His jacket came off and he kicked his feet up on the table, eyes half-lidded like he hadn’t slept in a week. “Why don’t more do anything about it? I keep expecting a revolution, you know?”
“You know why. Everyone is too busy working and being pulled into social media, making videos for Only Fans, whatever.”
“Plus, we led a campaign, starting way back in the sixties, to tear the country apart in beliefs. It was inevitable, sure, but pitting one against the other, we hastened it.”
Thinking that over quickly, it came to him in a few seconds. “If we’re fighting each other, we’re not paying attention. You all can get away with a lot more.”
“You nailed it.”
Eli asked him, “You don’t really like all this, do you?”
“Sure, I do. I like the money and the power. I’m one of them, Eli, and if you haven’t figured that out yet, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Eli watched him, watched how cocky he was trying to be, but for some reason, some dancer he’d seen in a club was getting to him. Eli wasn’t the smartest guy in the world when it came to reading people, but with Lee, it was different. He tried to be the horrible senator that was hated by the opposition, but there was something there, making him hate himself.
The plane landed and they deboarded, but there was a helicopter waiting for them. Eli had never been in a helicopter, and he was nervous when he ducked to get near it, watching Lee and his bodyguards get on like they’d done it a million times. Maybe they had.
He got on, and the pilot helped him get his seatbelt on, placing earphones on his head and then get back to his own seat.
The earphones also had a mic, and Lee spoke to him. “Scared, Eli?”
“No,” he lied, turning away from the asshole.
The helicopter lifted straight up in the air over fifty feet before they started off, and it swung around in a U-turn before they sped and over desert they flew, Eli watching the rock and sand beneath them.
“Don’t fall out, Eli,” Lee goaded, laughing.
The guards laughed with him, and he swallowed, wondering if the entire purpose of the trip was to kill him and leave him in the desert in a foreign country. It wouldn’t be out of bounds for him, Eli was sure.
After a few minutes, though, he did cut his eyes to Lee and saw him looking out of the huge windows, his face blank from any emotion. That was, except for his eyes. They were far away, as if Lee imagined himself somewhere else completely.
Seeing him that way, that was when Eli saw the beauty of the man. Most of the time it was hidden behind callousness, but tiny moments like that, he seemed vulnerable and sweet.
Or he could be imagining the entire thing.
After the helicopter trip, they took yet another very bumpy one, on a trail that could barely be called a road, in jeeps. He was in the one behind Lee and two of his guards, riding in the back and holding on for dear life. It was becoming comical, the roundabout ways they were heading to the destination. Once he got there, however, he knew why.
The compound was as big as a town, high stone and stucco fence surrounding the entire thing. The gates were wrought iron and secured with more men with guns slung over their shoulders.
Thoughts went wild in his mind of a drug cartel that Lee was involved with, guerrillas, mercenaries. As the jeeps were let inside the gates, Eli wished he could run back to the plane and fly home.
As the clank of the gates closing rattled his bones, he knew he couldn’t run from whatever Lee had dragged him into, and he dismounted from the jeep, body frozen in fear.
A big ginger man, at least six and a half foot tall, came out of the ornate doors of the main building, heading right to Lee. He was drop dead gorgeous in a hulking way but had an easy and sincere smile. “Senator, how are you?”
“Ryan, I’m well. How are you and Brett?”
“We’re well.”
Lee turned to Eli, grinning like he’d won some prize. “Eli, come here, sweetie.”
Sweetie? He walked over to the giant and Lee and held out his hand. “Eli Bloom, the senator’s personal assistant.”
The big man looked him up and down like he’d eat him but did shake his hand and introduced himself. “Ryan Callahan, High Master here.” To Lee, he said, “Nice, Lee. Why are you coming here when you have that at home?”
“He’s got conditions. He thinks his dick is worth more than what I’m already paying him, so I thought a trip here will show him that there is better dick elsewhere.”
“Wow, Lee. Okay, well, our boys are ready for you. Come with me, and please, leave your guards out here to hand over their weapons.”