“My wife will never agree,” I told him, picturing how I’d left her in bed after crying herself to sleep. Drained and exhausted, and very emotional from the argument with her mother. That insensitive cow was on my last nerve too. I stubbed out my ciggie and lit another.
“Make her agree, Blackstone.”
“I know you care for nothing but the success of your campaign, Senator, not even what’s happened to your son, but I don’t give a maiden queen’s first fuck about your politics, or your rapist son.”
I’d give Oakley points for laying it all out on the line. He wasted nothing on words. Just went straight to the issue in that tonal American accent of his that seemed almost devoid of humanity. “Don’t you think it’s better to be a couple of indiscreet teenagers who had a lapse in judgment years ago, and who’ve put it firmly behind them, than to worry about extortion should their shameful secret be brought to light? If they are still friends, then no crime ever occurred. Simple insurance, Blackstone. I think you should care very much.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Oakley’s ‘insurance’ scheme was really very clever. But the cleverness of it wouldn’t help Brynne. It would hurt her. “I care about the welfare of my pregnant wife, who was made ill tonight by this whole shitstorm blowing up in media. And that, Senator, is not going to help you one iota. I can’t make her go and see him. She won’t do it.”
He responded with, “Within the week, please,” and cut the line. I stared at my mobile, sure the number he’d called from was already deactivated. The tingle of fear scratched its way down my spine. I lit another Djarum and filled my lungs. I didn’t know how to fix this problem, and it had grown exponentially in the matter of hours. The US presidential election was propelling this one. How in the goddamn shitting hell did one fight that monstrous beast?
So I got up and left my office. I went to sit outside on the balcony, where I started smoking in earnest. One ciggie after the other, until I was high from the pumping nicotine that fueled the addiction I couldn’t deny.
The smoke drifted away on the cool nighttime breeze in lazy, wafting swirls. I had a flash of longing that my problems could magically do the same. Wishful thinking. Real life never worked that way. My hand was being forced in this. Sometimes my experience with poker was a curse…because I knew the odds here. I could see when folding was the only option.
It wouldn’t help Brynne to bring her into Oakley’s circle, but I feared it was already too late for that.
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Rare and Precious Things coming February 28th
#Blackstone4 on Twitter @Raine_Miller
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