Chapter 8: Section Nine

Ronan's POV

I took the call standing at the bedroom window with Claire asleep behind me.

"Say that again," I said. "Photographs. Of what?"

"Of you," said the board chair. His voice was thick. "On a rooftop, with an employee, on Monday night."

"Who sent them?"

"Honora's lawyer, to all nine of us, at three a.m."

I closed my eyes.

I had kissed Claire against a steel door in the open air and told myself nobody could see.

"Who took them?"

"A long lens, from the building across the street," he said. "Ronan, there's a petition with them. Section nine, the morals clause."

"Go on."

"An officer who becomes intimate with a subordinate can be removed by a two-thirds vote."

"I know what section nine says. I wrote the amendment with my father."

"She needs six votes. She has four. She'll call a special session Friday."

"Then Friday is when I'll deal with it."

I hung up and stood there with the phone in my hand.

The window showed the lake going from black to grey.

Behind me the sheets shifted.

"Ronan?"

Claire was sitting up with the blanket held to her chest and her hair in her face.

She was the most beautiful thing in my house, and I hated that I was about to ruin her morning.

"Tell me," she said.

I told her.

When I finished she didn't cry.

She slid off the bed with the blanket around her and walked to the window and stood beside me.

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