Stretching, I let out one big yawn. I stare down at the clock on my laptop, which tells me I’ve been working for almost twelve hours straight, and then close the lid. My days are now a retreading of what came before—work, work, and then some more work. Thankfully, I make sure to keep my spirits up by taking a hefty dose of Parker’s naked body. It seems that’s all I do nowadays, work and fuck. Hey, work hard; play hard. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

But Parker has been busy the whole day, meeting with some of the big names of New York politics, and I’ve spent the whole day holed up in my apartment, reading through a mountain of legal briefings and strategy documents for his campaign. Seriously, you’d say half of the Amazonian rainforest has been cut down in order to create this much paper. But I’m done now; it’s already 10 pm, and I have to meet Parker’s staff early in the morning.

I get up from the desk I’ve set up in my living room and start dragging my feet toward the bedroom when there’s a loud knock at my door. I glance at my cellphone, still sitting by the side of my laptop, but Parker hasn’t called or texted me. He’s still in a meeting, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he had gotten out earlier and decided to drop in as a surprise.

I smile, remembering how he surprised me last time, and then saunter over to the door. Already expecting to see Parker on the other side, I turn the handle and open the door. Except it isn’t Parker standing in the doorway—it’s my mother.

High heels, a formal pencil skirt, a blouse more expensive than my whole furniture collection put together, and, of course, a smile that I can only translate as trouble. Hi, mom.

“What are you --” I start, not even knowing what to say, but she just cuts me short and walks past me and inside my apartment, her shoulder bumping harshly against mine.

Without saying a word, she walks with her sure step toward the drink cabinet I have on the corner and she grabs two short glasses of whisky. She takes the cork out of a bottle of aged malt and then pours the whisky onto the glasses.

“Here, drink this,” she says, pushing one glass into my hands.

“What are you doing?” I finally manage to say, wrapping both my hands around the cold glass of whisky.

“You’ve done your job, Amy,” she tells me, looking straight into my eyes with an icy expression, and then drinking half of her whisky in one single gulp. “And you’ve done it perfectly.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, not quite sure of what’s going on. “Did you come for these?” I continue, waving my hand at the stack of documents piled up on my desk. “Because there’s nothing in there that --”

“Oh, for a smart girl, you can be pretty dumb sometimes, Amy,” she whispers, finishing off her drink and then pouring some more whisky. She’s in a celebratory mood, which isn’t really good—for me and for Parker.

“Then what? What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I care about Parker’s strategies or whatever documents his staff passes back and forth? Believe me, if I wanted to go down that route, I wouldn’t need you. What I wanted was for you to give Parker’s life an air of… indecency. Impropriety. Which you’ve done wonderfully,” she smiles, raising her glass at me as if she were giving a toast.

So this was her game all along. And, just like a fool, I played straight into her hand. How could I have not seen this coming?

“Your bid for the senate is in ruins… After that veteran thing it’s going to be impossible for you to --”

“Don’t be a fool. Do you think people are going to care about some stupid thing like that? Once the world knows about what Parker has been up to, that situation is going to disappear as fast as it came up. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Amy. You were dying to get into his pants, and now you finally did it. I don’t care that the two of you are sleeping with each other, you know? It’s all the same to me.”

“I’m your daughter…” I whisper, curling my fingers tightly around my whisky glass. I’m struggling against the sudden urge to simply throw the glass against her head.

“So? And I’m your mother. And, from what I’m seeing, you prefer to side with Parker than with me.”

“You’re a monster, that’s what you are!” I hiss, rage boiling inside my veins.

“I’m not a monster. I’m a realist. Not a wide-eyed dreamer like you and your friend Parker. And don’t act like you’re a saint either, Amy. You helped me do this, remember? And you’ve done exactly what I needed… Now I just need one final thing from you.”

I stare her down in complete silence, ready to refuse whatever she asks of me. I don’t care about what happens. I’m done with his bullshit.

“You need to leave him,” she finally says, smiling as if the words feel like honey in her mouth.

“No,” I reply, placing my glass on the desk and balling both of my hands into fists. “I’m done with you.”

Still with that smile on her face, she sighs heavily and then takes one step toward me.

“You will leave him. I’m going to hit him fast and hard, Amy, and I need him as demoralized as possible. You don’t have a choice in this, you should know by now. Or haven’t you learned anything?”

“Yeah, I’ve learned something,” I whisper, closing the distance between us with one sure step and then hitting her across the face with the back of my hand. “I’ve learned you’re a bitch. And now I want you to get the fuck out of my apartment.”

Moving slowly, she sets her glass on the desk and looks to me, her smile turning into a grin of pure savagery.

“I’ll go, Amy. But if I were you, I’d be as far away from Parker as possible. Because, rest assured, I’m going to crush him… And if you’re standing by his side, I’ll happily crush you as well.”

“Fuck off,” I growl, and then I stare at her as she grabs her purse and walks out of my apartment, leaving the door open behind her.

This is it. Whatever she has in store for Parker, it’s clear what’s going to happen next.

We’re officially going to war.