cry. Like he's being brave because he thinks he has to be.
A sound rips out of me. I don't recognize it as my own.
Dad's phone rings again, this time with an incoming call. When he answers, a heavily accented voice announces, "You know the drill."
Then the other party hangs up.
Drill? I stare at my dad, my vision tunneling.
"What drill?" I choke. "What are they talking about? What do they want?"
"I need to think." He turns away again, pacing now, keeping his voice low, controlled. I know that voice. It's his threat assessment tone. The one he uses when the threat is not directed at him and he thinks it will be useful. My heart starts pounding so hard it feels like it might tear free.
"Dad," I call. "Dad."
He doesn't answer. I step into his path, grabbing his arm despite the pain shooting up my side. My fingers dig into his sleeve like it's the only solid thing left in the world.
"You know who took them," I accuse. It isn't a question anymore. "You know."
He looks down at my hand like it's an inconvenience, something interrupting his train of thought. Then he looks at my face. He doesn't deny it. He cups my cheeks suddenly, firm hands on both sides of my face, forcing me to look at him.
"Jenna," he says. "Jenna. I need you to be reasonable right now."
Reasonable.
"Can you do that for Daddy?"
My legs give out. I don't remember deciding to sit, but the couch catches me as my knees buckle.
The room tilts again, slower this time, like the world is sinking instead of spinning.
He presses a glass into my hands. Scotch.
Again. My fingers barely close around it when another thin cactus spine seems to push further in, invisible but impossible to ignore.
I shake my head. "Amauri—"
"Drink," he pushes gently. "You need it."
I don't argue. I swallow. It burns all the way down, and still, it doesn't touch the cold spreading through my chest.
"The Cartels," the way he says it sounds as if he's discussing zoning permits. "They weren't pleased with my latest proposal."
The words take a second to register. My mind scrambles, searching through half-heard conversations and headlines and dinners where I sat quietly while he talked shop.
"Your… proposal," I whisper.
"The one about the drugs," he explains, a hint of impatience mingles in his tone. His gaze is chiding, you should know that, it says. "Cocaine. Distribution. Penalties. Enforcement."
Images collide in my head. The bill earlier this year. The one he'd championed so proudly. The one that shut down trafficking pipelines nationwide. The applause. The interviews. The praise.
And then the next step.
He was going to try it out in Nevada first this time. Statewide. It was supposed to be a model. Because the drug money doesn't stop at cartels. It goes up. Into campaigns. Into committees. The police. If he cleans up Nevada, he becomes untouchable. A hero. Maybe more than that.
My stomach drops.
"They took my family," the words taste like blood, "to use them as leverage against you."
He nods gravely. "Yes."
The room goes very quiet.
"They want you to back off," I continue, my voice now eerily calm. "To kill the bill. Or stall it. Or make concessions."
"Yes."
"And if you don't?" The dread rises higher, restricting my breath.
He hesitates just long enough. "Then they'll remind me of what's at stake." My heart breaks open, but he doesn't notice; he keeps talking. "They made a mistake," Dad says calmly. "A critical one."
I stare at him, my ears are ringing, but I don't dare to allow hope to ignite. I know him too well. Know already where this is going, but I don't want to put it into a thought or words yet. "What mistake?"
"They didn't take you."
The words don't make sense at first. I shake my head slightly, like that might dislodge whatever he's trying to say. "I don't understand."
He smiles. Not wide. Not cruel. Just… satisfied.
"Don't you see?" He's nearly triumphant. "This is brilliant."
My stomach turns sour.
"We spin it," he continues, already pacing now, warming to the idea. "Senator's son-in-law and grandson kidnapped. Daughter barely escapes with her life. A home invasion. A martyr narrative." He gestures vaguely at me, as if I'm a prop. "The public will eat this up."
I feel like I'm going to be sick.
"What happens to Amauri?" I whisper. He doesn't answer immediately. "And Carter?" I add, because I am still, inexplicably, a decent person. "What happens to Carter?"
He shrugs. That small, dismissive movement lands harder than any blow.
"Don't you see?" he repeats, almost impatient now. "Up until now, Amauri was a ticking time bomb."
My heart stutters. "A what?"
He sighs, as if explaining something obvious to a child. "Manetti's bastard son."
The room tilts. For a second, everything goes distant and hollow, like I'm underwater.
He knows. The realization blooms slowly, sickeningly.
He's known. Somehow. Always. I never told him.
I never said it out loud. But of course, he knows.
Of course, he knows that Amauri is Massimo's son.
That thought barely has time to register before a dark premonition claws its way up my throat.
"What are you saying?" I ask, my entire body shaking. "That a dead grandson and son-in-law are worth more to you than if they're alive?"
He rubs his hands together. Actually rubs them.
"The Cartels played this beautifully," he beams. "Forced my hand without ever having to ask."
I stare at him. This man. My father. I've always known he was a bastard. Cold. Ambitious. Ruthless.
But this?
"He is your grandson," I remind him, and now my voice is breaking completely. "Amauri is your grandson."
He shrugs. "A bastard," he replies flatly.
The word drops into the room like a corpse. The air goes still. Heavy. Suffocating. I feel something tear loose inside my chest, something final and irreversible. My son is not a symbol. Not leverage. Not collateral damage.
He is a little boy who calls me Mummy. Who makes his own lunch. Who believes pirates are real and the world is mostly safe.
I stand up.
Slowly.
Every part of me is shaking, but my voice is suddenly very clear. "You will not sacrifice my child."
My dad's expression hardens. "Jenna—"
"No," I interrupt. "You will not turn my son into a campaign strategy."
"This is bigger than you," he snaps. "Bigger than your feelings."
I laugh. It's quiet. Broken. Unhinged. "You taught me how narratives work, how power is built. How people are used." I step back from him, like he might be contagious. "But you taught me something else, too," I continue. "That when men like you decide someone is expendable, they never stop at one."
His eyes narrow. "Careful."
"No," I whisper. "You should be."
Because in that moment, something else locks into place. A terrible, liberating certainty. If I stay here, my son dies. If I listen to my father, my son becomes a footnote. And if I want Amauri back, I will have to go to the one man my father never controlled.
I turn to the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Dad tries to stop me.
"To get my son back."
My hand closes around the handle. I pull it open and look up. Two men stand in the doorway, filling it completely. Dad's bodyguards. Black suits. Earpieces. Impenetrable. Sean, my father's top security dog, is one of them.
Of course he is.
I laugh once, sharp and disbelieving. "Dad. Really? Seriously?"
"It's for your own good," my dad explains calmly, like he's soothing a child. "You're distraught. You're not thinking realistically right now."
I turn back to him. "I'm thinking perfectly clearly."
"You'll see," he continues, unfazed. "In time, you'll understand this is the best way."
He nods once. Sean steps forward.
"No," I snap. "Don't you dare—"
Sean scoops me up with humiliating ease, his arms locking around me as if I weigh nothing.
I struggle, kick, and pound at his shoulders, but it's useless.
I'm too weak, too spent, and hurt in too many places.
He grins as he carries me toward the stairs, his grip lingering where it shouldn't, his hands careless and proprietary.
I don't even have the energy to be afraid of him right now.
"Make sure she takes the pills," Dad orders, staying behind us. "At least three of them."
Sean chuckles softly. "Of course, Senator."
He carries me up the stairs and into my old bedroom.
Nothing has changed. The same furniture.
The same muted colors. The same carefully curated childhood preserved like a museum exhibit.
On the nightstand sits a glass of water and a small white bottle.
Already prearranged. Neat. Orderly. Jeffrey or Marianne?
Even from here, I recognize the label: Xanax. Daddy's choice of drug for me. It's not the first time Sean has forced me to take them. He sets me down on the bed and steps back just enough to block the door.
"Well," he folds his arms, his eyes roam me freely now. "Are you going to be a good girl?" My stomach turns. "Or," he adds pleasantly, "do you want me to force them down?"
I pick up the bottle with shaking fingers, shake out three pills, and put on a show, tilting my head back, swallowing, sticking my tongue out. "See? Taken."
Sean watches me far too closely, his gaze crawls over my face, my throat, my body like he's undressing me layer by layer. He's always looked at me like this. Since I was a teenager.
"Good," Sean approves at last. "Very good."
He lingers a second longer, then steps out, closing the door behind him with a heavy click. The lock slides home. I sit there, heart hammering, pills hidden between my molars and cheek, saliva pooling until it burns.
I don't swallow. I wait. Because if there's one other thing my father taught me, it's how to never give up.