Page 2 of A Man of Prestige

Vivienne gives her a look of sympathy. “It might be the only way,” she answers in a soft but resolute voice.

Conner brings her hand to his lips. “Alexis, our fathers are…not good men. Hell, we aren’t good men either, but we aren’t killers. None of us takes this lightly. That being said though, if that’s what it takes to bring this web of horrors to an end, then so be it.”

“You know, even if you take out the elite. Hell, even if you take out the council. TOD may just grow another head,” Vivienne muses as she looks to Conner’s Hydra tattoo. I give him a look, and he shrugs. Clearly, Vivienne has learned more about our secret society than Conner has admitted to us. We’ll be talking about that later.

“We know it will,” I answer her as I look at Conner. “But what we hope it will do is stop the current line of…evil from continuing. It will end a dynasty of power that should have ended long ago.”

“We’ll need an exit plan,” Alexis states, her eyes glazing over. Sebastian tightens his hold around her waist and leans into her ear.

“We have one…” He trails off and looks to Conner who said he was working on it. “Or at least, we will when the time comes.”

She nods and wipes a tear away from her cheek. “It’ll be like witness protection, won’t it?”

“It will,” Conner confirms.

“I should probably go visit my family now,” she says as she looks around at all of us.

“That’s a good idea,” Sebastian encourages as he releases her. “We should all head out. If something goes wrong, and we lose communication, we will use this place as our safe house. Agreed?”

Everyone nods. “I’ll leave a key taped under the mat of the apartment next door. It belongs to a little old lady who never goes anywhere,” Vivienne says as she holds it up to show all of us.

“I have to get this sample to Ella,” I say as I pick the vial back up and place it in my pocket, tapping it lightly as if to confirm it’s actually there.

“I have more emails to go through. We’ll need quite a bit of evidence if we’re taking out the most powerful men in this city,” Vivienne says as she turns to head toward what I presume is a bedroom.

“We keep our burner phones on and our private phones off from here out. Only use the private phones when you are at your homes or offices,” I say to them as I head to the door. It’s time to pay a visit to the woman who killed the last warmth existing in my heart.

Chapter2

Ella

I hurry out the door.I’m late. The night air hits me as I make my way to my car. The Lincoln Memorial lights up the horizon and the Washington Monument beyond it.

I’ve been sucked into my work this week. I reflect on how I got here as I turn and look back up at the Pentagon. When I went to medical school, I never thought I’d be running a lab. I thought I’d be involved in patient trials, but here I am, working at the Pentagon in a medical drug-testing laboratory. Admiral Blake has my lab running a crazy amount of samples. My lab is three stories below ground level in a secret part of the Pentagon that even most people working here don’t know about.

When my commander recommended me to Admiral Blake for this position, I was hesitant. There are rumors, but something that Aiden Thomas once said to me yelled louder than any other thought in my head as I accepted the position, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He had said it was fatherly advice passed on to his group of friends, and he had found it useful.

So, here I am. Everything I do is top security clearance, well, beyond it really. No one knows about it except me and the five lab techs that work for me. We have state-of-the-art equipment, and our current task is to analyze results from an experimental drug trial. Admiral Blake has long been searching for a drug that will essentially mentally sedate soldiers suffering from PTSD while letting them remain physically awake. It’s a strange concept that as a doctor with a master's degree in pharmacology, I have serious reservations about, but I do as I’m told because I’m a good soldier.

I roll my eyes at myself as I get in my car and head toward my apartment. It’s only a five-minute drive, but working late hours means it’s safer to take my car. I park in my complex and head up to my penthouse. There’s something to be said about the salary that accompanies my position.

Dropping my bag by the front door, I head into my kitchen. My housekeeper likely left me food in the fridge. I haven’t been home in two nights. Pulling all-nighters was never something that ended after college. There were nights abroad where my work took me into the next day, but then when I was assigned here, I was able to keep a fairly normal schedule. That is until my commander recommended me to Admiral Blake and a normal life vanished as fast as the ink dried on my transfer paperwork.

I open my fridge and find my meals neatly stacked in containers. I rummage through them, find the one I want, and toss it in my microwave while I go to shower. I rinse off quickly, not allowing myself to indulge in the ridiculous jets that pulsate water all over my body. I’m tired and hungry, and I just want to curl up and sleep for twelve hours.

I hear the microwave beep as I wrap the towel around me. I grab another towel off my heated drying rack and wrap my hair up in it as I head out to my kitchen. I eat in silence, letting my mind unravel from the last forty-eight hours of work. I close my eyes as I bring the pasta to my lips. I take my time chewing, savoring each bite.

My phone buzzes and I reach over to it.

Aiden: I need to see you.

I sigh. Aiden Thomas. I close my eyes and take a long, deep breath. He has no idea of the heartbreak he caused me with only his words. He has no idea what I endured in the days afterward. He has no idea how much we both lost.

And after several years of no contact, he somehow fell back into my life recently when we saw each other at a medical conference. That was hard enough, but then he asked me for a favor, and I have a gut feeling this favor is going to lead to another favor.

Me: I just got off work. It’s late. Can it wait?

The three little dots appear immediately, which gives me my answer before I read his.

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