Page 76 of Power Games

"Kill Charles Grant, the people's favorite, and the world will not rest until there's a culprit. No stone will go unturned. Kill your wife? You're no threat. You're no one. Particularly if you take the fall."

She could tell he was following. "But I haven't taken the fall. Thanks to you."

He probably didn't realize just how true that was.

* * *

Vanessa was strangely calm.She shouldn't be. She should be freaking the fuck out right about now.

But after hearing the words that changed everything in the distance, she wasn't panicking at all. She was analyzing the situation clinically. She’d been in the public eye too long to let surprise catch her off-guard.

Watching the car drive away with Charles in the back, one emotion was predominant now, boiling right under the surface. She knew better than to show it.

She turned on her heel and walked to her father. He'd been prepared for it: he stood away from his guests, out of earshot.

“Did you kill her?” she asked conversationally, seemingly indifferent.

“Of course not," Theodore replied, his tone just as casual.

She knew his reply meant nothing.

“But isn't it just convenient, Father? Without Charles in the race, Tristan will win.”

George Franklin Wright, Junior was no real rival. Her selfish, cruel brother was to take his place in the Oval Office, succeeding a man who'd been just like him.

There would be champagne flowing tonight in the McNamara household.

“A shame, to be sure," said Theodore. "I would have so preferred if you, rather than Tristan, had followed in my footsteps.”

Theodore McNamara wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close. He meant what he’d said. Not out of affection—he loved both his children equally; and by that, she meant very little. But he had always regretted that she’d left the world she'd been born into.

Vanessa nudged her father back to the topic at hand.

“Are you going to push Charles completely out of the way?” she asked. "Will he be convicted?"

Theodore inclined his head. Yes.

“Why?” she asked. "He's out of the running now. You've cleared the path for Tristan."

Her father turned his keen eyes on her, scrutinizing every one of her features.

“He’s a very clever, and therefore, dangerous man. He won’t be manipulated, or bribed. The scandal will ruin this election, but in four, eight years, we could be in the exact same situation, if it wasn’t permanently taken care of. Men like him are dangerous. Without affiliation, without loyalty. You must see that.”

She closed her eyes.

Vanessa was free of Theodore now. She had a life—a good life, by all estimation. She could, and perhaps should, stay out of it.

The police car was disappearing in the distance.

“I’ll come back.”

People like her father and her weren’t taken aback easily, but Theodore lifted a brow.

“To politics?”

She nodded stiffly.

“Good. That’s where you belong, Nessie.”

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