Chapter 1

The room was quiet as Rose made her way to the table. That was perhaps because at that very moment, she was the most talked about woman in the world. It was an open secret that she was going to get this nomination, no matter how badly the questioning went, but Rose was completely prepared for it all. Whenever her record was called into question, she would retort with her interpretation of the event in question and tell them that they were wrong. The President had assured her that it wouldn't matter, they'd handle the media. She only had to go through the formality of a confirmation.

Pressing the on button of her microphone, she opened up the leather bound dossier and laid it in front of her. It contained the things that the Committee would press her about, looking up from it, she laced her hands and smiled up at them, "Ladies and Gentleman of the Committee: You have heard the testimony of my former employers and co-workers and bosses. You know that if I am confirmed, I will do everything in my power to see that the United States is defended and secure. Whenever I do something, I put my all into it and being the Defense Secretary will not be different."

"Thank you Mrs. Long," Chairman Addison nodded to her cordially once and picked up his papers, "Now, we understand that you are very busy and that's why we'll make this short. We only have two concerns after reviewing your case file with the CIA. The testimony that we heard yesterday was good enough to clear up all of our other concerns. Do you mind answering?"

Rose shrugged, "As long as the Committee respects the confidentiality mark on the file and you leave out the names of import persons, I don't mind."

The Chairman nodded and picked up the first paper and then he cleared his throat and looked to his left. His eyes landed on a brown haired woman, her name plate read Mrs. Wilson of California and Rose groaned. Every time that she was before one of these committees, she always had problems with the ultra-liberal members. The ones that were generally against the Military and Defense, not to mention the Intelligence Agencies, "Mrs. Wilson of California has a concern about three complaints filed on you while working with the CIA. The complaints claim that you arrested them without warrant."

"I would dare remind the honorable representative that if you look closely, that the three complainants were one, not United States citizens, two, handed down a title known as Enemy Combatant and three, expressed desire to destroy the Government of the United States," Rose reasoned, her voice was sharp and yet smooth, "Those three people that made the complaints against me are not afforded Habeas Corpus. You will also see that the last Congressional Investigation cleared the CIA and me personally."

The ripple of noise across the crowd was ignored by Rose and the committee ordered them to be quiet. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Representative Wilson shaking her head silently. Rose snorted inwardly 'Bitch…' she reasoned, there was a purpose behind this complaints. It was to diminish the responsibilities of the CIA. Rose had spent the last twelve years of her life in the CIA and she'd be damned if some crackpot told her that was she doing was against Human Rights, "Right then, it appears that you are correct, very well then… we'll move onto the next matter."

Rose sighed and smoothed down her skirt, they had taken a break for lunch and now it was time to move from one stressful situation to another. It took her a moment to wade through the crowd to find her family. Her entire fucking family, in one place, all together, and people hadn't been killed yet.

When she saw her twin sons, Daemon and Michael arguing with each other, she knew it was only a matter of time. Sighing, she plastered a fake smile on her face and approached them. They all grew silent as she approached them, "So, how do you all think I did."

He should have been there, sitting in that chair and answering questions from them. He had worked all of his life to get where he was and it was taken away from him in three days. Don't get him wrong, he hadn't planned on killing the last Defense Secretary or something like that, but he knew that his previous boss was planning to retire. He hadn't accounted on an attack on the Capitol Building while his boss was in there. He hadn't accounted on his boss getting killed, but when it happened, he did account of automatically getting chosen to succeed him.

But then this blonde, admittedly incredibly attractive bitch had come in from nowhere and taken it from him. Something that he had been waiting for twenty years, and he wasn't one to take that on the chin. His name was Curtis Gannon, and he had and would be again the Assistant Secretary of Defense. In his cunning mind, he would be the Secretary of Defense very soon, as soon as he could get this woman out of the way.

He wouldn't kill her or have her killed, no, he'd run her out of office. He didn't bear her any ill will, she just didn't belong there. It would be a slow, but steady process. If only he could gain access to her files.

But then again, that was another problem.

When he went to get them, he found that he had been denied access to the files. They were restricted with level 10 Clearance. That clearance only belonged to Generals, Admirals, Directors of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies, Cabinet Secretaries, and the President. He couldn't even imagine what it looked like. But it did rouse his curiosity.

It was curious, very curious, but it would not stop him at all.