Layla was bored.

So bored, in fact, that she had dialled up her old college friend - the only member of her sorority that she still talked to these days - Tatiana Russell, who had trophy-wifed her way into high society. Perched on the porch, she stared out at her prize-winning gardenias and tiger lilies, the ones she'd slaved over this summer. They were the only part of the house that marked her as anywhere remotely close to being a suburban housewife.

"Tatiana, darling," she said, sulking on the porch swing in a housedress to avoid her mother-in-law. Amara and her fake Stepford persona would be proud of her outfit. "How have you been?"

"Hang on, Lay, I just need a minute..." Tatiana sounded out of breath, and then Layla heard a beep. "I needed to get my ramen out of the microwave."

"You married a man worth fifty million dollars and you still eat ramen out of the microwave?" Layla was amused by her friend's idiosyncrasies. When they'd been in college, they'd both eaten their fair share of cup noodles. "Didn't you get sick of that in sophomore year?"

"Sick of Cup O' Noodles? Never." Tatiana sounded scandalized by the suggestion. "What are you up to? Aren't you putting that journalism degree to good use?"

"Yes..." She let her voice trail off. Inky came out through the pet door and curled up on the porch swing next to her. "And no."

"What does that mean?"

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." She was only half-lying. "Anyways, I'm pregnant. And Hayden's mom is here."

"Congratulations! So you're being fussed over to no end and she yells at you every time your feet touch the ground?" Tatiana snorted.

"You missed the part where she glares at me every time I drink coffee. Which is decaf, by the way." Her gaze fixed on a distant point on the horizon between two houses, where the midday sun was blaring down. She petted Inky's head absentmindedly.

"Decaf is more disgusting than a cup o' noodles." Tatiana's authoritative declaration made her laugh. "How's your husband?"

Layla rocked back and forth on the porch swing, the toes of her Converse dragging across the wooden boards. Inky slept through the motion, snoring softly. "Fine." Crazy. Jealous. Cold. Overbearing. Annoying. Loving. The worst.

"You don't sound very fine to me," Tatiana noted accurately. "What's up?"

"Nothing..." she swallowed, thinking of Amara. "I think he's cheating on me."

"What?" Something clattered in the background. "I'm going to kill him."

Layla scoffed. If only she knew. "I've already got that part covered. You just need to bury the body."

"With whom?" Tatiana said.

She sighed, hugging a pillow to her chest. "I don't even know. I'm just... I'm making a big deal over nothing. He would never..."

"Don't be so quick to think that he wouldn't do it," Tatiana said. "I've seen far too much infidelity to believe anyone."

"Your husband?" she said. Lionel Russell was a devoted, loving husband, possibly because his wife was so far out of his league that she was only with him for security, stability, and fiscal responsibility.

"His friends," she said dismissively. "So? Who is it? Do you think he's cheating on you like, hooking up with random women in bars, or cheating as in schtupping his coworker?"

Layla choked on her coffee. "I hope he's not schtupping his coworker... since they're all men."

"You know what I mean. There's a difference."

"Is there?" she said. Lately, she was beginning to think that lying next to a stranger would feel exactly the same as lying next to her husband. "I'm not even sure I care."

"You're just saying that," Tatiana said. "Everyone cares. Even if it's only out of pride that they give a damn, they care."

"Even if he is cheating... I can't leave him," she said. She didn't know if she was reassuring herself or Tatiana. "I'm having his children."

"Children, multiple?" repeated Tatiana.

"Twins," she clarified, resting a hand on her abdomen.

"So? Do you want them to grow up in a loveless home?"

"I mean..." she sighed. "I don't know. It's just a suspicion. I might just be making things up. You know how my mind can be. I just see stories everywhere."

Tatiana didn't sound convinced. "Right. But every time you've had a gut feeling, it's been right."

"You flatter me," she said, sarcasm dripping from each syllable. "How's your husband?"

"Lionel is... busy."

"With adultery?"

"We can't all marry upstanding men of questionable morals," her best friend snarked back.

"Hey, Hayden was an FBI agent," Layla said.

"Exactly."

"I see your point," she said drily. "Busy with what?"

"He's busy with Cytex. They're caught in a lawsuit."

"A lawsuit? What does he do again?"

"He owns a tech company... that owns a bunch of subsidiary tech companies... including Cytex," explained Tatiana. "They were the ones caught in the voting machine scandal, remember?"

"Wasn't that two years ago?" she said, frowning.

Tatiana sniffed, disdain buried in the wordless sound. "I guess it's never too late to contest the results of a presidential election."

"I'm pretty sure there has to be some expiry date on it," Layla said, the wheels in her mind churning. "A lawsuit, huh?"

"Yeah. A bunch of powerful people are pushing back against it. Senator Underwood, the swing vote from Virginia, and even the VP's wife," said Tatiana. "Though between you and me, it's an open secret that the Vice President is far from straight and she's pushing this lawsuit to keep attention away from his, ah, proclivities. But his voting base doesn't know that."

"I forgot how much gossip you know," Layla said, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. Inky crept onto her lap, purring and butting her head against Layla's thigh.

"I live for scandal," Tatiana said, and she sounded only half-joking. "Yeah, so he's been stuck trying to keep people's attention away from the election results'... veracity."

"Weren't you a Fashion Studies major?"

"Yes, and?"

"You sound more like a Poli Sci major right now."

"Hey, spend enough time among Washington elite and you pick up a few things. Sorry to cut this short, but I have to go."

"Tell Lionel I said hello." Just then, the front door creaked open, and she checked her watch. It was noon. "Hi, Mrs. Song."

"I thought I told you to call me Auntie Loretta." The older woman planted her hands on her hips, looking disapprovingly around the house. She was beginning to suspect the woman was capable of forming no other expressions. "Never mind. Lunch is ready."

First, she'd chastised Layla for not keeping her house cleaner. Then, she'd scolded her when she'd tried to do the dishes. There was apparently no winning with her.

Rolling her eyes and hiding her exhaustion, she and the cat followed her mother-in-law inside.

#

Amara Lee sat on the park bench and waited.

She wasn't a particularly big fan of waiting: for people, for things to happen, for trains. But for one man--the most important man in the city, the real power behind the leader of the free world--she had no choice but to wait.

A gentle breeze stirred the hair on her nape, but the midday sun pounded down on her, making her wish she'd donned something other than her all-black ensemble of leather jacket and jeans with boots. Everywhere around her, the park was filled with children on the playground, parents and nannies watching over their charges, and all of them were dressed in brightly coloured, looser clothing.

Still. She'd never been one to fit in when she could stand out. That was part of why it had been so easy for her to leave her small town for something bigger. So easy to abandon them all--even her own sister--for the hope of becoming immortal, an urban legend, someone discussed forever but never thrown away. It was easier to be remembered by leaving than forgotten by staying.

Finally, at a quarter to one, Vihaan Bakshi made his appearance, equipped with a briefcase, a newspaper tucked under one arm, and an expression suited to an attorney sizing up his client's flaws. "I didn't know if you'd make it."

"Unlike you, I show up to my appointments... on time," she said, flipping her pocketknife open and shut.

Something in his face twitched at the sight of the blade. "Put that away, please."

"Why? Are you scared?" she taunted him. She knew he wasn't. She knew he'd grown up in far rougher conditions than she had, though she'd spent her twenties on the streets.

"Some concerned parents might be," he said, taking a seat next to her on the bench. He flipped open the newspaper with a flourish and crossed one ankle onto his opposite knee, revealing black socks patterned with camels. "And you know I'd hate for us to draw attention."

Amara was good at slipping through crowds unnoticed. But that didn't mean she liked it. Unlike Vihaan, who preferred to work in the shadows, she didn't mind putting on a show. That was precisely why at their last meeting, Amara had positioned herself just in the blue glow of the streetlight in front of the living room, having heard through the bugs and microphones that Hayden Song would be lying awake on his couch. It was fun to mess with men's heads sometimes.

Still, she put the knife away. For now. "I heard about the Cytex lawsuit."

His head whipped over. "That was classified."

"If you don't know by now that I have sources--" sources like bugging her sister's home - "then I'm sorely disappointed in your intelligence."

"Yes, well, I've never been one for petty insults, so tell me what, exactly, you heard."

"Senator Underwood, and several others including the President, are against it," she said.

"I know very well who would be against it." Vihaan rubbed his clean-shaven jaw. "But who would be for it?"

"Who do you think?" she taunted. "The opposition. The ones who lost."

"It's not always that simple." There seemed to be something else he was referring to, a faraway look in Vihaan's brown eyes suggesting that. "What about the moderates? They could be--"

"Looking to switch over to the other side? Well, maybe. These days, those in the middle are caught in the crossfire."

Vihaan leaned back on the bench with a sigh. He seemed older than he ever had. She had met him when she'd been twenty-two, a lifetime or two decades ago, when he'd been a teenager straight out of high school and she'd used her skills to get him into Harvard, in exchange for somewhere to stay and food to eat. They had owed one another debts ever since, an uneasy symbiotic relationship that could turn parasitic if either wasn't careful.

"We need to know who to target," he said at last.

She knew that in this, at least, they were agreed. Amara hadn't become the ringleader of a successful international cartel, fighting her way to the top, without having a strategy... or unlikely allies. Besides, the current party leader was pro-gun control and police reform, which was a position she rather liked. It made it far easier for her to smuggle in illegal firearms across the border.

"Then let's make a plan," she argued. "Are we targeting them to scare them into backing down from this little lawsuit, or are we targeting them for some other reason? To get them to join us?"

"I'll figure it out." Vihaan's gaze was far away, his brown eyes seeming to stare into a horizon that she would never reach. "I have to get back to the news agency. Are you gonna be okay?"

She smiled. What a question to ask, yet he always asked it, ever since she'd been the twenty-two-year-old pawing through the dumpster for a scrap of food outside his high school. The difference was, now, their favours came with strings attached. "I'm always going to be fine, Vihaan. We both know that by now."

With that, she got up from the park bench, dusted off her jeans, and walked away.

#

Hayden made his appearance at the Oak and Rose ten minutes early. The bar was a midway meeting place, populated with enough bankers that his business attire wouldn't seem out of place, and populated with enough drunks and alcoholics that their conversation was unlikely to be overheard. Frank, as always, was sluggish, lethargic, and twenty minutes late when he draped himself over the barstool next to Hayden's. Still, his expression was far from drunk or sloppy: he looked sober, alert, his eyes always prowling the room for signs of danger.

"What's so important, Frank?" He picked up his whiskey, the ice cubes half-melted by now. Hayden took a sip, cringing at the diluted taste.

Frank ordered a beer and stared at the bartender as the man opened the bottle of Miller Lite. "The government's been infiltrated."

"By Russia?" He rested his elbows on the counter and checked his watch. It was nearly six, the usual time that he'd be home. He had called his mother and told her that he'd be staying late at the "office." Hayden assumed she would pass the message on to Layla.

"Not Russia. It's domestic," said Frank as he took the pint of beer from the bartender, wiping condensation onto his jeans. "Not just domestic."

"Terrorists?" he said. That one word was enough to conjure up images of mass shootings, buildings collapsing, and enough panic to send the American public into a tizzy for weeks.

"No." Frank sipped his beer, his expression impassive. "It's organized crime."

"You're kidding me." He downed his whiskey, trying to see straight. He had a high enough tolerance that he'd be able to drive, but he was more shaken by Frank's words than by the alcohol.

"Not about this." Frank shook his head and took another gulp of beer.

"You expect me to believe that a gang could infiltrate the government, the highest seat of power in the free world--" Hayden scoffed. "I wasn't born yesterday."

"I have this on good authority, Song." Frank picked up a peanut, cracking open the shell.

"Who?" he demanded. He was sick of trusting authority.

"It's a journalist," he said. "Not just any journalist. Your wife."

"My wife," he repeated. "Why would she know about this?"

"Ask her that," Frank said with a shrug. "She didn't tell me anything. But I swiped a USB from her bag--"

"You stole from my wife." God, this was why he'd left the FBI. There were no lines between business and personal. Everything was for the country, for the state, for the bureaucrats. Everything was up for grabs, whether it was one's family or offshore bank accounts. There was no division.

"I borrowed the USB and looked at her files. I put it back after," he said. "I found these."

Frank opened his backpack and slid a folder across the dingy bar, which was sticky with spilled beer despite the multiple paper coasters strewn across its surface. Hayden made a face as he opened it, touching the grimy surface.

It was nothing more than a Word document with several lines of text printed out.

Hayden drug cartel 5 years ago

Senator Underwood, Cytex election fraud

Ringleader of cartel never found

Amara???

Anonymous tip

"This means nothing to me," he said. "It's just a bunch of words."

"Words have more power than you think." Frank tucked a too-long strand of hair behind one ear.

"Speak English, not cryptic jargon," he said. "This isn't proof."

"Why do you think five years ago, the FBI would find, arrest, imprison, and kill every member of a cartel except the ringleader?" said Frank.

"Their sheer incompetence." He'd believe it, too. Not everyone who got into the Federal Bureau of Investigation was necessarily suited to be there or capable of the tasks required of them.

"Sheer incompetence that allowed all of us to arrest everyone in that gang except the ringleader?" Frank shook his head. "You need to start thinking like a conspiracy theorist."

"That's exactly what I don't need," he replied. "You sound insane."

He was going insane, and mauve rationality sounded schizophrenic to him.

"Do you think there's a possibility that maybe, just maybe, they let this person get away?" suggested Frank. "The sitting president needed to look tough on crime. So they arrested everyone. But Underwood had a say, too. This was his Senate seat. And he was losing money--"

"How do you know that?" he said. Then again, Frank knew everything, and it had always annoyed him to no end.

"Tax records," he said simply. "They were made public when he ran for re-election. He was hemorrhaging money five years ago. Then four years ago, he bought a new yacht, enrolled his grandchildren in the most expensive private school in the country, and took his wife on a two-week cruise through Europe."

"Well, what happened four years ago?"

"There was hardly a power vacuum to fill when they let the ringleader of a gang go free."

"You're saying the gang re-formed."

"Exactly." Frank tapped on the bar as if drawing a map for him. "And then, where did the money go? Straight from the gangs to the pocket of the Senator."

"Why?" he said. But his mind swam with answers. Senator Underwood was all for prison reform, police reform, and gun control. It was far easier to rob people, to let crime run rampant, and to let gangs swarm the city when the Senator was giving you free rein, all because your activities put money in his wallet. "I mean, how did they let the ringleader get away?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. But there are too many coincidences, don't you think?"

Hayden drained his whiskey and sighed. "There's no such thing as a coincidence."

"Now you're getting it." Frank clapped him on the back and swished his beer around in its stein. His demeanour changed, from a man sharing bleak news to one who wanted to chill with his buddies. Someone must have been watching them. "Hey, want to catch a Nationals game this weekend?"

Hayden rolled his eyes. "I'd rather find out who let the ringleader of an international drug cartel escape the hands of the FBI."

"Football sounds more fun." Frank stared at the TV, but darted a glance over his shoulder, too stiff to be relaxed. "I guess you have to go home to your wife, kids, mother-in-law?"

"Mother." Though she wasn't much better than his mother-in-law. "And wife."

His heart twinged at the word kids. Hayden grabbed his jacket and hurried out.