Page 27 of The Americana Playbook

Slowly, I stand and step around the coffee table, feeling Fitz’s eyes follow me. I grab the bottom of my white shirt and lift it over my head.

“W-what are you doing?” Fitz asks.

By the time I’ve tugged it completely off, his face is red and riddled with more confusion.

He shifts awkwardly. “Parker?”

Reaching behind, I finger the hook of my bra. The truth is, the fabric would only obscure a small part of Fitz’s view, but since I can’t find the words, I want him to see all of it. Because this is only thesurfaceof what they did to me.

This isn’t even the worst part.

“Parker?”

Before my bra loosens and my breasts fall free, I slowly spin, giving him my back.

And all of my scar.

My throat loosens now that I don’t have to face him, but I manage to find enough words. “What I want,” I breathe out, turning my head so he can hear me, “is revenge.”

After one second, my hands begin to shake.

After two seconds, I begin to tremble.

But after five seconds, just when I worry I’ll fall entirely apart into a mound of regret, Fitz is behind me, clasping my bra. The edges of his tough fingers brush just below my scar before he hands me my shirt.

“Who did this to you?” he asks, his voice grave and low, bordering on predatory. I’ve never heard anything like it. “Your parents?”

I tug the white fabric over my head and take a deep breath, facing him again. “They were a part of it.”

Fitz says nothing, and I take his silence for the possibility that he’s about to back out, after realizing this is bigger than a house.

But then Fitz reaches out, lifting my hair still trapped in the opening of my shirt before he takes my left hand and squeezes it.

* * *

“Where do you want to be let out exactly?”

I stare out the window as we drive through the nation’s capital. April is a great month to visit. It’s peak cherry bloom season. With all the fragrance, you can hardly smell the bureaucratic bullshit.

I’ve been to Washington hundreds of times over the course of my father’s political career—I took my first toddling steps in the Capitol building, just outside Dad’s office when he was a congressman. I lost—okay, I yanked out—my first tooth during a presidential inauguration we attended while my father was a senator. The first time I visited the White House was shortly after that. I remember not caring too much about the history. I kept tugging my father’s hand, asking when we could go back home to Honey.

“Here is fine,” I tell the taxi driver as I open my bag for some cash. I don’t have to dig very far like usual. After Fitz left my apartment, he returned with what had to be an amount greater than the ATM’s daily withdrawal limit.

“Two things aren’t negotiable. Money, and you living with me.”

I have a note in my phone with the amount Fitz gave me. I’ll pay him out when I receive my inheritance. And after I get a car, whatever is left will be put to good use. I haven’t quite figured out what that might be, but I know it will involve taking down my family publicly, starting with my father. He’s the easiest target, after all.

There was his affair with an aide I found out about after walking in on him screwing her on the desk in the library at Captain’s Cottage.

There was the DUI he had back as a senator, which he was never charged with.

There was the time he was so drunk at the holiday party for his staff as a congressman that he began to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in Spanish.

And, of course, there’s me—the daughter he sent away to a place where I was abused, sexually harassed, belittled, and forgotten.

Leaning forward, I hand the bills over to the driver, including a nice tip. He looks between the cash and the entrance. “It saysAuthorized Personnel Only.”

I look over my shoulder as I open the door. “I know a guy.”

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