TWENTY-TWO
"Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful, murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
—George Orwell
JENNIE
"It's as if time had stopped. The earth underneath my feet opened, and the devil himself reached up and pulled me into hell. I screamed, trying to reach for my husband in the midst of the chaos. I wanted to die, because I knew in my heart of hearts that he was gone. There was no undoing what I had seen—what America had seen! Only moments earlier, we sat in the back of the limo and my husband, President Franklin Monroe, told me how humbled he was to be a servant of this government, of you, the people. He told me his dreams for this country. Being from Texas, where everything is big, his dreams were even bigger. That is why I cannot stop to cry, to mourn, because all I can do is try to honor his dream until my last breath leaves my body."
One by one I watched as the people around us stood, some with tears glistening in their eyes, others ready to go to war for this woman. They were applauding, celebrating. I didn't want to stand, I didn't want to clap, all I wanted to do was take a steel bat to each one of their faces.
"Smile and stand up, sweetie. Cameras are flashing," my wife whispered, as she pulled me up. She was just as tense as I was.
"How can anyone take this woman seriously? Her hair is in the shape of a beehive," I muttered over to her.
"Her husband was the "people's leader." So now, she's the people's widow, beehive or not. Clap."
Clapping in suppressed anger, I watched the brunette on stage smile and wave at her adoring audience.
We were losing. No amount of money could win the love of the people. And every time the bitch spoke, they loved her even more. She ate it up and kept speaking. She was only supposed to give a quick speech about this event, but now I felt like we were at a campaign rally.
"I would like to thank Senator Myoi," she added. For the first time, the man who we wanted to be president was actually focused on. "Many of you don't know this, but Senator Myoi and my husband were college roommates and good friends. When he found out Myoi was going to be running against him, he turned to me and said, 'He'd better still come over for Christmas when he loses.' I hope you still do, even now."
"Always!" Senator Myoi laughed, rising to take his spot on the podium. "Thank you so much, Madam First Lady."
"I hate it when they're humble." Lisa sighed, returning to her seat along with most of the guests.
I followed suit.
Mina looked over the sea of tables quickly. "Where's Bambam?"
"Hopefully fixing this shit," Nickhun whispered, sipping his brandy as Victoria fought her hardest not to fall asleep. She looked worn out. I wasn't sure why; she hadn't done anything.
"Has Bambam told any of you how he plans on fixing this?" Evelyn asked, flipping her white silk shawl over her shoulders.
"No," Mina hissed. "All I know is her highness here told him to shoot my father."
With the exception of Lisa and Marco, everyone's eyes snapped to me. As if this was so surprising.
"I'm all for it." Mrs. Myoi giggled, pouring herself another glass of wine.
"Mother!" Mina sneered, grabbing her hand. "You've had enough and we cannot seriously be talking about killing my father right now."
Raising her head off Nickhun's shoulders, Victoria looked around as well. "Bambam wouldn't…would he?"
"Wouldn't be the first time one of us killed our wife's father," Marco whispered behind his glass. To which Evelyn simply diverted her stare to Senator Myoi as he spoke. Sadly, she was the only one really giving him the time of day.
Slamming her fist onto the table, Mina moved to the edge of her chair. "My father has done everything you people have asked. He is a human being, not a pawn in your games."
"Sweetheart, relax, people are watching, besides it's not like he's been the best father in the world." Mrs. Myoi laughed before drinking again.
"No!" she snapped. "He's my father. Tell Bambam to find another way, because if my father dies, it will be on your hands, Jennie Kim. He is my family, and if you fuck with my family, you fuck with me, bitch."
"Baby," Nickhun whispered. "Let's go… somewhere else." He tried to pull Victoria away from the table.
"No way in hell. This just got interesting," she whispered back.
Taking a deep breath, I folded my hands on the table and sat up. "Mina Myoi, I've been fucking with you the minute I stepped into this house." I shook my head slowly, as if I were truly baffled. "You mistakenly think I give shit about how you feel or what you think. It's as if you really, truly, deep in your heart, think I'd give a fuck if you died. A bullet could go through your brain right now and I wouldn't even blink. However…"
Picking my foot up, I stuck my spiked heel into her leg. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to make her gasp out in pain.
I leveled her with a stoic stare, speaking as eerily calm as I could, just enough to be heard. "If you ever threaten me again, the only thing that will be hanging is your body from my bathroom window." Digging my heel in harder, she cried out. "So shut up, listen to your mother, and thank God you're family. Because if you weren't, I'd have killed you the first time you opened that augmented mouth of yours."
Dropping my foot, I clapped as Senator Myoi wrapped up his speech. Mrs. Myoi stood, welcoming her husband into her arms for the cameras. We all stood for the photo, smiling like the Brady Bunch on crack.
"What were you all talking about?" Senator Myoi asked, glancing around the table, perhaps sensing the dissipating tension.
"The baby moved again, and my mother almost knocked over the table to feel," Lisa lied with ease.
He smiled. "I can only imagine. Kids are great, but I can't wait for the grandkids."
"Yes, please excuse me," I told him, rising from my seat.
Lisa stood, making room for me. "Where're you going?"
"Bathroom, Dad. I'll be right back." She was so damn overprotective.
Kissing my cheek, she leaned and whispered into my ear, "You're sexy when you're mean."
"I'm always sexy," I whispered back.
She grinned. "You're always mean."
Shaking my head, I pulled away.
It was interesting to be around so many political figureheads at once. They all seemed to have come not for the good cause, but in hopes of being lobbyists. Each one trying to explain why they needed funding for whatever side of bullshit they were on this week. Why the next president needed to worry about this or how America was falling behind on that. They all looked so clean in their white, yet they were all dirty.
Walking into the foyer of the house, I couldn't help but wonder: if they were the keepers of the law, the people we elected to keep justice, how anyone could be surprised by the type of people we were. We were the 'good' criminals. We took only what was ours, sold to only those who wanted, and killed those deserving…for the most part. We even gave back to our community ten times as much as they did.
As I turned the corner, I watched the First Lady enter the study—mine and Lisa's— pulling a woman behind her in haste.
Lesbian affair? I thought, trying my best not to smile. So soon after her husband's murder? If something like that leaked to the media, I could knock her straight to the hell she supposedly experienced the day of her husband's demise.
I walked over to the wall, as we liked to call it—the wall I had shot through only a year ago and destroyed Evelyn's Pollock. She hadn't been able to find another painting to cover it, so instead she had an indoor wall fountain installed. To get to the room behind it was as simple as pushing in a loose tile.
"What the hell is going on here?" I asked, causing Adriana to jump out of Antonio's arms.
Antonio stood straighter. "Bambam told me watch the cameras, ma'am."
"Ma'am…" Adriana started.
"Both of you out, now."
I blinked as they both rushed by. Pulling up the study camera, I saw the First Lady clearly. However, the woman she was with cared more about our books, her features were obstructed due to the camera's angle. One thing was disappointingly clear: I was mistaken, that woman was not her lover. The First Lady looked terrified, shaken, as if she were standing in front the devil herself.
"You shouldn't be here," she snapped feebly.
"Why?" the woman asked, pulling out a book. "I paid a whole lot of money for that plate of fish."
The moment her lilting voice reached my ears, my heart began to race; I felt suffocated, I could hardly breathe. The healed bullet wound in my shoulder burned in recognition of her, Scarlet—my mother's voice. She stood there in her white suit and even whiter shoes while flipping through the pages of my book with her deceivingly pure white gloves.
"You know why!" The First Lady desperately wailed. "Someone could see us together and know—"
"And know what?" Scarlet asked. "That you hired me to shoot your husband, their beloved President, between the eyes?"
Oh shit.
I wanted to go but my hand went to my stomach. So instead I reached for the phone.
"Manoban," Lisa answered monotonically.
"Get to the study now. Scarlet's there," I told her before hanging up.
The First Lady grabbed the book from her hands, throwing it across the room. "That's not what happened! I never asked you to kill him. He was going to leave me, he promised to help my political career! I asked you to help me secure my future!"
Grabbing a hold of her neck, Scarlet pulled her face closer. "And here we are. You're running, some may even go as far as to say you've already won the race for leader of the free world. That's a pretty secured future in my eyes. Now, pick up that book before I snap your pathetic neck and find a new puppet."
She threw her on to ground as if she were trash.
Gasping for air with her hands around her neck, the most powerful woman in the world crawled to the fallen book, and lifted it up above her head. Walking over, Scarlet took it before taking a seat in my chair. She adjusted the scattered papers as if she couldn't help herself.
Even though it was less than a few minutes since I placed the call, I couldn't help but wonder what was taking Lisa so long.
"What do you want from me?" the First Lady sobbed, not bothering to pick herself up. She continued to babble weakly in defeat, it was a stark difference from the woman who'd stood at the podium less than a half an hour ago. "You have no idea what you've done. What we've done. I can't do this, they're going to find out—"
"Oh shut up and take a Xanax. You've been doing great, the people love you and that big hair of yours." Scarlet grinned, kicking her feet up.
The moment Scarlet spoke of her hair, she sat up, wiping her face and smoothing back the stray stands.
"See? Looking more presidential already."
"When I win this election, I don't want you coming around. So how much will it cost for you to disappear?" she asked resolutely, brushing her dress off, seemingly trying to regain some of her decorum.
Scarlet smirked, standing up. "Nothing."
"What?"
"Win and make sure the Manoban's never get into the White House. That is how you pay me," she told her before walking out of the room.
"No. No. No," I hissed, trying to see where she went. Apparently, the bitch had taken down most of our old cameras. If it weren't for the new ones Bambam had installed, we wouldn't have even caught her in the study.
"Damn it!" I screamed as Lisa, Nickhun and Marco entered the study to find it empty. As if she could feel my rage, Lisa angrily paced across the room, grabbing the book Scarlet had left on the desk.
"Find her," she said through a clenched jaw before leaving the room.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. When the doors to the control room opened, I instantly threw my knife. Lisa stared at the knife lodged in the wall by her head before looking up at me wide eyed.
"What did you find out from the McDonie's?" I asked, still trying to catch my breath.
Handing me my weapon, she looked at the monitors, putting her gun—which she had drawn before the knife hit the wall—away. "What was she doing?"
"What did you find out from the McDonie's?" I repeated.
"Jen…'
"She killed the President, Lisa. She killed the leader of the free world, just to make sure we didn't get the White House. Right now, I do not care about her. I want to know what's going on, now!"
She looked over the screens, still searching for her. We both knew she was gone. There was no way we could get to her right now. Not like this. She had entered our home without us noticing; she could get out just as easily.
"She or an accomplice somehow found and disabled the old cameras in the study. They weren't aware of the ones Bambam just installed," he whispered, clicking through the monitors. "She went down the west hallway but…"
"Lisa," I snapped impatiently.
"Your grandfather. He was a monopoly taking over the mafia," she spat. "He's been setting up marriages for decades, all with the single purpose of making sure no one family is too dominant. He's trying to spread the wealth, drugs, and power."
"So, basically he doesn't like the fact that Google and Bing are in bed together," I whispered, trying to figure out what this meant.
"Who's Google and who's Bing in this analogy?"
"Scarlet had me at gunpoint. Shit, she shot me. Why didn't she kill me? I doubt that it was her maternal instincts kicking in." I could never even think of doing anything remotely harmful to my own child. How could she?
Leaning against the desk, she thought it over. "What happened when Caesar fell?"
"Everyone tried to become Caesar."
"That's why she didn't kill you. Killing you right then and there would spark the need for revenge from those loyal to you. Killing us both would open the door to anarchy and more bloodshed, everyone will be trying to fill the shoes we'd leave behind."
Running my hand through my hair, I tried my best to ignore the stabbing sensation I was feeling. "What does Ivan get out of this?" Why did he care? Where was his link in all this?"
"A kick out of controlling the Mafia without getting his hands dirty?" She frowned.
"There has to be more to this, right?"
She thought for a moment and shrugged. "Who knows, but at least we have something to hang around that woman's neck. I wonder how the people will feel when they find out."
"I think they'll bring out the guillotine. I doubt she knows who Scarlet really is. She might not even know her as Scarlet. But that woman is just itching to confess, we just have to give her a soapbox to stand on."
"I'd better call Bambam and tell him not to bother with whatever half-assed plan he was working on." She sighed, texting her idiotic brother.
"Not that it would have worked anyways. I've seen puppies who are more useful than he's been. Though we have to give him credit for the cameras."
Lisa shook her head. "No, we don't."
I tried to smile, but there was that pain again.
"Are you alright?" she asked, reaching for my hand.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just…damnit, Lisa. I want her gone. I want them all gone! I saw her, and for the first time in my life, I was truly scared. If I was who I used to be, I would have stormed in there the moment I heard her voice…but…" I paused to stare down at my protruding stomach.
"Jen…"
"I don't like to be scared. I don't know how to be scared. That isn't my nature and yet, there I was," I whispered.
Taking my hands into her, she kissed the back of them. "You weren't being scared, you were being a mother, love. You put your anger and your need for revenge aside and protected our child. That's your nature."
The smile on her face, despite all the things going on, made me want to smile. But I couldn't. One moment I was sitting up, the next, I was hunched over just enough to see blood—my blood—rapidly staining the white of my dress.
No. Please no. Not again.
"Jen? Jen!"
LISA
I don't know what happened. It was all a blur. One moment I was in awe of her, so proud that she had been open with me. The next, I was surrounded by the press as I carried her into an ambulance. I wasn't sure if I had gone deaf or if my brain had momentarily shut down, allowing me to focus without really breaking.
During to ride to the hospital, everything was moving so quickly. Jen was squeezing my hand so damn hard, and yet, I was frozen, unsure of what was going on, unsure what to say or what to do, so I held her hand, brushed her hair back, and kissed her forehead. She was curled up in the fetal position and there was nothing I could do. I was a phone call away from making a man the next President, and yet, I couldn't help my wife.
The moment we stepped into the hospital, they wheeled her away, cutting her dress off as they went. The nurse was already preparing to put an IV in her arm, but I reached out to stop her.
"We don't want drugs."
"Ms. Manoban." I looked up to find that doctor, Am… something. She looked down at Jen, pressing into her abdomen softly, which only made Jen cry out again.
"Your job is to fix her, not make her worse," I snapped, wanting to pop her ugly little head off her neck.
"Ms. Manoban, I'm sorry but it's going to hurt before it gets better. Either way, she's going to need the fluids, and the painkillers have a dual purpose. She needs to be calm or we run the risk of losing this baby," she snapped right back.
The nurse looked directly at me, waiting for me to release her arm, when I did, she had that needle in Jennie's arm before I could blink.
"We're going to need a sonogram," she spoke right past me, still pressing on Jen's stomach. Each time she applied pressure, Jen would squeeze my hand. It was like that for what felt like hours, but in reality, it was probably only a few minutes; push, squeeze, until Jen stopped squeezing and her body relaxed. Looking at her, I found her staring at me, completely relaxed with her eyes wide open. It was scary as shit, and yet I welcomed it all the same.
"You look like shit," she whispered with a smile.
"This is how with wives who terrorize them look," I whispered back, kneeling at her bedside.
She rolled her eyes at me before looking at the nurse who was currently taking her blood pressure.
"What are you giving me?"
"Acetaminophen." The blonde haired doctor smiled, as she grabbed hold of the ultrasound. "Don't worry, it's safe."
"What's wrong with her, doctor?"
"Dr. Lewis," she corrected. "Dr. Amy Lewis we met last year and I just want to—"
"Question one: what is wrong with me?" Jen asked, cutting straight to the point. "Question two: how is my baby?"
"I'm checking your baby right now, but he or she should be just fine," she said as the nurse closed the door and blinds.
"And question one?" I asked.
"You people waste no time…"
"Because we have no time to waste," Jen and I said at the same time. "And please don't make me have to ask again."
I almost wanted to laugh at her attempt to be nice and use 'please.' It just made her sound even more annoyed.
"Mrs. Manoban, from what we can tell, you have preeclampsia. It's not life threatening, yet. However, your blood pressure is very high. If this doesn't change, there is a high possibility of you developing eclampsia, which can be hazardous to both your health, and that of your unborn child. You're going to need to take it easy in the next coming weeks, alright?" Lifting up her dress and placing a blanket over her legs, Dr. Lewis placed some sort of gel on Jen's stomach.
"Easy? As in bed rest easy?" she asked. The one way to make sure Jen didn't relax was to tell her to do so.
"No, I don't think it's that serious yet, but I would honestly recommend taking some time off from work."
"A Manoban that actually works?" the nurse whispered behind us, unaware that I could hear her and I was about two seconds away from strangling her with Jen's IV. However, before I could comment, a small whoosh echoed through the room. It was like a tiny underwater drum.
"That is your baby's heartbeat."
Jen laughed, reaching for her stomach as the whooshing continued. It was strong and beautiful at the same time. It was like the music I could imagine God enjoying, and I couldn't for the life of me tear my eyes away from the black and white picture on the monitor.
Smiling, Dr. Lewis stared at the screen, moving the wand over Jen's stomach. "Would you like to know the sex?"
"Yes."
"No."
"No?" I stared down at her. We were finding out the sex, now.
"Your parents really wanted to find out with us. Evelyn cornered me in the car. Is she here?"
I had no idea. Everything had happened so quickly and my main concern was getting her here as quickly as possible.
"Can you check if the rest of the Manoban party has arrived?" Dr. Lewis instructed a nurse.
Brushing her brown hair back, I watched as Jennie fought the urge to fall sleep. We were working on almost eighteen hours of no sleep. That couldn't have helped her condition. She needed to rest more. "Can't we just find out a second time with them in the room? I'm sure I can fake a surprised face."
With her eyes half open, she shook her head.
"This is the least I can do for your mom. Plus, maybe she'll calm down a little."
"Apparently you don't know my mother."
"Are you bad-mouthing me, Lisa?"
Speak of angels and they appear.
Walking over to us, with my father an inch behind her, she kissed Jen's forehead.
"You gave us quite a scare, young lady," my father told her.
Laughing, she grabbed hold of his hand. "Now Marco, you and I both know you were itching to escape those political asshats."
He could only grin before kissing her forehead.
"Is the baby alright?" Evelyn asked, mesmerized by the black and white screen.
"Can I tell you the sex now?" Dr. Lewis asked Jen directly.
She didn't say anything, just took a deep breath, grabbed my hand and nodded.
"Well then, your son is going to be fine, as long as mommy here takes it easy."
"A boy?" I whispered with a grin so wide my face felt as though it would break in half.
Nodding, she showed us the tiny boy, who was seemingly exposing himself to the world with pride.
"Just like Lisa." Jen smiled.
I kissed her forehead, her nose, and her cheeks before kissing her lips. All I could think to say was, "Thank you."
"Another young Master Manoban. I can't wait to help with his nursery!" My mother, almost jumped out of her skin.
"I bet you I can get him to love golf early on," added my father.
To which my mother could only shake her head. "Marco, dear, you're the only man in this family who thinks that's a real sport!"
"Son, don't listen to her. Now your mom wasn't any good, but with your mother's genes, there's hope for you," he spoke to Jen's stomach.
Jen simply looked at me.
"And you thought this was going to calm them down?"