Page 216 of Bona Fide

Marty scoffs before rounding her to stride towards my desk. Em turns to face me. “Go take a seat. I’ll make sure all your questions are answered.”

I glance over at Reagan, who suddenly shivers, and I remove my coat, marching towards her to wrap it around her body.

“Come on,” I urge softly. “Look at me.” She does, beautiful purple-hued eyes trail back to me, and my heart skips a beat.

There’s no revoking the fact that I’m still madly in love with this woman. With every atom and molecule of me, I still completely belong to her. I’d kindly hand myself over as a sacrifice to take away everything that happened to her at Camp David.

A place that was supposed to keep her free from harm.

“Tell me if you are okay,” I mutter, brushing her jawline with my thumb. “I can’t listen to them when I don’t know how you are.”

“I’m okay, Yank.” My lips lift weakly, and she returns the gesture before my arm wraps around her back to have a seat in my chair.

Marty has already found my whiskey—the motherfucker—and takes a sip, three other glasses filled. At least he has the decency to share.

“Where to start,” Em drones—dare I say, nervously—as she stands next to Marty. “Well...Marty and I work together for B723. And he released the story of Henry and Demi’s love child.”

My gaze flicks to him as I settle in the chair next to Reagan, and it doesn’t go past me that Em just threw him under the bus. I’ll appreciate that later. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

I let the full blaze of my displeasure jab into the side of Marty’s face. However, he remains unfazed at how I want a couple of shots on him for putting Reagan through whatever it is I’m about to find out.

“So that the country wouldn’t mourn her so much after I disposed of her.” His eyes stay glued on Reagan as he mutters the words and takes a drink. Swallowing, he smacks his lips before muttering, “Tsarina.” Her head shoots up to him. “Drink this and warm up a little. Can you do that for me?”

She immediately nods and takes his glass that he’s reached over to hand her.

What in the…

“What did you do to her?” I carp, anchoring my hands to the arm rests. “Why is she—”

“She’s seen too much,” Marty transmits, attention still locked on her. “Shit I didn’t want her to see.”

“Like what?” My neck twists to Reagan, still wrapped in my jacket and taking a sip of her whiskey.

“You should go rest,” Marty imparts. “While I talk with—”

“Tell him,” she quips abruptly. “Tell him everything. He needs to know...all of it.” Her brother continues to stare at her, a glint of worry shadowing over his face before he quickly corrects it.

Grabbing one of the other tumblers that he’s poured, he leans back in his seat. “The moment you start getting upset, you’re out of this room.”

“Then stop drinking,” she chides before glass meets his lips. Obediently and to my surprise, he places it back onto my desk with a thud and lets his back fall back into the seat.

“I’ve been assigned to you for well over a year now,” Marty begins, flicking his eyes to me. “Emmy and I became partners, and our mission was to make you president.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d allegedly be a good one,” he deadpans, not sounding fully convinced. Can’t say I blame him, I’m not completely sold on me doing this to full term and then signing on for a second.

“The idea was to keep you safe from everything and everyone,” Em proceeds with narrowed eyes at her partner. “B723 believed that with your no-bullshit attitude that you’d be a changing factor to this country’s development.”

“Demi was supposed to be killed before you took your vow of presidency,” Marty adds. “But we decided that it’d be too messy to throw the country into mourning over the whore. Unfortunately, she was too loved at the time, and our commander wanted more than her just being a cunt before we offed her.”

“Lay off on being an asshole,” Em chides.

“We didn’t want you to get the position based on people feeling sorry for you,” Marty continues. “We wanted the public to know you could handle the job so there would be no questions asked. We didn’t want it to be a turning point.”

“What do you mean a turning point?” I ask.

“You’re not going to please everyone,” Em says. “For the people that didn’t vote for you, we didn’t want them to plague people’s minds about you only getting it because your estranged wife died.”

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