The Oval Office ✓ (Book One)

Chapter Twenty One

Kyle's P.O.V

Everybody in the room breathes a sigh of relief as the helicopter takes off, heading back here. It won't be too much longer now, if she's still alive that is. It has been seven days since her disappearance- Goddamnit I'm a failure. There's no excuse for why it's taken this long- absolutely none. There's no excuse for why or how the fuck it even happened in the first place. Right now, we have a team going through every single line of coding written for the security system, stomping out any and all flaws, but that alone will take years, as building it to begin with did.

All new employees, from here on out, will go through months long background checks, regardless of what their jobs are, and all White House tour groups will be very closely monitored. Because of this incident, secret service training and background checks will be even more strict than they already were.

I'm just surprised that nobody has leaked the situation yet. Of course, it will come out sooner or later- there's no way that out of a couple thousand people working on this, not one of them has told their spouse or a family member. The public has seemed to accept my "If I could tell you, I would" statement in regards to the explosion, but who knows how long that'll last. They'll want answers, and soon. Answers that I cannot and will not give them until I am looking at my wife face to face. Only about ten seconds have passed since they boarded, but it feels like a full minute.

Now, we have to wait five hours, again. Fuck. I lean over Ethan's Shoulder, watching as the little girl starts to fall asleep in Aileen's lap, and smile for a second. Children have always been my weak spot. If I could change the sentence for child abuse to the death penalty I would, but of course- I can't say that out loud. Not until I leave office, whenever that'll be.

I haven't had a campaign stop in three weeks, though it's not like I need to. If I stay in the race after all of this, it'll still be a pretty much guaranteed win. I'm not sure if I want to, though, with everything it has cost the one person in this world that I can call my soulmate.

A notification pops up for Ethan's personal email, and  I Nosily scan over it.

Subject: URGENT

"What the hell-" He mumbles under his breath,  opening it. The email looks like it was hesitantly, yet quickly typed up in a rush.
-
51.5074° N, 0.1278° W

55.5074° N, 0.0273° W

I know you have absolutely no reason to trust me- hell i wouldn't trust me, but these are the coordinates for both of our locations these are in Great Britain and Lauren is at the first one my life is in danger because of this email please hurry
-James

-
Well fuck. That escalated quickly.

——-9 years ago—-

" Governor, your support is down in Brooklyn but has nearly doubled in New York State. That should more than make up for it." My campaign manager says.

"What about Buffalo?" Lauren suggests. "We haven't had a rally there yet."

"Polls show us winning Buffalo by forty points. It would be a waste of money that we don't have." My campaign manager replies.

"Albany, then." Lauren states. "Polls show us down by five points there and we could just dig into our campaign fundraising Budget."

"That could work." I say. "We only need to take one more city to win this election."

"Well it's still early." Lauren says. "The polls can't really be that accurate yet."

"Still good to get a head start." My campaign manager responds. "I'll set up a speech for Albany tomorrow. Put in something about low income housing and schools but keep that promise once you are elected to the senate if you want to keep your seat for more than one term."

"I was going to anyways." I state. "Regardless of wether or not it looked good politically."

"Oh Kyle-" she shakes her head. "You're a politician. Whether you like it or not, everything you do will be viewed as political, even if you are just genuinely trying to be a good person."

"But-"

"No buts." She interrupts me. "Now go start that script. You have approximately twenty hours to write an hour long speech and be prepared to answer any questions the people have for you."
-

  "That woman is going to drive me insane." Lauren says as soon as she leaves.

  "Yeah, me too but she was the senator's  campaign manager in her first election. She clearly knows what she's doing."  I reply. I made sure to take care of all of my governor duties yesterday so I could focus on the campaign for a couple of days. Of course, something urgent could come up at any minute, but it isn't likely.

"So she knows exactly how her brain works-" Lauren nods. "Use that to your advantage. Anything and everything that could trip her up at the debates, use it."

"I'm not going to participate in dirty politics-"

"What makes that dirty politics? You've never taken dirty money, campaign money from corporations, bent on important issues just for your reelection chances. This would be considered... using your resources, and there's nothing wrong with that."She shrugs.

"Lauren's more of a politician than I am." I think to myself. She's been the backbone of every campaign I've run, taking over when anything's come up that I needed to deal with. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have this office without her. "I guess so-" I start to say, but am interrupted by a notification.

  "Alright- speech at 9:30 and then we're off most of the week."

  "Oh thank god-" Lauren stress laughs. "I'm about this close to losing my goddamn mind."

  "Do you have cases right now too?" I ask.

  "Three." She says. "I think they're actually trying to work me to death." She plops down beside me on my office couch, resting her head on my chest.

  "Because they know you'll get them solved." I suggest. "You're the best there is and that's part of why I love you so damn much."

  "Oh yeah?" She says, planting a quick kiss on my lips. "What's the other reason?"

  "Are you really gonna make me answer that question?" I laugh, smirking.

  "No-" She says, getting up to close my office door. "Maybe you could just show me instead."