Chapter 18 #2
His betrayal of her wasn't in the words he used. It was in the ones he didn't. Once you notice that kind of absence, you can't unsee it. Not in a marriage. Not in a family. And not, I'm beginning to realize, in a political career built on immaculate appearances and carefully curated truths.
Clean doesn't mean innocent. Clean doesn't mean untouched. Sometimes it just means someone else took care of the mess.
I still refuse to believe my father would work with the mafia.
Or take bribes. Despite all his failures as a husband and parent, there has always been one truth about him that anchored me: he believed in doing the right thing.
In changing the world for the better. That the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few.
That mattered to him in a way nothing else ever did.
Maybe that belief started as a child's justification, something I told myself to make it easier to accept how cold he could be.
But it didn't disappear when I grew up. Not even when I went to him for help, and he told me to marry Carter or get an abortion, even then, I found a way to excuse him.
I told myself he had to stay clean. Untouchable.
That sacrifices were necessary if he was going to do any real good. Even now.
And the evidence is there. Look at his record.
In a single year, he successfully pushed through legislation that all but erased human trafficking from the United States.
Not weakened it. Not slowed it down. Destroyed it.
That doesn't happen without conviction. Without someone willing to take the hits and keep moving.
So no—whatever my father is, he isn't corrupt. He's a decent man. A moral one. That has to be true. I need that to be true.
Yet, the doubt is there. Simmering and festering.
One question keeps entering my mind as I stare at the evidence of a world that never pretends to be innocent: how long has my father been protected?
And by whom? And why. Hesitantly, I open a second tab.
Campaign donors. PACs. Cross-reference addresses.
New York pops up more than it should. I swallow, not willing to go there yet.
Amauri, my heart screams. Amauri. Whatever this is, whatever I find, whatever of my illusions get destroyed, this isn't about me. This is about finding my son.
To stall, I open my email.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I don't panic. I take a deep breath and try again. Slowly, I enter the required letters, making sure my fingers are steady and not hitting the wrong buttons.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I'm pretty sure I know where this is going, but I try to reset the password anyway.
Access Denied
My bandaged fist slams on the desk. Really, Daddy? Really?
I try his login.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
I don't bother to try again. I went slow and steady when I entered the required information. Marianne Hall is next on my list.
You entered an incorrect email and password combination. Please try again.
The anger doesn't leave when I push away from the desk.
It just changes temperature. Heat cools into something sharper.
Sharper turns restless. I know the feeling well enough to recognize the danger in it.
This is the part where my thoughts start running faster than I can keep them in order, where questions multiply instead of resolving.
I need to move before I spiral. Before the noise in my head gets loud enough to drown out what little control I still have.
I stand. Pace once. Then stop again in front of Massimo's desk, my hands curl into fists at the edge.
The surface is charcoal-gray marble, smooth and cold beneath my fingertips.
The wood beneath it is dark, almost ashen.
The desk itself isn't ostentatious. Not oversized.
Not curved into dominance like so many executive desks I've seen in my father's offices over the years.
It's just a long, elegant piece of furniture positioned against the side wall, angled so it faces both the entrance and the window at the same time.
No blind spots.
The rest of the office follows the same philosophy.
Dark leather couches arranged for conversation, not comfort.
Chrome tables, minimal and sharp. A bar tucked neatly into the corner, stocked but not flaunted.
Nothing extravagant. Nothing unnecessary.
Everything is deliberate. The entire space screams one word: control.
My gaze drifts back to the desk. Control.
I need some. And leverage. For Amauri. As much as I want to sink into the false comfort of hope—to tell myself that Massimo will do what men like him do best, that he'll unleash violence and retrieve my son from wherever he's being held—I can't afford that kind of passivity.
He's already made it perfectly clear that, under different circumstances, he'd like nothing better than to kill me.
I don't doubt it.
Even though I'd make that sacrifice without hesitation if it meant saving Amauri, I'd still very much like to stay alive long enough to raise him.
To be part of his life. To watch him grow into something more than collateral damage in a war he never asked to be part of.
That means I need information. Not just about my father.
About Massimo, too. Power doesn't belong to the man with the biggest gun.
It belongs to the one who knows where the pressure points are.
I've spent too long being pliant. Too long letting other people decide what I'm allowed to know, what I'm allowed to survive.
Complacency kept me breathing. It won't save my son.
The old Jenna—the one who questioned, who pushed back, who refused to accept neatly packaged truths—she didn't disappear.
She just learned how dangerous it was to exist. It's time she returns.
I turn my attention to the desk and start opening drawers.
The first slides out easily, perfectly aligned pens, a spare phone, nothing personal.
The second is the same. Documents, neatly clipped.
Clean. Efficient. A man who leaves nothing behind by accident.
The third drawer doesn't open. I pull again, harder this time. Locked.
I stare at it for a second longer than necessary.
A challenge. The corner of my mouth twitches despite myself.
I kneel, inspecting the lock, irritation bleeding into focus.
Once upon a time—before Carter, before politics swallowed my name whole—I wanted to be a writer.
I'd started a thriller, convinced I was going to be brilliant at it.
I never finished the book, but I finished the research.
Lock picking had been part of it. I practiced on my father's desk and my mother's vanity.
I straighten a hairpin against the desk edge—while cursing the remaining hand wrappings—my fingers move almost on instinct.
Tension. Pressure. A careful twist, and the lock clicks open.
I still for a moment, surprised by how easily it came back to me.
Then I pull the drawer open. Inside, beneath a thin stack of papers, is something soft and worn at the edges.
An envelope, folded too many times. I recognize it instantly. A photo booth strip.
My breath stutters.
I pull it out slowly, like it might disappear if I move too fast. It's us.
Massimo and I are pressed together in a too-small frame, laughing, kissing, foreheads touching like the world had already narrowed down to just that space.
My hair is longer. His expression is unguarded in a way I'd almost forgotten existed.
God.
We were so happy.
This was taken just days before he vanished.
I trace the edge of the photo with my thumb, my chest tight.
I was pregnant then. I didn't know it yet, but my body did.
Looking at the picture now, I can see it on my face.
The softness. The quiet certainty I'd mistaken for happiness alone. And the way he's looking at me—
That's love.
Not possession. Not hunger. Love.
The kind that settles. The kind that stays. He doesn't look like a man who would disappear without a word two days later.
"What the hell happened?" I whisper.
To him. To us. The question hangs there, unanswered, and something inside me shifts. Love like that doesn't vanish. It feels like a hot poker enters me; it sears and burns, but without pain. A love like that doesn't stop.
It's interrupted.
Taken.
The ache in my chest sharpens as the implication lands, not grief, not yet, but the slow burn of realization. Whatever tore him out of my life didn't just steal time from me. It stole choice. It stole truth.
And now it's doing it again.
My breath steadies. My pulse slows. The pain hardens into something colder, more precise. Anger. Not wild. Not blind.
Purposeful.
Whoever thinks they can stand between my son and me—I don't care if it's Daddy, the Cartel, Massimo, or the devil himself—if they think locked doors and erased records and carefully applied leverage will stop me. They have no idea what's coming.
They want war?
They'll get it.
I shove the drawer closed and stand, the sound final, decisive.
My thoughts fall into line the way they always used to when I stopped reacting and started planning.
I need to put the past behind me, forget who Massimo used to be, who we used to be.
I need to see him as a tool to get my son back.
Nothing else. A tool that needs to be controlled. Just like I need to control Daddy.
I stare at the screen again, sink back into the chair. The login screen is mocking me. I could try Carter's access, but if I'm locked out, he's locked out for certain. He's a liability now. A problem already contained, wherever they're holding him.
But there's one more thing. One thing I hope they've forgotten.
Hell—I almost forgot it myself. Before I became Jenna Whitford, I was Jenna Kingsley.
For reasons I never understood, the IT department at my father's office could never merge the accounts.
They couldn't simply change the name. So they created a new login instead.
What if they never deleted the old one?
I turn back to the desk, the computer waiting patiently in front of me.
I type it in.
JennaKingsley
Followed by my password. For a half second, nothing happens. Then the screen refreshes. I'm in. I laugh, short, breathless, disbelieving. My hand curls into a fist before I can stop it, a stupid, triumphant gesture I haven't made in years. Yes. My fist pounds the air.
Finally, something goes my way.
It's ridiculous how good it feels. Vindication buzzes under my skin, adrenaline snaps my spine straight. I want to dig immediately, dive into the files I know are waiting in the cloud, years of archived correspondence and internal memos that were never meant to follow me into marriage and exile.
But instinct stops me. Always check the inbox first.
It floods in faster than my eyes can track. Subject lines blur together.
I'm so sorry.
Are you okay?
If there's anything I can do…
Hope this finds you well.
Long time no see.
Friends. Acquaintances. Former colleagues. People who barely know me but smell opportunity, obligation, or both. Some want to help. Some want favors. Some just want to be seen doing the right thing. I scroll, detached, already numb to it. Until I see her name: Marianne Hall.
No subject line. Just her name, neat and composed, sitting there like it owns the space. My pulse skips. I click.
Jenna,
I'm so sorry to hear what happened. I want to help if I can. Would you be open to meeting?
—Marianne
That's it. No explanation. No reassurance. No performance. Interesting. Either Marianne doesn't know I still have access—which feels wildly unlikely given her position—or she does know, and she chose not to shut it down. I don't know which possibility unsettles me more. Still, I don't hesitate.
Yes. When and where?
The reply comes almost immediately, like she'd been waiting.
I can come to the Sovereign, if that's easiest for you.
Of course she can. She is free to roam all over the place, unlike me, who has been confined to a cage at the mercy of a man who hates her. I have no idea what she wants from me. But I'm not about to shove an ally off the board before I know what side she's playing.