Chapter 84

Richard

Adam was sloppy. That was what finally did him in. Not the suspicious timing of David’s press pivots or the briefing inconsistencies Amelia had flagged weeks ago. It was the dumb arrogance of thinking no one was watching, that he could poke around the internal draft files for talking points about the forestry subsidies vote and not leave a fingerprint. But we were watching. Nathan and I had set that trap days ago, a fake document with just enough flavor to be tempting. And Adam took the bait.

Nathan flagged a sequence of IP activity just after sunrise. One of the bait files, “Forest Revenue Rollback, Draft 3”, had been accessed remotely from a terminal in the intern bullpen, one that hadn’t been used since the original orientation tour. It was sloppy. Amateur. And it was enough.

I sent for Adam and let him sweat outside my office for thirteen minutes before opening the door. He walked in with a smirk like he was about to be congratulated for something, like maybe he thought he was going to be looped in on some elite assignment. He didn’t realize what kind of meeting this was.

He stood in front of my desk with his arms loose at his sides, casual like we were equals. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

I leaned back in my chair and folded my hands, studying him. “Tell me why you accessed a secured document from a non-registered terminal yesterday evening.”

Adam blinked, obviously surprised I knew. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that file was restricted. I was helping one of the newer interns with, ”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said flatly. “You’re not here to lie. You’re here because I caught you.”

He dropped the performance and squared his jaw. “Look, I wasn’t trying to leak anything important. It was a draft. Most of that content’s already public anyway.”

“But it wasn’t public when David quoted it word for word this morning,” I said. “You don’t get to decide what matters.”

“I’ve been loyal to this campaign from day one.”

“And you threw that loyalty out the window the second it stopped serving you.”

“I was trying to stay relevant.”

I stood slowly and came around the desk, not to intimidate, but to look him directly in the eye. “You were trying to stay close to power. You thought cozying up to David would give you a promotion once this was over.”

He scowled. “I never, ”

“You wanted leverage. Instead, you gave me cause. Your clearance has been revoked. Nathan is overseeing your exit. You are no longer part of this campaign.”

He stepped back like he’d been slapped. “You’re making a mistake. You’re going to regret this.”

“I don’t think I will.”

He hesitated for a moment, as if expecting me to change my mind, then turned and stormed out. The door shut hard behind him.

I waited a full minute before calling Nathan.

“Walk him out. Quietly. No public drama. Make sure his access is locked across every channel. Change door codes, reassign passkeys. I want him erased.”

“Yes, sir.”

I looked down at the open folder on my desk, the list of flagged timestamps Amelia had given me. All that quiet diligence she had done without being asked, trying to prove to herself that she wasn’t paranoid. She’d been right.

He’d been circling her like a vulture. I’d seen it long before she had. I’d watched him at meetings, the way his eyes followed her, the way he twisted his words to sound helpful while undermining her credibility. It had made me sick.

I hadn’t done this for the council, or for optics, or even the campaign’s stability. I’d done this for her.

Amelia

They didn’t make an announcement. No alarms, no angry emails, not even a change to the schedule. Just a quiet flicker in the security log and a list of updated clearance codes that no longer included Adam’s name.

I noticed it first when I couldn’t assign him to a comms review. His name didn’t autofill. I tried again, slower, as if I had misspelled it, but the system treated him like he had never worked here.

Nathan didn’t say anything when I asked. He just handed me a new folder and told me to reroute Adam’s tasks for the rest of the week.

“Is he gone?” I asked.

Nathan nodded. “Richard made the call this morning. We locked his access two hours ago. Security’s walking him out now.”

There was no satisfaction in it. Just cold finality.

I left the office fifteen minutes later to drop a form off on the second floor. I was halfway down the hallway when I saw him. Two guards flanked Adam as he walked stiffly toward the lobby, hands clenched, mouth tight. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t glare or sneer or throw out some last jab. Just stared straight ahead like I wasn’t even there.

Good.

I kept walking. My fingers itched with leftover adrenaline, and I didn’t exhale until I was back in the stairwell, alone. I leaned against the wall, trying to calm the pounding in my chest. Everything felt so still now, like the storm had passed but left behind some wreckage I hadn’t noticed yet.

Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from Jenny.

What did you do?

No context. No punctuation. No follow-up.

I stared at it for a full minute before locking the screen.

By nightfall, she still hadn’t texted again. Her location was blank, her read receipts off. And I didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved.

Richard called me to his suite just after ten. The official reason was press coordination, but we both knew better.

I found him in the living room, still in his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up. He was holding a glass of whiskey he hadn’t touched. A few files lay open on the table, but nothing was being worked on.

“You didn’t need to call me in,” I said, setting my bag down.

“I know.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then crossed the space between us. His hand brushed mine. I didn’t flinch, but I didn’t reach for him either.

“I thought you should hear it from me,” he said. “Adam’s gone. He’s already offsite.”

“I saw him.”

“I’m sorry it came to this.”

“I’m not.”

He nodded once, like he didn’t expect anything different. “It needed to happen.”

I let out a breath and leaned against the table. “Jenny thinks I had him fired.”

“She would’ve done the same if she knew what he was doing.”

“Would she?”

He didn’t answer.

The silence stretched between us. He moved closer. I didn’t move away. His fingers brushed the edge of my jaw, slow and careful, like he was waiting for permission that I didn’t know how to give.

“Can I?” he asked softly.

I hesitated, then shook my head. “I can’t tonight.”

Richard stepped back, giving me space, but his eyes never left mine.

“I want to,” I said. “God, I want to. But if we keep pretending this is just physical, I’m going to break. And I can’t afford to break right now.”

He exhaled, ran a hand through his hair, then nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m not saying never. Just not like this.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then stop acting like this doesn’t mean something.”

He crossed the room again, but this time only to pour himself a drink he actually sipped. I stayed by the window, watching the shadows move across the Pack House lawn. The moonlight stretched across the glass, pale and sharp. The whiskey in his glass caught the same glow.

We didn’t speak for a long time. It wasn’t awkward or tense. Just quiet. Honest. Like we were both taking inventory of everything we hadn’t said yet.

For the first time in weeks, it felt like neither of us was pretending.