Page 92 of Sinful Bride

But I’ve come to trust him. I want Arlo to measure this senator up and help me figure out what the hell is going on.

“Mr. Fedorov is smoothing out the supply chain issues you so astutely pointed out.” I gesture to the empty chair next to him. “Please, have a seat.”

Brennan barely sits down before he hops back up and paces around the chair. “I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t get a grasp on anyone within the Senate anymore. I’m losing my influence. Something is happening, or has happened, or?—”

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down.” Again, I motion a hand toward the open chair. “Sit. Relax. Start from the top.”

He finally does sit down. Or, more accurately, throws himself into the chair with a huff and a sigh. “I used to have the ear of at least half the Senate. I’d say ‘jump,’ they’d ask me how high and how much would it cost their constituents. But now…?”

Arlo glances at me. I pretend to not notice the sweat forming on Brennan’s brow. “Now?”

“Now, it’s like I’m not even there! I’m shut out!” He mutters more to himself as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “They know something. They’re onto something. I’m being shut out and shunned and I don’t know why.” Sucking his teeth, he risks a low-lidded look at me. “I think they know what I’ve been up to. What I’ve been doing behind…” He glances at Arlo. “Well, you know.”

“I don’t know, Senator. Those are your issues, not mine.”

“They’re your issues when they impact that little contract of yours.”

I plaster on a fake smile and spread my hands wide. “Do I look like I’m in politics? Hardly. I make the weapons, I secure the supply chain, and I ensure deliveries to the military. You’re the politician; you handle the politics.”

Brennan doesn’t have anything to say to that. He’s still casting sidelong glances at Arlo, who is examining his fingernails as if nothing of interest is happening.

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you… what do you know about Stewart Hamish? Or his wife, Ophelia?”

As soon as I ask the question… there it is.

There’s the answer I’ve been looking for.

It’s the way he freezes. The way he glances around the room looking for an escape route that isn’t here. The way that sweat starts trickling down his brow and he barely notices.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he wheezes after a painful stretch of silence.

“No? Are you sure?” I lace my fingers together in front of me. “He used to work for me. As a matter of fact, he was Chekhov International’s board president before my father’s passing. I’m sure you’ve rubbed elbows once or twice, no?”

They have. I can see it plain on his face. Those microexpressions of surprise, then fear, then a strained effort to hide everything.

“I ask because they’ve been causing me a lot of trouble recently. Around the same time you’ve been having trouble with your colleagues, funnily enough. I’d hate to think the two are related in any way.”

Brennan shrugs. “I don’t know why they would be.”

“So no blackmail? No threats from Stewart Hamish?”

Again, he shakes his head. “No. Never heard of the guy.”

He doesn’t know that right in front of me, in the desk drawer beneath my hand, is a stack of papers proving otherwise. Photos of him meeting with Stewart and shaking hands. Transcriptions from golf course reconnaissance recordings. Video stills from secret meetings at hotels in the next city over.

“You’re sure about that?”

It’s almost cruel making Brennan sit here and perspire himself half to death. I could do both of us a favor and put him the rest of the way out of his misery. The gun is right next to Makari’s reports on him.

Arlo wouldn’t stop me. Hell, he’d help me hide the body.

But we haven’t reached that point quite yet. Brennan can still be useful to me with breath in his lungs.

I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger if that changes, however.

“Well then.” I offer him an easy smile. It makes him flinch. Good. “You’ll let me know if they give you any trouble, yes?”

His hands are shaking when he grips the armrests. “Yes, yes. Of course.” He pushes himself upright. “I should go.”

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