“What do you want me to say?” I ask him now in the office. “That I’m fucking sorry? I am, Ash, truly fucking sorry. I would do anything for this not to be happening right now.”

Ash moves past me to shut the door and to tell Belvedere outside that he isn’t to be disturbed. Then, door closed, he walks over to a chair by the fireplace and throws himself into it, his broad shoulders and long, muscular legs still dominating the space despite his tired posture.

“I don’t know what I want you to say,” he replies heavily. “You couldn’t have known there would be cameras. You couldn’t have guessed Melwas would have done this. But it’s happened, and once again the people I’m supposed to protect are being exposed to harm.”

I sit in the chair across from him. “We can weather this, Ash. It’s awful, but Greer is strong and perfect, and she’ll survive this. And I don’t give a shit about myself. But I told you that this wasn’t over for him.”

“I know you did.”

“It’s still not over. There will be more.”

Ash pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “So what then? What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t care, but do something. Assassinate him, sanction him—anything.”

“You think that any of those things won’t lead to war?” Ash drops his hand to gaze at me. “You think it’s moral to provoke a man who is desperate for any reason to fight us?”

“It’s not provocation,” I say as I lean forward. “It’s holding your ground. It’s keeping your wife safe.”

“I have duties to more people than my wife, Embry. Three hundred and twenty million more people, actually. I can’t drag a country into war to keep one person safe. It’s not right.”

“No one is safe while Melwas is free to do whatever he pleases!”

Ash stares hard at me. “Do you remember Glein? Caledonia? Badon, where Dag died and there was so much blood it turned the ground into a muddy swamp?”

Memories of Badon—the last battle of the war—flicker before my eyes and I wince. “Stop.”

“I won’t. You held Dag as he died, remember? He asked you to call his sister and there was no reception but you kept trying until he couldn’t hear you anymore.”

“Stop.”

“How many men did you lose at Badon? Seventeen out of seventy-one? Two of them had babies about to be born at home, remember? Eight of them were fresh out of basic training. How many flags did you fold after? How many widows did you hug? How many children did you kneel down and look into their eyes and say, your papa died a hero when you knew their papa died in screaming agony without anyone to so much as hold his hand while he—”

I’m on my feet now, furious. “Fuck you,” I spit.

“I’m sorry if reminding you of war made you lose your taste for making it,” Ash says mildly. “I had no idea you would react so strongly.”

We stare at each other for a few long moments.

Ash is the first to speak. “You saw what I saw. Embry, they may have elected us because they think we’re heroes, but I swore the day I took office that I would never let those things happen again. The brutalized women, the orphaned children, the dead children. The hungry and homeless, all those bombed out houses and bags full of dried rice…if the only thing I accomplish in my life is stopping that from happening again, then I can look God in the face when I die. I’m not attacking Melwas, and that’s fucking final.”

I turn away and then back towards him, running my hands through my hair. “I don’t agree with you.”

“Good thing I’m the President then and not you.”

I start pacing. “Tell me she’s safe. Tell me he can’t hurt her any more.”

“You know I can’t promise that.” Ash’s voice is calm from behind me, but when I turn, I see the pained pleading in his eyes. “She’s as safe as I can make her. As safe as she can be.”

“I want her even safer than that.”

Ash sighs, smoothing his tie. “Embry.”

“Do you trust all her Secret Service agents? All her friends?”

“I don’t trust her cousin.”

And there it is. The problem I flew to Washington with, the blistering riddle I’ve been carrying in my hands since that I day I walked into my mother’s library and saw my sister crying. I stop pacing, and Ash notices.

“Embry?”

I sit down. I don’t look at him. I think of Morgan’s red eyes, of Abilene’s sharp smile. Let’s start with why you’re going to do exactly as I say from now on.

God, of all the things…

I clear my throat. “I think Abilene was involved with Greer’s kidnapping.”

“As do I. But I don’t have proof. Do you?”

I shake my head. “No, she hasn’t—no. I don’t. But she hates Greer, and she’s dangerous. That’s proof enough.”

Ash doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, just watches me. I think of all the things Abilene wanted me to do, all the lies she wanted me to tell, and I think about my sister hunched and defeated.

Morgan Leffey, defeated. The memory turns my stomach. I suppose I never knew how much I loved my sister until that moment, how much I loved—well… Perhaps I always knew how much I loved him.

“Abilene and I…” I trail off, not knowing where to start. I’m quite a good liar, but I’m struggling. “In Seattle. We connected.”