46. Pasha
46
“So now, you’re the one avoiding our meetings?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and pray my hangover migraine will stop throbbing. “You’d have to actually schedule a meeting for me to avoid it.”
Brennan glares at me, slamming the door to my office shut. Between his shouting, the slamming, and the disrespect, I’m extremely tempted to shut him the fuck up.
Permanently.
“Cut the bullshit, Chekhov.” He practically spits every consonant. “You got me in deep shit and you’re gonna get me out of it, you hear me?”
“I’ll hear you a hell of a lot better if you lower your goddamn voice.”
“Your ears got a problem, huh? Well then, how’s your vision?”
He slaps down photo after photo of me speaking to Smithson and his agents when they corralled me on the side street. Another set of printouts shows me speaking to Smithson’s superior outside this very building the day they arrested him.
“I’m under investigation, you son of a bitch. You sold me out! Now, I have to explain to them and the public that no, I am not accepting or dealing bribes!”
One bullet. That’s all it would take. I won’t even need a glass of water. One bullet, one shot, and this headache is gone.
But if I’m not in the mood to listen to Brennan’s stupid theories, I’m definitely in no mood to deal with cleaning up his brains off my carpet.
“Scott,” I sigh, “if you don’t sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, I’ll have security physically escort you out of this building. After I give a call to the nearest paparazzi hub.”
That at least gets him to sit down and stop flapping his arms like a fucking cockatoo.
“Now.” I pretend to carefully examine the photos as if they hold any information I don’t already know. “Here’s the thing to consider: they already had a case against you. Without me. They said as much during our first meeting.”
I’m not going to call this a flat-out lie. Was there a first meeting? Yes.
Was it the one in these photos? No.
Did they mention anything about investigating Brennan? Also no.
But does investigating me also involve looking into him? Fuck if I know, but it would stand to reason.
“You’re going to help me.” His face reddens with every passing second. “You’re going to get me out of this.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll expose you. You and your little company. If I go down, rest assured I’m taking you down with me.”
Despite the headache, I have to laugh. “That’s funny, you know. That’s genuinely very funny.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I lean in. “It’s hilarious to me that you think you have anything on me or my corporation. I’d love to know exactly what you plan to ‘expose’ that I haven’t already shown the feds myself.”
Brennan sputters for a hot second, his eyes darting around the room like he’s looking for hints.
He’s got nothing—and we both know it.
“Do you need some coffee? I know I do.” I push myself off the chair and walk across the room to the machine. “Maybe a little caffeine will jog your memory.”
He’s thoroughly confused. Good.
“As you apparently do not recall,” I continue, “I’m the one who has dirt on you. Not the other way around. In fact, I have so much dirt on you, I could bury you alive myself and just take a paycheck from the feds for doing them the favor.”
“You’ve got nothing.”
“Oh?” I watch the coffee stream into my cup and can’t help but smile. “So I don’t know about the ménage à trois you had just last night? That little Brazilian pair at the casino hotel?”
Silence fills the room. The only sound between us is the bubbling of the coffee machine.
Finally.
Thank. Fucking. God.
“You should see the resolution on those new cameras they just installed. Pixel-perfect, and sharp enough to read the fine print on the receipts.” I grab my mug and take a sip. “Or, in this case, to let the authorities identify those two missing girls so they can bring them home.”
That gut punches him awake. “The what? No. I don’t know—you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I do.” I lean against the counter and regard him. “See, you have a very bad habit, Senator. You love throwing taxpayer dollars at escorts—so much, in fact, that you don’t take the time to research where you’re getting them from.”
He may have been beet red with fury a few moments ago.
But right now? He’s as pale as a ghost.
This whole time, I’ve been trying to figure out if he’s wearing a wire. I wouldn’t put it past him to make a deal with the feds to try and entrap me by storming in here, putting up a front, blah blah fucking blah. It’s part of the reason why I keep dancing around his accusations.
The other reason is, I’m tired of him trying to yank my chain and capitulate between signing the damn contract, not signing, meeting, not meeting…
If he wants to play games, I’ll play them.
And I’ll win.
“I-I d-don’t… I don’t know what you?—”
“You’re going to sit there and tell me you didn’t know they were minors?”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
“Not just minors, Scott. Kidnapping victims, who were probably sold into human trafficking and found their way to whichever two-dollar agency you went through to get your dick wet. And believe me when I say, I have a much better lens than you.”
I open the top drawer of my desk and slap the file folder of all his recent indiscretions down on top of what he thinks are mine.
“Take a very close look. And then tell me there was no way you didn’t know they were underage.”
“Fine!” Brennan shoves the photos away with a snarl. “Fine! Whatever! You think you can come after me with this? Good luck finding them! Better yet, good luck getting anyone to testify against me! Me!” He slumps back in his chair and folds his arms with a huff. “Give it a good fourteen years. You’ll be dragging your own daughter out of hotels just like that one.”
I take another, slower sip, this time to mask my ice-cold fury as I do some quick math in my head.
Four hours and $600. That’s how long and how much it will take to clean him off my floor.
The more he talks, the more I’m feeling like it’s worth the expense.
“I’m so glad you brought that up.” I set my mug down just so I don’t throw it at him. I happen to like this one.
I return to my desk and flip the top half of the stack over. A copy of a birth certificate I recently ordered rests on top of another missing person’s report.
“This is little baby Jackson. He was born a few weeks ago to a fifteen year-old girl who’d been missing for a few years. Last time anyone saw her, she was ten. The next time she was seen in public, it was at a hospital in Detroit for severe stomach cramps. Which turned out to be related to her pregnancy.”
“This has nothing to do with me.”
His face says otherwise. It’s the way he keeps staring at the girl’s photo. The way the blood keeps draining from his skin. The way his fingers shake when he tries to shove the papers away again.
“I think you know it does.” I jab a finger at her photo. “She was fourteen. Fourteen, you sick son of a bitch.”
“I don’t?—”
“How many other bastard kids are out there, Scott? How many victims? How many lives have you ruined?”
He jumps from the chair. “You have no proof! You have nothing! Just these sick accusations and I won’t stand for it!”
One bullet. It would be so quick.
I press a button on my desk phone, then settle into my office chair and offer him a magnanimous smile. “I must be honest with you, Scott: I’m the least of your problems.”
Security arrives in record time, and with one quick nod from me, the two men grab Brennan by each arm and yank him to his feet.
I don’t know what he keeps blabbering about as they drag him away. I’m too preoccupied with nursing the remainder of this hangover.
It’s only three hours before the news breaks.
I see the notification drop on my phone screen the same time Jack walks into the office and grabs the remote to the flatscreen television.
“Sorry for the interruption, sir. But you’re going to want to see this.”
The screen lights up with Cora Brennan’s face surrounded by microphones at a podium. From the looks of it, she’s standing outside their home.
“I am deeply mortified, more than I am embarrassed, by my husband’s actions. I confess to having turned a blind eye when I wrongly assumed he was engaged in… well, how should I say it?” She breathes a self-conscious laugh I’m sure she practiced before calling this press conference. “I knew my husband was having an affair. But I had no idea—at all—the depths of his depravity.”
She takes a deep breath. It’s shaky and conveys her threadbare nerves to the rapt audience.
I can almost believe she’s in shock.
Almost.
“With the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and my own contributions of his DNA evidence for testing, we have been able to confirm Senator Scott Brennan has engaged in illicit and illegal sexual activities with minors. I am…” Another quivering exhale. “I am happy to say that the silver lining in all this has been the ability to identify several missing persons who have since been placed into protective custody and returned to their families.”
“What do you have to say about reports claiming he fathered children by minors?” calls a reporter from the throng.
A flash of anger passes through her eyes. There she is. “This aspect is still being investigated by the Bureau. I have no further information regarding any pregnancies resulting from my husband’s dalliances.”
“‘Dalliances’?” Another reporter pokes through the press crowd. “That’s what you’re calling Senator Brennan’s sexual abuse of child prostitutes?”
Cora stammers through her next, not-so-rehearsed spiel. “I misspoke. You’ll have to forgive me; I’m still struggling to process everything. After all our years combating human trafficking and child endangerment, you can understand why I’m beyond horrified at Scott’s behavior.”
“But you weren’t bothered by his use of taxpayer dollars on adult sex workers? Is that what we are to understand from your earlier statement?”
Tears pool in her eyes. “I am openly admitting I did not make the best decisions. I will own that. Now that I know the truth, the full truth, I will not rest until justice is served for these girls and their families. If that is the penance I must pay for my ignorance, I will gladly pay it and more.”
“Does this mean you’re filing for divorce?”
“Will you pursue criminal charges?”
“What about child support?”
“How does this impact your charity foundation?”
Cora looks done. Emotionally and mentally. She shakes her head and steps away from the podium, followed by the sea of reporters asking all the good questions she doesn’t want to have to answer.
I have to admit, this is an outcome I never quite fully factored into the shakedown of Scott Brennan. I knew, of course, that his actions and their unraveling would have to impact his wife.
But to see the light of social justice focus on her?
It’s cathartic, if I’m being honest.
I take the remote to turn the television off when I see something just over Cora’s shoulder. She’s approaching her car, and one of her security detail opens the back passenger door for her.
The face I thought I saw through the windows becomes much clearer, even if just for a second.
Ophelia Hamish.
I fucking knew it.