21
Loyalties Won
Vanessa
The amber liquid swirled in the ornate crystal tumbler as she tilted her hand back and forth. The base of the glass was cool and heavy in her palm, the angles of the design stabbing her skin, but not in an unpleasant way. Senator Ross had held her, stabilizing and grounding her as she cried for several minutes, until she had been able to calm herself down. At which point he went into his office, returning a moment later with a bottle of scotch and two tumblers from his drink cabinet. They were sitting next to each other on the floor of the staff office, leaning back against the front of her desk and drinking to her sorrows.
“You came back early,” she said. It was the first thing she had said since he appeared to chase her monster away.
“Yes, I had a sneaking suspicion that young Barron may be in here trying to have his way with you,” he responded in a casual tone.
She took her eyes off of the liquor to look at him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was never very good at making jokes.” He pursed his lips and looked down into his own glass.
She smiled at his poor attempt at humor anyway.
“I suppose that’s why you never went for President. Too many jokes in the speeches.”
“Ha, well those speeches are written by the staff, so that would be yours and Grant’s problem, not mine.” He smiled and took a sip of his drink.
“That’s true.” The scotch stilled in her glass with her hand. “Where is Grant, anyway? I thought you two would have returned together if your lunch meeting had finished early.”
“I’m not sure. I think he saw a pretty woman in the bar area.”
“Oh no,” Vanessa laughed. She had only witnessed Grant’s awful flirting once before, in her first week. He had tried to talk up a secretary that showed up to deliver a brief to their office. “Poor girl.”
“Yes,” Senator Ross laughed with her.
When their laughter died down, the silence stretched on. This wasn’t something they were used to, being alone for an extended period of time. There was always something to do or someone to see, something on the outside to keep things moving at a fast pace within the office suite. Being around the Senator and doing nothing felt foreign, and she had the recurring feeling that she was forgetting something: work, a call, or a meeting that needed to be scheduled.
“Vanessa.”
“Hmm?” She tipped her tumbler back, finishing off what was left of her drink.
“Tell me what happened.”
All of her muscles tensed at once, and she kept her gaze forward.
“You saw.”
“No.” His voice was gentle, but firm. “I want to know what happened before I arrived.”
A deep breath filled her lungs, a struggle with how tight her throat was. The last thing she wanted to do was to let herself remember the details of her encounter with Barron. Setting her empty glass on the rug, she pushed it across the fibers until it was next to Ross’s leg. He obliged her silent request, lifting the stopper from the decanter and pouring her two more fingers of the Dalmore single malt. She picked it up as soon as he was done and downed it in one go. Making a face against the burn, she held her glass out to him for more. He let out a whispered laugh beside her.
“One usually takes the time to savor an eighty thousand dollar bottle of scotch,” he said with an amused smile. The decanter clinked against her tumbler as he poured her another two fingers.
“Eighty thousand?” Her eyes were wide as she looked at him, the several grand worth of scotch in her stomach threatening to make a reappearance. His smile widened at her shock.
“Come now, enough dawdling.” He pushed the hand that held her new serving of unimaginably expensive scotch back toward her, his smile fading before his next words. “Tell me what happened.”
She cradled the glass as if it contained liquid gold, holding it against her chest with the gentle touch that she might hold a small kitten. “He did come looking for you. That much was true.”
He waited for her to continue.
She hesitated, thinking about how she could tell him that Barron had caught her crying without him seeking to know the story behind those tears as well, ultimately deciding to omit that particular detail.
“I told him you weren’t in. He then started asking my age, bringing up marriage, and how he’d been looking for a wife.” Her voice started to shake, and the room began to squeeze in on her from all sides. She rubbed her hand on the fabric of her skirt where she could still feel Barron’s touch. “I tried… I tried to put distance. I moved from my desk, and I told him to leave, but… but then…” She looked down as she could swear that she felt Barron’s hand squeezing her fingers, but it was Dixon’s hand that had found its way to hers, warm and reassuring. She turned from their hands to his face, head heavy. He said something she couldn’t hear, and slowly the size of the room returned to normal around them.
“It’s ok,” he whispered, his mouth moving the same as it had a second before. “That’s all I need to know.”
She nodded, a numbing chill crawling through her body, and looked away to stare at nothing in particular. The warmth of his hand being the only sensation that penetrated the numbness, she left her hand in his, honing in on the feeling like an anchor that could keep her from sinking through the floor.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Very little,” Dixon responded, his voice darkening. “Certainly less than he deserves. I detest men that would take such a thing from a woman, no better than a rabid dog.”
His anger was a small comfort, but not enough. The disappointment that the horrid young senator wouldn’t face any real consequences for what he tried to do to her was overwhelming. She wanted justice, to see him suffer the kind of justice that the Collective handed out to men like him for hurting women. Her feelings must have been written all over her face as Dixon watched her.
“I can assure you that his mentorship with this office is over. I will make sure that his once promising career comes to a screeching, and assuredly pathetic, halt. He’ll be nothing but a seat filler in the Senate, and eventually he’ll be voted out of office by his peers.”
“I thought you needed him on board with your initiatives? Please don’t do anything on my account that could hurt your career, or place you on the bad side of congress.”
“Oh, Vanessa,” he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “You are much more to me than that imbecile.”
She was unsure how to respond to his declaration. Were she prompted to say something similar about him, she wasn’t sure that she could. He didn’t ask, and she was grateful. They sipped their drinks in silence for several minutes, until the words that were pressing at her throat couldn’t be held back any longer.
“He’s right.”
Ross looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Who?”
“Barron.” The name was poison on her tongue. “I will be twenty-six soon. My extension is about to run out.”
“Ah, yes,” he responded in derision, “our civic duty to restore the decimated population of the country.”
This was the second time he had disparaged the President’s actions in her company. Once is a slip of the tongue, but twice…
“You don’t agree with it?”
His face was hard. “No. I don’t.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “Marriages of expectation and convenience existed long before Fundamentalists started leading this country.”
Inhaling an involuntary breath, her thoughts raced. “You?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Margaret is a wonderful woman, and a supportive partner in marriage.”
“Ok.” Embarrassment rose in her cheeks at giving such a stupid response, but she couldn’t think straight.
“She,” he cleared his throat, “she isn’t who I would have chosen for myself, had I any choice in the matter at the time.” He unraveled his hand from hers, placing her hand on top of her leg with care before moving his back to his own lap. “All that is to say that I know something of what you may be going through, and I am very sorry for anyone who has to experience the same.”
They were wrong. They were so wrong. The Senator wasn’t like the other men they had to rescue women from. Mrs. Ross wasn’t being abused, she just didn’t want to be married to him. The option for divorce was removed in the early days of Wilkins’s takeover. In the last twenty years, the Iris Collective was the first viable option that the woman had to grasp onto. If they should manage to extract her, Dixon may even be grateful. His greatest crime, aside from being a member of the Fundamentalist party, was being a member of a loveless marriage. Relief flowed like cool water over her skin.
“Ok, my dear,” Dixon said, slapping the tops of his thighs before standing up. He reached a hand down to help her to her feet. “It’s time for us to leave this dreadful place. I’ll walk you out.”
She took his hand, surprised at his strength as he pulled her up from the floor. Grabbing her bag, she threw her coat over her arm and followed him from the office.
The echo of their shoes on the floor followed them as they walked through the halls of the Senate office building. Interns and staffers crossed their path every so often, rushing from point a to point b in service of their governmental duties.
“Do you have plans tonight, a friend you could stay with, perhaps?” Dixon asked as they reached the exterior doors of the building. He lifted her coat from where it was hanging over her arm and held it open for her.
“Are you asking me to hang out, Senator?” she asked as she shrugged on the offered garment and began buttoning the large wooden buttons.
“That’s funny,” he deadpanned, reaching out and adjusting her scarf before tightening his own. “No, I’m on my way to have dinner with Margaret. I just wanted to make sure you won’t be alone tonight, after what happened.”
The warmth of her coat and scarf did nothing to stop her insides from turning to ice. Dinner, dinner with Mrs. Ross. She looked at her watch and saw that it was twenty past four. The Senator would make it to the dinner at five without a problem, he may even arrive early, but should he?
“Vanessa? Are you alright?”
Dixon’s face was full of concern as he looked at her. He reached out a hand and touched her shoulder, breaking her from her trance. They couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let them kill him, and so she did the only thing she could think of, and stumbled. She fell back half a step before Dixon had grabbed hold of her arms to steady her.
“You’re white as a sheet,” he said.
She touched her forehead, scrunching her eyes shut as she grimaced. “I think I had too much to drink.”
“Well,” Dixon laughed, “you did have few.”
“It’s ok. I’ll be able to sit down on the metro.” In her thoughts, she begged him to take the bait, to prove himself to be the good person she was starting to believe he may be.
“That won’t do. Come, let’s get you home. Margaret won’t mind if I’m a little late, she’s quite used to it by now with this job.”
“No,” Vanessa said. Yes, she thought. “Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”
“Of course. She would kill me if she found out that I let you get on the metro alone, drunk, with all the unsavory characters you could run into. Come, now.” He put an arm around her, holding her to his side to steady her as they walked out of the building. An icy wind blasted them as soon as they were through the doors.
“Senator Ross, Miss.”
A man was standing outside of a large black SUV, a member of the Senator’s personal security team. He nodded as they approached and opened the back door of the vehicle. Dixon helped her step up into the backseat, and the guard shut the door as the Senator walked around to the other side. He opened his own door and climbed into the backseat with her. The car was already on and warm inside, the heat burning her face where the outside air had frozen it a moment before.
“Change of plans, Stanley,” Dixon called to a man in the driver’s seat. The guard who had shut her door was gone. “Take us to Miss Brown’s residence. We’ll be dropping her off before heading to the restaurant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dixon reached over her.
“Oh!”
“He’ll never leave if we don’t put these on,” Dixon said, pulling her seatbelt over her abdomen and snapping it into the buckle. He gave it a small tug to make sure it was latched and snug before proceeding to put his own on.
As he had said, the car began to move as soon as they were both secured in their seats.
“Here.” Dixon pressed a cold water bottle into her hand and smiled. “This will help, trust me.”
“Thank you.” She opened the bottle, sipping from it as they drove. She wasn’t drunk, perhaps lightly buzzed, but she couldn’t let him know that now.
The Capitol Building showed like a beacon outside of the SUV as they drove away from the political center of the city. Her apartment wasn’t close. By her estimate, Dixon would be at least fifteen minutes late to his dinner with Mrs. Ross, depending on how bad the traffic was. She hoped it would be enough, and that Eddie would be able to forgive her.
As they drove, her mind wandered. She stared at the buildings as they flashed by, and thought of Detective Reid. Guilt rolled in her stomach as she realized she had forgotten all about him after everything that had happened since his call. She hoped that Eddie was right, and that Detective Jamison would refrain from doing something horrible to his impassioned partner. Though, thinking about this led her to remembering something that Reid had said during their short conversation.
‘The husband’s car accident.’
Shit. Was that the new method the Collective had been working on? Her back stiffened against the seat, and her eyes roamed the inside of the vehicle. Dixon was engrossed in whatever he was reading on his phone, and the driver was paying attention to the road ahead. Everything she could see within the car looked normal. The black carpet and leather seats were dark and clean, with not a single spec of lint to be seen. The car was driving smooth, like floating on air, much smoother than the train ever was. Everything was as she would expect it to be. She turned in her seat and looked out of the back window. Dozens of cars drove behind and around them, the headlights making her eyes ache.
“The agents are in the SUV behind us,” Dixon said, watching her as she turned back around.
“Oh, right,” she said, awkward. Did the Collective know that she was in the car? Could they even get to Dixon’s car?
“Are you worried that Barron will follow us?”
“What? No.” At least, she hadn’t been until Dixon brought it up. Now it was all she could think about. “Do you think he would do something like that?”
Dixon turned his attention back to his phone screen. “Not unless he wants to deal with the agents in the car behind us.”
“Right,” she whispered, taking a deep breath and blinking several times.
They drove the rest of the way in silence. She tried not to think of dying in a horrible car crash. Her muscles didn’t relax until the driver pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment, mercifully, without incident.
“Stay here, Stanley,” Dixon said as he opened his door. He was out of the car before she could say anything to stop him. He walked around to her side and opened her door, the cold air taking the opportunity to invade the cabin. “Come on,” he said, holding up a hand to help her out.
She released her seatbelt and placed her hand in his. His fingers were warm beneath hers. Escorting her to the security door of her building, her entered the code and held it open for her. Her eyes stayed on the keypad, chest tight.
“You’d be surprised what our security knows about us,” the Senator said in answer to her unasked question—one she was too afraid to ask—gesturing for her to enter the building.
She looked back at the two SUVs that waited on the street, knowing that one was filled with a highly trained team of security agents. Swallowing, she turned back around and proceeded Senator Ross into the front hall of the building. His leather-soled shoes clicked on the tile as he entered, the security door making her jump as it slammed shut.
“Come, Vanessa. Let’s get you home.”
He mounted the staircase as he spoke. She followed a few steps behind. As he climbed higher, each step she took to follow him was like she was growing one step closer to her end.
At the third floor, her floor, he stopped and waited for her to reach him before he moved on down the hall in the direction of her apartment. He stopped in front of her door as if he had been there countless times before. He looked from her to the door, and she pulled out her keys. Unlatching the locks, she made no move to enter. He didn’t say anything, reaching one long arm around her to turn the doorknob. He pushed the door open, holding it so she could walk in ahead of him. Seeing no more point in delaying, she entered the apartment, not daring to look at him.
Walking to the middle of the darkened room, she stopped. The click of a switch, and the open space was filled with a golden light. The door shut behind her. As his steps approached her back, she closed her eyes. It was a good run.
Her eyes snapped back open when he passed her by. Entering her kitchen, he opened her refrigerator and pulled a glass carafe of water out. Setting it on the counter, he looked at her.
“Cups?”
“Um, next to the sink.”
He followed her direction, opening the cupboard she had indicated and taking a glass out. Filling the cup with water from the carafe, he returned the jug to the fridge.
“Come here,” he said, unbuttoning his coat.
She did as he asked, and he produced from a bottle of pills. He shook two capsules into his hand before returning the bottle to the inner pocket of his coat.
“Here.” He grabbed her hand, placing the pills on her palm. They were an opaque green color, with no other identifying characteristics. “I didn’t want the driver or the agents to see me giving you these,” he explained, “lest it get back to Wilkins. From what I’ve heard, sleep can be hard to come by after such an event. These will help.”
“Oh,” she said as she exhaled in relief.
“Our secret.” He winked down at her, touching her cheek before he walked back to the door. “Lock this, and don’t forget to call someone to stay with you,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then he was gone.
She stared at the pills in her hand after the door closed, thoughts of cyanide in sugar packets in the forefront of her mind. Walking to the bathroom off of the living room, she dropped the pills into the toilet bowl and flushed them. Returning to the front door, she locked it, and went into the bedroom to look down at the street from the window.
Senator Ross appeared on the sidewalk as he exited the building, leaning down to speak to his driver through the passenger window instead of getting into the vehicle. After a moment, he straightened up and walked to the second SUV. Speaking to them for a moment, one of the agents stepped out from the backseat, the Senator taking his place. This SUV pulled away from the sidewalk, turned around, and drove back the way they had come from. The agent that was left behind walked to the first SUV and got into the front passenger seat. She watched the car for several more minutes, steam billowing from the tailpipe as it idled, but it didn’t move.
Her pocket buzzed. Pulling her phone out, she finally took her eyes off of the SUV as the screen lit up. A message from Eddie stared up at her.
GET HERE ASAP.
Thank you for reading this chapter! Let me know what you thought with a like and comment. <3
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WHAT A CLIFFHANGER OMG
AMAZING chapter.
1. It was pretty obvious from the original phone call that Margaret was potentially in a different headspace than their usual clients. Did they jump at the opportunity to get Ross because of who he is? Or is their policy always to believe the woman, never to investigate? Granted, DV could be hard to investigate. Looking forward to finding out the truth about Ross and the Collective's.... vetting process, or lack thereof
2. I felt Vanessa's anxiety throughout this. She was just assaulted, and she's part of the Collective, and she doesn't know their plans for Ross -- of course she would be jumpy. Even though I felt like Ross was a pretty good guy, the whole sequence in her apartment, and when he reached over to buckle her in, had me so on edge. Great job with that.