president?” he all but barked.
I felt my stomach, already tied in knots, take another hit. “Yes, sir.”
“And that wasn’t something you thought you should disclose before we hired you?” he pushed.
I gritted my teeth to keep the angry growl from escaping. Only when I had my shit back under control did I say, “I disclosed every single thing that was asked of me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You followed the letter of the law, dumbass. Not the spirit.”
The phone on the desk that I’d borrowed, Sierra’s, rang.
I felt bile rise in my stomach as I reached forward to answer it.
I was hoping the phone call that was coming would be hers. If it was hers, I wouldn’t pick it up.
But, when I saw the ‘unknown’ on the phone, I knew that my time had come to an end.
I would be finding out, very quickly, what had happened to my father.
“Hello?” I answered, putting it on speaker.
“Hey, kid,” the police chief that Luke Roberts had put me into contact with said. “This is Teller Kincaid.”
I closed my eyes and hoped that my father was still alive.
“You got a couple of guys here. They’re retired secret service agents. They said that you called,” Teller said.
I cleared my throat. “I called them. Did they help you find the place?”
“We’re at the base of the hill. We’re suiting up our SWAT team right now,” Teller explained. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re here. We’re about to go in. Your friends are with me, too.”
He hung up after another minute, and I gently placed the phone down on my desk.
The phone that was still connected with my father sat right beside it. Still no sound coming from the speaker.
I wanted to throw up.
“You should be hearing more at any second.” Luke gestured toward the phone that sat silent on the top of his desk.
It was on mute, just in case whatever we said could be heard on the other end of the line.
Each second that passed, however, with no sound coming from the other end of the line, was digging a deep hole in my chest cavity.
“This is getting…”
There was a sharp crack on the silent phone line, and then I was staring at the phone with trepidation.
“Oh, fuck,” I heard someone say. “He’s been shot.”
“Clear!” I heard another man say.
“Female’s dead,” I heard yet another person say.
That’s when I lost my lunch in Luke’s garbage can.
My mother was dead. That had to be the ‘female’ that the man was talking about.
There was no one else that it could be.
“Man’s alive,” I heard said. “Pulse is thready, but it’s there.”
Five minutes passed as everyone hustled around in the background, and only when I heard Sierra’s phone ring, did I finally hang up my line.
“Hello?” I practically moaned, voice gruff, belly still roiling.
“Your mother was shot in the head,” Teller told me softly. “She was dead when we arrived. Your father was shot in the left chest. He’s alive, but we’re not sure if he’s going to stay that way.”
I pressed my clammy hands to my closed eyes and tried to will the tears to go away.
My parents weren’t the best of parents. There were times that they’d made my life a living hell thanks to all the media and shit that comes on when dealing with your father being the president. And even though I’d emancipated myself, joined the military, and disappeared from their life didn’t mean that I loved them any less.
It just meant that I didn’t want that lifestyle anymore. And this was why.
“Do you know anything that happened?” Teller asked.
I swallowed hard and said, “Put the phone on speaker. Let me talk to Phillipe and Daniel. Or at least let them hear.”
I pressed my hands to my forehead again, balling them into fists as I thought about what I was about to say.
They wouldn’t believe me.
This was going to be a huge blow to them.
But I knew what my dad said.
“They’re here,” Teller murmured.
I opened my eyes and explained to them what I’d explained to Luke when I’d arrived in his office forty-five minutes ago.
There was a long stretch of silence.
“You’re sure your dad said Brad?” Phillipe asked, sounding as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
Probably about how I felt.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “He said that. I know he said that.”
Daniel started to curse. “You need to leave home, Saint.”
I was already shaking my head. “I’m not leaving.”
“You need to,” he tried again. “This could very well go badly for