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  “Yes, I’ve backed it up in multiple places, Benchley. And yes, I’ve taken precautions. Anything happens to me, this and other stuff ends up all over the place.”

  He glares at me even as he’s reappraising me. It takes him the better part of five minutes to speak, and I wait him out. “What do you want?”

  I smile and lace my hands behind my head. “I want you to publicly support and endorse Owen’s county commission run for your old seat. As a senior member of the state GOP, I want your official endorsement for his run as an Independent. I want you to twist arms and put bugs in ears and call in favors. I want every applicable ratfuck you’ve got used to his benefit. I want you campaigning for him, showing up at town halls to introduce him, shaking hands and filming endorsement ads. I want the local branch of the GOP to support Owen, not the GOP incumbent or any of the other primary candidates. I’m talking from the primary on, not just in the general.”

  His gaze narrows. “You’re insane. How’s that going to look?”

  “The incumbent is a dirty shithead, and you know it. How’s it going to look if I start stirring up ghosts and Susa puts together the fact that you used her as your alibi to murder that guy?”

  “You’ll destroy her chances to be elected governor if you do that!”

  I shrug. “Won’t hurt Owen’s chances, though.”

  His eyes widen. “You’d throw her under the bus just to get me out of the way?”

  I smile. “In a heartbeat.”

  “Wheedon was a rapist!”

  “And Susa might be cutthroat, but she also has very strong ethics. Her father or not, she’d still go to the police with this evidence, even at the cost of her own political aspirations, and you damn well know it. So you’re going to go along with our plan. You’re going to help us get Owen elected to the county commission as an Independent. Then, in four years, he’s going to run for state Senate, for what will then be your old seat, and you’re going to endorse him there, too. From the primary on.”

  He’s literally slack-jawed. “You’re fucking serious!”

  “Damn right I am. Just because Susa’s my wife doesn’t mean I won’t fuck you over. You’re a pain in my ass, until I know you’re going to do what I tell you to do. Would you rather be sitting in jail and knowing I not only put you there, but that I own your daughter’s affections? Or would you rather keep your freedom? You’re an attorney. I don’t need to tell you that there’s no statute of limitation on premeditated murder.”

  “I can’t endorse an Independent for my Senate seat!”

  “What do you care? You’re term-limited out now and will have already moved on. After one term as a state senator, Owen’s going to file to run for governor, with Susa running as his lieutenant governor. Play your cards right, it’ll be at the end of your second term as governor.” I pause. “Or, you can be doing time in Starke by then. Your choice.”

  He sits back in his office chair and stares at me for several long, silent minutes. “You’re a crazy fucking bastard,” he finally says. “You know that?”

  I grin. “Yeah, I’ve been called worse, though. I take that as a compliment.” I let my smile fade. “I put myself between a car bomb and three of my guys. You don’t fucking scare me, and you never have.”

  He rocks back in his chair as he reappraises me. “Why not run him for a House seat instead of Senate? That guy in your district is term-limited out, too, and there really isn’t anyone good to run in his place.”

  “Because that Senate seat was your seat. Your endorsement and active support will have more impact that way, especially later on. You were popular, had good poll numbers. It’s going to be lost to a Democrat this time around, anyway. It’ll be a GOP bloodbath in the primary, when they frag each other trying to win it, and it’ll stay blue next time around when they do the same shit again.”

  “Bullfuckingshit, it’ll flip blue this time!”

  I slowly shake my head. “I’ve already run the numbers, Benchley. You won the seat because of your strong Hillsborough county ties, and the bulk of the voters in that district are within the county limits. They remembered your name. This county traditionally trends liberal in voting, and you damn well know that, too. Between a heavily split GOP primary field shredding each other, and the Dems only putting forth one candidate in their primary, you’re going to have a populace who will be happy to check the box under the Democrat rather than any of the GOP assholes.

  “Your endorsement of any of the GOP candidates will not only be lost in the blood mist of them eviscerating each other during primaries, it’ll cheapen your reputation. Especially if your primary candidate loses. Your best bet is to not endorse any of them and sit this election out. Means your future endorsement of Owen, an Independent, will be even more powerful. Doubly so if you’re serious about running for governor. Means you’re serious about bringing people together and working for unity across the aisle, not just tribal partisan politics.

  “Then you can run for a second term as governor, endorse Owen for his state Senate run at the same time, and when you’re term-limited out, Owen will run for governor and you, the incumbent, will endorse him. Again, it looks good, a GOP bigwig endorsing an Independent? Must mean you know some serious shit about the GOP candidate, if you won’t endorse them. It’s what you won’t say that will have as much impact in those races as what you do say. Add to that fact Susa will be Owen’s lieutenant, and no one with half a brain will question why you’ve endorsed him for governor. You’ll have people tripping over themselves sucking up to you, thinking you can get them access to Owen through Susa.”

  He stares at me for a long, angry silence, his lips pressed in a tight, thin line.

  He knows I’m right. Maybe he was in denial, or hoping he could pull a miracle out of his ass, who knows?

  He’s already run the numbers but didn’t realize I had, too, and that I see the writing on the wall far better than most pols do. Having someone he despises as much as me put it all out there means he can’t ignore the facts any longer.

  The moment he breaks he slumps in his chair and blows out a long breath. “Fuck you, Carter,” he grumbles.

  “I take it we have a deal?”

  He scrubs his face with his hands. “Yeah, fine. Fuck.”

  “You know I’m right about this. Consider it a karma chip.” I stand, pulling my phone from my pocket like I’m checking the time. “This works out perfectly. You’re governor for two terms. If you don’t fuck up, that is. Then we slide Owen in for two terms, followed by Susa. Think about that. Twenty-four years of solid influence in Tallahassee, if you count two terms for each of you. With both you and Owen stumping for Susa, she’s guaranteed the win no matter who runs against her. Meanwhile, you run for national office, if you want.”

  I smile. “There’s your legacy, Benchley, and one you can be damned proud of. First father-daughter governors. Add in Owen, and it’s a true political dynasty the Bushes and Kennedys would kill to emulate. Plus, Susa wants to go national after two terms in Tallahassee.”

  “What’s she going to run for first? Before Owen runs for governor?”

  “I’m probably going to put her in for a term in the state House after Owen runs for the state Senate. Meanwhile, she’s going to be building lots of connections. She won’t need to waste time running for a bunch of lower offices before her gubernatorial run if she’s already spent eight years as lieutenant governor, and has both her father’s endorsement as well as Owen’s. Your buddies will back her, Independent or not, because they’ll know you can deliver juice to them.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs, Carter.”

  I shrug. “Call me an optimist.”

  “There’s a lot of things I’d call you,” he darkly says, “but an optimist isn’t one of them.”

  I head for the door. “I know you wish she’d married Owen, but let me tell you something.” I turn. “If she had, you could pretty much forget about her being elected to any office. Admit it—you know damn well you wouldn’t
have supported her over a stronger male GOP candidate, your daughter or not.”

  He looks like he’d rather punch me, but he finally nods, and I continue. “The only way this works is the way we’ve set it up.” I tip him a two-fingered salute from my temple. “You’re welcome.”

  I smile as I close his office door behind me. As I show myself out, I hit the stop button on the video camera, where I’d been recording our meeting from right after I played him the video.

  Stupid fuck.

  I don’t give a fuck how pissed off he is at me. All that matters is he’s agreed to go along with the plan. I won’t tell Owen about this, and I won’t tell Susa.

  It’ll be our little secret.

  Granted, had Wheedon not been a repeated child rapist, I might have turned Benchley in myself to get him out of my fucking hair and ratfuck the GOP by painting them with the same brush, but this is better.

  Much better.

  This is something I can use to our benefit.

  It means Owen’s nearly guaranteed to win and, officer of the court or not, I don’t have to hurt Susa, or her chances for political office, by turning her father in for premeditated murder.

  All I have to do is keep Owen moving forward and doing what we tell him to do.

  In retrospect, I sometimes wonder, despite how outlandish I know the thought is, if Benchley’s heart attack a mere three weeks before the general election was his own kind of fuck you to me. Because Michelle forced him to retire from politics at the end of his Senate term.

  Doesn’t matter. News about his heart attack might have even gained us a few sympathy votes. Owen wins the general by twenty-two points, biggest win any Independent candidate has ever managed in any Hillsborough County Commission race.

  I suppose a better man might wonder if the extra stress and work I heaped on Benchley by pressuring him to stump for Owen contributed in some way to his heart attack.

  But I am not, and have never claimed to be, a better man.

  I am absolutely a bastard.

  Benchley will never know how much of one.

  Hopefully, neither will Susa or Owen.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Before the Bastard…

  I am nineteen and turned loose for the first time in a foreign country as an adult. I am back in Germany, finally, and damned glad to be here. My German isn’t fantastic, but I speak it better than many of the other soldiers, mostly because I learned it as a kid. Certainly better than any of my brothers’ German. I lived here for four years, and still remember a lot.

  There are things that fourteen-year-old me learned hints of while living here before, as a military brat, but couldn’t investigate before we moved back to the States at the end of Dad’s hitch here.

  Partly because of my age and lack of freedom back then, and partly because of my fear of my parents—especially my father—finding out. I had no clue who might have known me through my older brothers, of which, at that time, I had three stationed here.

  Now, I’m an adult.

  And I wanted to know all those things previously denied to me now.

  I don’t understand why I’m so drawn to this lifestyle. I wasn’t abused by my parents while growing up. We were disciplined, yeah, but Mom never had to spank us. We were just…terrified of her. Maybe Park or Charlie might have been, but they were already teenagers when I was born.

  By the time Mom got to me, she had keeping order with her six other sons down to a science.

  And we were all scared she might bring Dad into the mix, when he was home and not on deployment.

  I hated scrubbing toilets and floors, and would do anything to avoid that punishment. Our homes might have been crowded and definitely not expensive, especially if we lived on-base somewhere, but they were always clean and tidy.

  And we always felt loved. Our birthdays were always recognized, we spent as many holidays as possible together, when everyone was home. And while my older brothers might have teased each other or me, god help anyone that tried to fuck with one of our brothers. The Wilson boys would dogpile the motherfucker. We were a force of nature.

  Mom and Dad made time every day for each of us individually, even if only a few minutes, to sit with us and talk to us about our day. Meals were family time, with everyone sitting down and talking. When Dad was home, we did morning PT with him, and when he wasn’t, it was Park or Charlie, or sometimes Gene, who led us on a morning run from when I was old enough to keep up. Every day, regardless of weather, before school.

  It was funny that Dad was willing to go easy on us in that regard, but Mom insisted on it. Said it was the only way to help us burn off the excess energy. As an adult and Army soldier, yeah, now I can see her point. It was a way to help keep us in line, a routine for us.

  As my brothers started leaving home for college and, later, enlisting, our numbers grew smaller, but Mom and the rest of us kept up the routines. As many of us could gather together did so for holidays.

  It devastated all of us to lose Pete and Tom, but I think I took it even harder than my other brothers, because they’d been the next youngest to me. Tom was only two years older than me, and Pete was four. By then I knew I did not want to enlist, definitely didn’t want to make it my career, but knew I needed to. It’d be the only way to keep the peace in my family. It would have been seen as an insult to their memories to not enlist.

  Not going in never crossed my mind, so I rebelled the only way I felt I could, by going straight in from high school and not doing ROTC and college first.

  I didn’t want to be an officer. I wanted to get in, earn enough for college, and get out and be done.

  Tonight, I have a forty-eight hour pass and money in my pocket when I walk in the nightclub. I know Jace isn’t in Germany this month. He’s off in Italy or some shit. Gene is back in the States for three months. Dad’s currently stationed in the States, too, even though due to his command he frequently travels over here and spends weeks at a time.

  No one to stumble across who’s actually related to me.

  No one even knows I’m here. My best buds, Gohber and Kenney, they tried to get me to go out with them tonight, but the shit they want to go do is stuff me and my friends did after school when I was fourteen and living here.

  I need to do this tonight.

  This nightclub is far enough from the base that I’m not completely concerned about running into someone. It has the rep I’m looking for, and at this point, if I run into someone here who knows me, they’re likely here for the same thing I am. That means they’ll hopefully take a don’t ask, don’t tell approach, or risk their own extracurricular activities being exposed.

  There’s only so much porn a guy can wank to before he needs to feel the real thing. I know three things for certain about myself—I’m most likely bi, even though I’ve never had an actual sexual experience with a guy, I’m apparently attractive to women, and I apparently need a dominant woman to really enjoy myself in bed.

  The five girls I slept with between high school and now wanted me to take charge in bed, and…that’s just not doing it for me. The only way I got over with any of them was imagining them taking charge of me.

  The nightclub is located in a three-story warehouse in an industrial area that looks deserted this time of night. No sign to advertise its presence, but you can feel the bass thumping through the walls from inside nearly half a block away. You need to know you’re looking for it to find it. This isn’t the kind of establishment you randomly stumble across when looking for a tourist-friendly Biergarten.

  This is the kind of nightclub that caters to a certain specialized…clientele.

  Which is why it’s located where it is.

  The music is some sort of EDM electronica shit that I couldn’t care less about. The drinks aren’t too pricey, and the ambience is concrete industrial neon grunge with a touch of leather and latex. Think if IKEA finally hit rock-bottom after coming down from a three-day meth high, and you’re close.

  But all of th
is why I’m here. I joined a website for kinky people and found a local discussion group nestled within its electronic walls. I don’t participate on that website—I do nothing but lurk from the browser of a burner phone I bought specifically for this purpose.

  But this club’s been mentioned plenty of times.

  There are people from all walks of life and all age ranges, dressed in everything from black jeans to full-on latex and leather dresses and corsets. I catch a few interested glances from women as I make my way across the main space on the lower floor to the bar, but I’m not interested in most of the women I see, no matter how gorgeous some of them are. Besides, once they get close enough to spot the chain collar I locked around my neck just before paying my cover charge and entering the club, they turn and walk away.

  That’s fine. I’m looking for a particular type of woman.

  The type of woman I’m looking for likely won’t hesitate to approach me, and will likely approach me because of the collar.

  I grab a soda and, after showing my red wristband to the bouncer at the base of the stairs to prove I paid the extra cover charge and know what I want, I make my way upstairs. I also know from my research that’s where the real fun can be found.

  The particular wristband I’m wearing will actually get me up to the third floor.

  The place is a little on the warm side, and a haze of cigarette and vaping smoke creates interesting patterns in the lights. Up here, there’s an actual live DJ playing different music from downstairs, better music, and apparently reading the energy of the space based on how he’s studying people from his raised perch in a corner near the stairs.

  There are seating areas up here, black vinyl couches and ottomans sprinkled here and there, and low tables. Curtains hanging from the ceiling and folding, free-standing screens create temporary and flowing spaces and prevent someone standing at floor level from seeing straight through to the far side of the huge space.