Page 53 of Submitting to Daddy
“I’m not an agent anymore.”
“Not officially,” he retorts. “But you sure as hell were when you walked intothatclub. When you started sleeping with the target.”
I don’t react.It kills them when you don’t.
“Do you know what the Bureau thinks of you?” he asks rhetorically. “You’re a cautionary tale. The golden girl turned moll. I mean,Christ,Madison. We trusted you. Frankford trusted you.”
Still, I say nothing.
He leans back in his chair. “We’ve got witness tampering, obstruction, abandonment of a federal post,andan open murder investigation. And all of it circles right back to you. You’re going to prison. That’s not a threat; it’s a promise.”
My voice is calm when I finally speak. “Then why am I still cuffed to a table instead of in a holding cell?”
A flicker of frustration crosses his face before he quickly conceals it with a smirk. “Because I think you’re smarter than this. I think you know we’re your only shot at redemption.”
I raise a brow and scoff. “Redemption?”
“Do the right thing, and tell us what you know. You flip on King and his associates. You give us enough to build out the case, and maybe—maybe—we don’t bury your body under the prison.”
I look him dead in the eyes. “I. Am. Not. Flipping.”
He slams a hand on the table. “You’re throwing your whole life away forhim? A violent criminal? A psychopath who?—”
“Loves me,” I interrupt, quiet but steady. “And I love him.”
Warner stares at me like I’ve just confessed to being abducted by aliens to repopulate their planet.
“You really drank the fucking Kool-Aid, didn’t you?”
“They’re not a cult. I wasn’t brainwashed. I made a choice.”
“And thatchoiceis going to cost you your freedom,” he retorts, his tone ice cold.
He opens a file folder and flips through the pages—photos, surveillance, a partial transcript of a conversation I once had with Frankford about Cillian, and notes scribbled in red ink beside my name.
“She was clean. Smart. Promising…” he reads the shorthand version of Frankford’s notes. “Loyal and fully embeddable… Above average IQ… Something changed. Recommend retraction.”
He slides a Polaroid of my chest across the table. The healing scab.KING.
“This? This is what changed.”
Silent, I stare at the photo as Warner leans toward me again. His voice low, he threatens, “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to sit here until you decide to start talking. You don’t get a phone call. You don’t get a lawyer. You’ll sit. You’ll rot. You’ll realize we don’t need you to be cooperative. We just need you to be anexample.”
Meeting his stare, I hold it unwaveringly. “Go to hell.”
He chuckles low. “You’re already there, sweetheart. We’ll talk again in a few hours. Maybe next time, you’ll be ready to tell the truth.”
I lean back in my chair as much as the cuffs allow, and he rises from his. He’s about to leave the room when a light knock rattles the door. It’s quick and urgent. He opens it, and his brows furrow. A young female agent leans in, her voice too low for me to hear. She slides a piece of paper into his hand. He scans it once, then again, eyes narrowing.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters, shoving the paper in his back pocket. Warner storms back into the room. With a look of disgust, he reaches forward and unlocks the cuffs.
“Get up.”
I blink. “What?—?”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
“Processed out?” I ask in disbelief. “I don’t understand?—”
