Page 14 of Power Surge

“I'm on the VP's detail, remember? He goes every morning we're stateside, and I haven't seen you there once. He'll be there tomorrow around five o’clock, and I expect to see you there too. You hear me, Benson? You've got to get back to life. Your medical leave ends next month, and I need you 100 percent.”

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I offer a reluctant nod. “Yeah, sure. Tomorrow.” Without glancing across the center console, I yank the chrome handle, opening the door without his interference. “It'll take me time, but I’ll get back to normal soon.”

At least that’s what I'm telling myself.

“Trey, we don't have the luxury of time.”

I pause and turn to cast a cautious glance over my shoulder. “What do you mean? What’s going on that you’re not telling me?” For the first time in weeks, intrigue slips in, pulling all my attention back to Tank.

“Sucks, don’t it?”

I narrow my brows with a “don’t fuck with me” expression.

“War, Benson. Like that Russian warned us in Hawaii, war is approaching, and it's up to our girl to prevent it from going down. To prevent thousands of our boys and girls from putting their lives on the fucking line for a conflict that’s based off the greed and lies of others.”

“Shit. Fucking Birmingham.”

“Exactly.”

With that heavy-loaded conversation in the forefront of my mind, I wave a goodbye and slam the door behind me. Taking a moment to process the information Tank revealed, I regard the brightly lit building in front of me. Dread drops like a ten-ton lead weight in my gut while the mounting anticipation at seeing her makes me jittery. It takes a minute to wrangle all the erratic emotions and shove them down deep, leaving me deceptively calm.

Inhaling a deep calming breath, I slowly release it through pursed lips and start toward the four agents guarding the entrance to the White House.

Chapter Four

Randi

“Imean, what the actual hell,” I mumble under my breath as I tread down a long hall that will take me to the residence side of the White House. The perk of working and residing in the same location lost its glamor after day three of living here. Besides the funeral, I can't remember the last time I left this fancy prison. It’s partly because I don’t have to leave the grounds for a commute to the office, and the other part is the more intense security now that I’m president. Protecting me is the number one concern for everyone nowadays—which is a good thing, it really is, but it's not my guys, my trusted team, following me around. No, they had to stay with the VP, my friend Sam Pierce.

Lucky bastard.

There has to be a way to influence the director of the Secret Service to switch the teams out. And I will find a way… soon.

But right now that’s the least of my concerns. Because holy fuck, Kyle is dead.

Really dead. With suicide as the cause of death.

Everyone else is taking the coroner’s report at face value, just accepting that Kyle would take his own life, but to me, something feelsoffabout that. Though the evidence collected was all conclusive to him strangling himself with a priceless piece of art—even the tie that was used as the noose was one of his apparently. Yet something nags in the back of my mind, something that keeps tickling every so often, making me question the validity of that conclusion.

Okay, sure, Kyle deliberated putting a bullet in his head that awful morning when I forced him to step down from the presidency, but he was drunk and cornered then. He was different after he resigned. He had hope because he knew he had options, since he held the information we need to end the corrupt scandal he left behind. Up until yesterday he held all the cards. A power he was exploiting, demanding amnesty in exchange for the names needed to stop whatever those men have set in motion.

I would ask Sam where they were in meeting his demands—maybe they denied Kyle and that’s why he killed himself—but I’ve learned the hard way not to mention Kyle in front of Sam. It was a fucking horse pill for Sam to swallow when his boss, the attorney general, considered Kyle's demands, stating it was the lesser of the two evils. It's true, but the thought of him getting off scot-free for all his transgressions prickled at me too. But justice isn't always black and white, and if Kyle's information could help me stop the rising conflicts in the Middle East—conflicts that his scandal created—I'd take it no matter what he asked me to give up.

But now what will we do? What options do I have in finding the names and identities of the guilty?

It’s a mess. All of it. The entire country and our Middle East relations. Most of the country is in an uproar at the still high gas prices while the others are furious that a woman is leading the country. Sure, they were okay with a woman in the secondary role, but the primary? Oh hell no. The news channels debate daily if I'll drive our country deeper into trouble or just not do anything at all.

Good to know they have such little faith in me.

Not that I have much more than they do. About every other minute, I wonder if I should've taken the out when I had it and stepped down when Kyle did. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Shawn Whit, the sociopath best friend of the recently departed Kyle Birmingham, would’ve figured out a way to swoop in and fill one of the vacant roles. I might be unprepared and uneducated in most things politics, but at least I'm not a sociopath.

Hey, looky there, that’s one positive I can focus on.

“Not driven to murder for fun. Go me.”

The stoic agent beside me shoots me the side-eye.

Shrugging, I hold my hands out to my side. “What? I see it as a positive.”

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