Page 25 of A Man of Power

She shakes her head. “No, I’m not doing it on the clock. I…well, please read it.” She points to her screen. “I don’t understand their endgame. It’s like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle.”

I skim the information and begin to see her point. When Jared gave me the company portfolio to peruse, I saw that they were switching focus to more anesthesia drugs, but why is their manufacturing plant in Europe still making a drug that they are no longer interested in getting FDA approval for. It looks like they had gotten some provisional approval from the EU, but the current status remains unclear. The merger with Halfagher makes sense if they want a better delivery system, but it’s a beast eating another smaller beast. In fact, Confervo seems to be collecting companies. I need to know their endgame if I’m going to accept a large check from them. Are they making pain meds or anesthesia meds or something else? Do they have a solid plan? I don’t want to back a company that’s on the verge of collapse because they only have one active FDA request. I can see why Alexis is concerned. On their face, Confervo looks fine, but scratch beneath the surface, and there are some strange anomalies that don’t add up.

I look up at Alexis.

“Do you see why their moves are confusing me?” she asks.

“Yes, I agree. It’s peculiar.”

“At first, I thought they wanted to expand into two types of medicine. Then, they pulled back, well, publicly they did; now I don’t know if they want microneedles which Halfagher makes, for pain killers, anesthesia, or both? It just seems a little convoluted. I mean, he presented this clear picture to you, yet when I do some digging, it’s not clear at all.”

I nod. “Keep researching this.”

She glares at me. “I thought I should learn to draw the line,” she quips.

Oh no, she fucking didn’t. I stand to my full height and walk her toward the wall, caging her in as I lean forward. She shivers as I press her body firmly between the cool wood window frame and mine. “Do not fuck with me, little dove.”

Her eyes grow large, but she doesn’t shrink away from me. “Maybe learn to trust me a little, then. I may be young, Congressman, but I’m not stupid.”

“Trust is earned,” I reply as I step away. I glance over at her desk.

Next to her computers, Alexis has an article sitting on a pile of papers.

The headline reads “The Kingmakers of Kensington.”

Her gaze follows mine and she steps away from the wall.

“What does it mean?” she asks as her finger goes to the headline, tracing across the letters. “Kingmakers bring people to power through their political influence,” she mumbles as she reads the first line of the article. Fucking Vivienne Westerly. Damned journalist, as Conner would say.

Shit.

I grab the newspaper article from her. Now, I suddenly hate Vivienne Westerly as much as Conner. She’s been digging around us for her entire journalism career. She was particularly interested when a handful of the political elite who all were in the same fraternity bought up property and created a compound. Thank God she doesn’t know the truth.

The irony of it all is that her grandfather is one of us.

But what I don’t want is young, pure Alexis getting wrapped up in it or worse, figuring it out, figuring out that power and evil are more entangled than she thought possible.

I clear my throat. “It’s just some journalist. I don’t know why she wanted to write about our little community. It’s D.C., neighborhoods with high-powered players are a dime a dozen around here. I think she must have once been wronged by a friend of ours or something. She’s always trying to dig up dirt that just isn’t there,” I lie as I keep my focus on the article because, for whatever stupid reason, I don’t want to lie to Alexis’s face.

“Oh,” she says. “She made it sound like you all control things. Like, you run this city. I thought that was interesting since none of you are over the age of thirty-five.”

I shrug. “Connected people are a dime a dozen around here.”

She slowly nods. “I suppose that’s true.”

I turn to face her and take her chin in my hand. “We’re still in agreement about us.”

“Yes…Congressman,” she says. I can see her lips fighting to smirk. Little brat.

I need to talk with Conner and Aiden and perhaps the others. Vivienne is a conundrum. She’s related to one of us, yet she doesn’t know what she’s doing. I’m surprised her grandfather hasn’t clamped that down, but from what I hear, she’s largely estranged from her family. We may need to deal with that, sooner rather than later.

Chapter12

Alexis

I sitat the table in our kitchen, staring at the wall. What did I do last night? What did Sebastian do?

“Uh, hello, Alexis?” Whitney waves a hand in front of my face. “That’s it. It’s official, she’s catatonic.”

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