chapter 4: Fury

Evelyn’s POV

At a hotel downtown and my all hell within me let loose. But by the time I could decide on what to do, he was already back at the office after I checked again. That didn’t stop me

I didn’t plan the visit. I woke up, dressed in black, and drove there like someone heading to a funeral, telling myself it was for him, for the family. Maybe I could fix a small piece of whatever mess had landed in the office. Maybe it was nothing.

The campaign office buzzed with the usual, hollow energy burnt coffee, paper stacks pretending to be order, phones ringing without conviction. When I walked in, the sound fractured. People froze mid-sentence.

A boy near the door probably still figuring out how to make coffee without spilling it looked at me like he’d seen a ghost. “Mrs. Cole… we didn’t expect you today.”

“No one ever does,” I said, brushing past him. “I’m just here to help with donations. Alfred mentioned things were a mess.” He hadn’t, of course. But no one corrected me. They just stared the way people do at someone who might be carrying a lit match.

I moved through the rows of desks their posters smiling down at me: Integrity. Vision. Trust. It was almost poetic in how fake it felt.

Then I saw her.

Julia.

Typing fast, pretending not to see me. Her hair was tied up tight, her blouse buttoned like modesty could erase sin. She smelled of nervousness that sweet, sharp perfume that comes from fear trying to act like grace.

“Julia,” I said.

Her fingers stopped, the screen in front of her flickering with data she’d already stopped reading.

“Mrs. Cole,” she said softly, “I was just …the senator asked me to…”

“I’m sure he did.” The room thinned around us. No one breathed too loudly.

“Come here,” I said. She stood slowly, knuckles white around the edge of her desk. The walk from her chair to me couldn’t have been more than six steps, but by the time she stopped in front of me, her eyes were already shiny.

“You’ve been working very closely with my husband,” I said, voice even, controlled.

“Yes, ma’am. Strictly professional.”

I smiled. “Strictly.” The word felt like glass between my teeth. “You’re a hard worker, aren’t you?”

She nodded too fast.I didn’t let her finish. The room held its breath. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I shouldn’t have come. And yet, I felt this strange relief in facing it seeing him and her together in the same space.

I studied her. The tremble in her hands. The thin gold chain around her neck. The lipstick that looked like something Alfred would have noticed, then pretended he didn’t.

The glass door opened behind her.

“Evie,” Alfred said, his voice too smooth, too used to being obeyed. He walked toward us, sleeves rolled up, pretending to be calm. “What’s going on here?”

I didn’t look at him. “I just came to have a conversation with Julia”

He frowned, the politician mask slipping just slightly. “Julia, you’re supposed to be working on the…”

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t make it sound like this is work.”

He moved closer, the room holding its breath. His hand found Julia’s shoulder. That’s when everything in me snapped.”Take your hand off her,” I said quietly.

“Evelyn!”

“Now.”He hesitated, looking around at his staff audience, witnesses, props and I saw the flicker of fear in his eyes. Not guilt. Fear of the story this might become.Something in me snapped, though part of me still hoped I was overreacting. Maybe I was.

“You’re making a scene,” he said, low, through his teeth.

I laughed. “A scene? You’ve been starring in one for months.”

He reached for me, out of habit, control, ego I didn’t let him touch me. I stepped back before he could, voice sharp and final.

“Don’t touch me, Alfred.” My voice had steel, though my heart hoped he’d reach for me differently apologetic, ashamed, wanting to fix what he could.

He hesitated, searching my eyes, maybe wondering if he’d gone too far. “We’ll talk at home, don’t embarrass me” he said. I wanted to scream that we already talked. That it had never been enough.

“You know what you did?,” I said, loud enough that the interns nearest us froze. “And I’m the one embarrassing you? Could you explain what you were doing at a hotel minutes ago just after a scandal ?I shook my head.

His jaw clenched. “Lower your voice.”

I turned to Julia “ Do you even know what he tells me when he’s done with you?” I leaned in, my voice dropping low, intimate, cruel. “Nothing. Because you’re nothing. You think this makes you special? You’re just one of his campaign perks.”

“Stop it,” Alfred hissed, grabbing my wrist.

I ripped free so hard his cufflink snapped loose and clattered to the floor. “Don’t touch me!”

He froze, that polished calm started to fracture. “Go home”

“There’s nothing left at home,” I said. “You turned it into a goddamn press conference.”

Julia started to cry , quiet, hiccupping tears. “Mrs. Cole, please…didn’t mean…”

“Don’t,” I said, turning to her. “Don’t even let this man ruin your life? You’re a name he’ll forget by next quarter. A stain he’ll have someone else wipe clean.”

She flinched. The pity came later after the anger had burned through. I stepped closer until she couldn’t look away. “Pack your things, Julia. You’re done here.”

Her mouth opened, shut and she started begging “Consider it a favour “

The word hit the air like a hammer. She looked at Alfred, desperate for rescue. He said nothing. Of course he didn’t.

She ran past me, heels clicking, hand over her mouth. The interns parted for her like she was contagious. The silence that followed was heavy, alive, cruel.

I glanced at Alfred. The man who used to make my hands shake, for better reasons. He looked furious, flustered, but untouched by guilt. I wanted to grab him, shake some sense into him, but I didn’t. I watched him just stand there even as anger and hurt twisted in me.

“Clean your mess,” I said quietly. “You’re good at that.”

The campaign manager, Lawson, appeared near the glass wall, face pale, hands lifted slightly. “Mrs. Cole,” he said softly, “maybe you should…”

I snapped at him “Don’t tell me to calm down,” I said. “You watched this happen. You knew.”

“Evie,” Alfred said again, softer now, the plea buried under exhaustion.

“Don’t ‘Evie’ me. That name belongs to someone who believed you.” Then I turned and walked out, leaving them in the wreckage the smell of coffee, the click of heels, the silence that follows shame.

Outside, the sun felt too bright, cruel. I stood by my car for a moment, hands trembling so hard I almost dropped the keys. My reflection in the window looked foreign hair undone, lipstick smudged, something fierce in my eyes. I took a long breath, straightened my jacket, and smiled in pain.

I didn’t drive home. Not yet. I drove to a bar across town, the kind with no windows and no questions, and ordered whiskey I didn’t taste. Two hours disappeared into the bottom of a glass before I finally started the car again.

When I pulled into the driveway, there were vans parked outside.