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“She’ll be okay now. Don’t leave her side, Ham. If you see anything unusual, you call me.” Mama Irene stood and arched her back, a loud cracking echoing in the room. Turning, she noticed all eyes staring at her in awe. “You been knowin’ I was different your whole lives. Don’t look so shocked now. I just know a few things. So does Nathan, Yori, Franklin, and Ruby.”

“Grandma, you’re telling us that witchcraft is real?” asked Luke.

“As real as voodoo,” she said, nodding at him. “Just as Jak and Mattie. They encountered enough of that in Haiti. You boys will learn sooner or later. If you get enough people to believe in it, it’s real. Not everything is as plain as the nose on your face.”

She heard Sadie moaning behind her and turned to see her eyes flutter open. Grabbing Ham’s discarded jacket, she lay it over her torso and kissed her forehead again.

“Wh-what did I do?” she said with tears in her eyes. She looked up at her brothers, seeing the red marks on their faces. “Oh, God, what did I do?”

“It’s okay, Sadie,” smiled Patrick. “I’m sure I did something that I needed to be slapped for.”

“Did I hurt you? Did I hurt anyone?” she cried.

“Why would you think such a thing?” asked Ham. “You couldn’t hurt anyone here.”

“But I did,” she nodded. “I hurt someone, and I didn’t mean to.” She started to sob uncontrollably and buried her head into Ham’s chest. He looked up, pleading with the others for advice.

“Get her back to the mansion, baby. She needs rest and quiet. She’ll be fine now, but you just call if you need me. Matthew can get me over there, lickety-split.”

“We’ll help you,” said Christopher. Ham nodded, lifting the young woman as she continued to cry uncontrollably. Dylan came back in with a blanket, laying it over her body as they left.

“Hey, Ham?” said Patrick, walking beside him. “Thanks for what you did for my sister.”

It was like a horror scene from a movie. Luke and Eric looked at Irene once more, shaking their heads.

“Is that why she’s been so strange lately?” asked Eric.

“Most likely,” nodded Irene. “If I had to guess, the spell was makin’ her say things she didn’t want to. Like, maybe, where we were located. I’m just guessin’, mind you, but I think that’s what this Matilda was after.”

“Grandma, let’s just say for a minute that I buy into all this and believe in witchcraft and voodoo,” frowned Luke. Irene raised a brow at him and grinned. “Just for a minute, if I buy into this, would it be possible to place a spell on Matilda from here?”

“That would take a mighty powerful witch,” said Irene, pursing her lips. “Doin’ it from so far away would be awful hard. No, I don’t think you want to mess with that.” Luke nodded as his grandmother kissed his cheek, patting his arm.

“So much for that idea,” he frowned. Irene stopped at the door and turned, grinning at her grandson.

“But, if you wanna know where she is, you’ll find her in Washington, D.C., stayin’ in a suite at the Mayflower.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Why hadn’t that little blonde bitch called? Why wasn’t her spell working? She’d had just enough contact with her in Micronesia to place that spell on her and force her to do things she needed to do. Just a phone call and she was doing her bidding. So, why wasn’t she calling her now, telling her where the RP men were located?

“Your numbers are down, Matilda. Pathetically down. You won’t win this vote,” said Metzger. Xi, Messina, and Ruiz stared at her.

“They’ll go up,” she said confidently. “I’ll be up in the polls by midnight tomorrow night. You’ll see.”

Xi shook his head and stood from the sofa.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she spat.

“You do not control me or my mind,” he said calmly. “Your magic doesn’t work on me. You are mad, and we have wasted time with you. You will not win this election. You will not control the White House or this country. You are running down a rabbit hole, and you are as mad as the Hatter.”

Xi left the room and then heard the shattering of crystal against the door. He could only smile as he made his way to the elevators and downstairs. He’d tried telling Metzger that she was mad. Even her own father, Ruiz, knew his daughter was unstable. It was time to go home.

Ruiz stared at his daughter, then at her ex-husband.

“You cannot win this, Matilda,” said Ruiz. He looked at Hanz, shaking his head. “Why do you continue to feed her hopes? You know that she will not win against them.” Metzger shrugged.

“Why did you rape your ward?” he asked.

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