THE WHITE HOUSE

President Powell’s POV

Ten hours later, in the Situation Room of the White House, the big TV screen was on, the voice of Anita Baker, CNN’s lead anchor, could be heard

“Breaking news: Marco Powell, twenty-three years old and only son of President Richard Powell, is still missing after a deadly attack at a private celebration three nights ago. Sources inside the administration say at least ten security personnel were killed in the ambush…”

“Turn it off,” I snapped. My voice coming out harsher than I intended. “Turn the damn thing off!”

A junior aide fumbled with the remote, his hands trembling. The screen went black, but Anita’s words had had its effect on the people in the room, making them understand the reality that there was work to be done.

I pressed my palms into the polished oak table, staring in the eye of every single member of my security team in the room, the Chief of Staff, the National Security Adviser, the CIA Director, the Secretary of Defense, these were people who could make or break governments with a single decision.

“What the hell is going on?” My tone cracked with worry, “It’s been three days. My son was taken off American soil during a party in my own residence. Ten agents dead. Ten. And you still don’t have a name? A location? Anything?”

The CIA Director, Grayson, cleared his throat to talk, “Mr. President, our European operations picked up a signal from your son’s phone near Marseille, then Lyon. We’re working on locating where he is.”

I slammed my hand down on the table. A coffee cup rattled and tipped over, spilling dark liquid. “You’re definitely not doing enough. My son is out there somewhere with a knife wound in his shoulder, don't you get? I need my boy back!”

A hush fell over the room. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to breathe. I had faced foreign crises, assassination attempts, riots, cyberattacks. Nothing had ever felt like this. This wasn’t just some briefing about a faraway conflict. This was my son. My only child. Somewhere chained up and bleeding while the world read the headlines on cable news.

Across from me, my Chief of Staff, Louise Hendricks, shifted nervously. She had weathered every scandal and legislative war at my side, but now she looked pale, and fragile. “Sir,” she began softly, “Members of the press are asking for a statement. We need to hold a press conference.”

“Are you for real, Louise? My son has been kidnapped and you want me to talk to the press?”

“Mr. President, respectfully,” she said, her voice firm, “the nation is rattled. There’s already speculation about why Marco was targeted. We can’t control the narrative if we don’t get ahead of it.”

I glared at her. But she wasn’t wrong. I had seen the polls, my approval rating slipping like sand through a fist. Conspiracy theories were blooming on every channel. Some blaming a foreign government, others blaming my enemies at home, and one even claiming Marco had staged his own abduction to embarrass me.

I wanted to break the screen. To tear it off the wall.

Instead, I sat back down, fists clenched.

“I received a message,” I said finally, my voice quiet. The words had eveyone at alert. All eyes turned toward me. “It was no ransom demand, if that's what you're thinking. But a message of some sort, a photograph of two rings on a bloodstained towel. My son’s blood and his rings.”

I passed the picture around to the members of the table, gasps and comments could be heard around the table.

I thought of Marco at six years old, running through the Rose Garden, clutching a plastic jet, laughing as the sprinklers caught the morning light. And then of the way he had glared at me two weeks ago, accusing me of trying to control him.

Grayson swallowed hard. “Mr. President, we’re reach out to the French intelligence, to scout for him in France…”

“I don’t care about French intelligence,” I cut in, my voice shaking. “Get him back, I don’t care what you have to do. Get. Him. Back. And that's a command Grayson.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” was Grayson's response.

“Clear the room,” I ordered. “Now.”

Chairs scraped back, and files snapped shut. The Secretary of Defense paused at the door, as though she wanted to say something, then thought better of it. One by one they left, their footsteps echoing off the marble floor until I was alone.

I stared at the blank television screen. In its dark reflection, I barely recognized my own face.

I had spent my life making other people’s sons fight my wars. Now mine was caught in one.

I reached for the envelope sitting at my elbow, the other copy of the photograph of Marco’s signet ring and the heavy band I’d given him for his twenty-first birthday lay side by side on the towel. I traced them with my thumb, the fabric still stiff with dried blood.

In the silence, Dante’s voice echoed in my head: Forty-eight hours.

Shit! 

I picked up my phone, which was not the secure White House line, and it was also not the encrypted satellite link the CIA used.

It was a different phone. The one no one on my staff knew I carried. The one I had once swore I would never use again.

It rang twice before a low voice answered.

“Mr. President,” he drawled mockingly “Didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.”

“I don’t have time for games,” I said, my tone clipped. “I need Dante’s location. You and your people have eyes where my agencies don’t. Find him. Now.”

A pause. Then a dark chuckle. “You want the underworld to do what your mighty CIA can’t? That’s funny.”

“I’m not asking,” I growled. “I’m ordering.”

“You don’t order me,” the gang leader shot back. “Not in my city. You come to me now, because you're desperate, and from the news, I see your boy’s on the line. 

My hand tightened around the phone. “If you don’t help me, I’ll have every branch of federal law enforcement dismantle your operations brick by brick. You know I can do it.”

“Maybe you can,” he said, his voice turning cold. “But you won’t. Because right now, you need me more than I need you. And I’m telling you, going after Dante directly will not work. If you make the wrong move, your son dies before sunrise.”

I closed my eyes, his words hurring me afresh. My son. My only child.

“You listen to me,” I said, forcing the words through gritted teeth, “I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care who I have to burn. You will find me Dante, Fast. Because if I lose my son, there won’t be a hole deep enough for you to hide in.”

The line went dead, leaving me gripping the phone, chest heaving, rage and fear filling my heart.

For the first time in my presidency, I was feeling the weight of my bad decisions. This was a payback of the mess I had made with Dante's goods, I should have known he would not sit still.