Chapter 2: Family, Enemies, and the Game

That whole winter, I stayed in the East Wing of the White House. Only after my mother recovered did I return to my old suite.

The house staff barred me from her room.

My mother had awakened, but refused all visitors.

She wouldn’t see me either.

Three days later, my mother requested to leave D.C. to tend my father’s grave in Arlington.

She never saw me again before leaving. I chased after her car, running past the White House gates, desperate to stop her.

I tore down the driveway past the Secret Service SUVs, my knees burning against the salted winter pavement. I fell and got up, again and again, still chasing.

The security guards at the gate exchanged awkward glances, unsure whether to stop a Sloane son or let me pass. In the end, protocol won out.

I was stopped at the security gate.

Lucas circled my waist with one arm. "Stop chasing. Once she’s beyond the gates, where can you go?"

The road ahead was empty—no car in sight.

I shoved Lucas away in a frenzy, eyes red as I shouted, "Get out. Get out! All of you, get out!"

"Go, all of you! Leave me!"

Leave me with nothing.

Let me rot alone in this mansion.

Lucas frowned, covered my mouth, and pinned me against the wall. "What are you screaming for?"

"Useless. Can’t live without your mother?"

I glared at him with hatred.

Lucas wasn’t afraid at all. He softened his voice, coaxing, "I’m not leaving. I’ll be your mother, how about that?"

His cologne stung my nose—sharp, expensive, nothing like my mother’s lavender. I couldn’t push him away. I looked at him and cried.

Lucas stared at me for a long moment, then said, "No more tears."

But I cried anyway.

Why should he care?

He doesn’t want me either.

Just like my mother.

---

Lucas wasn’t always a chief of staff.

He was William Ford’s kid—the Attorney General’s golden boy, back when that meant something. His name was Quentin Ford.

At eight, he became famous for a long poem, praised by the President as "no ordinary child," and chosen as a companion for my eldest brother, the family’s golden boy.

When I was five, Quentin stole my caramel apple; at six, he took me to steal robin eggs; at seven, he bribed me to call him "big bro" with Sour Patch Kids; at nine, he coaxed me into fishing out the most expensive koi from the garden pond to roast over a campfire.

We snuck the koi out in a plastic lunchbox and tried to roast it over a stolen grill lighter. My mother was so angry her hair stood on end, yanking my ear and yelling, "Stay away from that little demon from the Ford family!"

So Quentin taught me to climb fences and crawl through dog doors.

When I was thirteen, my oldest brother plotted to take over the family trust and was cut off. The Ford name made headlines—fraud, scandal, disgrace. Only Quentin slipped through, barely, by entering the White House as a staffer—becoming Lucas Ford.

The one who saved Quentin was not me, but my second brother, Henry.

Henry knelt for half a day in the snow before the President’s office to plead for Lucas’s life. His already frail body became even weaker, leaving him with a chronic illness.

Lucas said he would rather have died than let Henry kneel for him and suffer for life.

Lucas cared for Henry.

But that day...

That day, I too knelt in my mother’s suite for a whole day and night, banging my head until it bled, begging her to let me out, to let me plead for Lucas’s life.

But in the end, I was powerless.

Lucas entered Henry’s residence and became a stranger to me.

I thought Lucas blamed me for not saving him. I tried to explain quietly in the West Wing corridors, finding every way to have him transferred to my mother’s staff.

But Lucas refused.

He said he wanted to stay with Henry.

He said, "You’re loved by all. Henry has nothing. I must stay with him."

Of all my privileges, Lucas alone was not mine.

He gave what should have been mine to Henry.

Later, the rivalry between Henry and me grew fiercer.

My personal aide, Danny, accidentally drowned.

Danny had served me for years. When I played with Quentin as a child, he always covered for me.

He was skilled at massaging my stomach. Whenever I overate and felt sick, it was always him who soothed me.

But Danny was killed by Lucas.

Chlorine burned my nose as I watched Danny struggle, Lucas’s hand on his head, pushing him down again and again. Danny could swim. He climbed out of the pool three times, but each time Lucas pushed him back in. The last time, he never resurfaced.

I hated Lucas.

Hated him so much I couldn’t sleep.

I used my father’s authority to have Lucas transferred to my staff, had him disciplined, grabbed his collar, and demanded to know why he killed.

Lucas laughed quietly. "Because he blocked Henry’s way."

I slapped him.

"Guess Henry really did train you to heel, huh?"

"Everyone says you’re Henry’s lapdog. I didn’t believe it before, but now I see I overestimated you."

I stepped on his broken pride. "Even without that, can you still play?"

"Tell me, how do you serve Henry?"

Lucas let me step on him, endured the pain, and laughed quietly. "Are you jealous?"

That question stung me. My heart twisted with sharp pain.

In a rage, I kicked him away.

I used the cruelest words to shield my own heart.

Should I, a Sloane, kneel and beg a heartless staffer for a scrap of affection?

"Jealous?"

"All I feel is disgust."

"If even my brother could bear it, could a rootless thing like you possibly enjoy it? Aren’t you ashamed?"

I forced a disgusted smile, my eyes bloodshot, full of malice as I stomped down, tormenting Lucas with all my might.

I wanted him to hurt.

Wanted him to hate.

Wanted him to suffer as I did.

"I gave you a chance to be human, but you refused. Then be a good dog for me."

The words tasted like ash, but I couldn’t stop.

Lucas stayed on my staff for a year and a half. I vented all my hatred and anger on him as I pleased.

He never said a word, always lowering his eyes and enduring it in silence.

Until he was transferred out, to the President’s office, to serve my father.

Later, Lucas rose higher and higher, became my father’s favorite, took charge of the East Wing, and became the chief of staff with the authority to sign off on major decisions.

After my father’s death, Lucas supported Henry’s ascension, utterly abandoning me.