9. Jaxson
9
Jaxson
S helly has to fly back to Chicago for some business-related emergency, so Magdalene arrives to dinner alone. It’s good and well since Lauressa is still angry at her. She’ll eventually come back around to her, evidenced by the fact that Lauressa asked about Shelly when Magdalene showed up alone. Lauressa doesn’t stay angry at others for very long, both a strength and a weakness of hers.
I subject Magdalene to the same extensive search of her person and items that I did back in Chicago, much to Magdalene’s annoyance.
“Are you going to subject me to that every single time?” Magdalene snaps at me when she’s finally able to join us at the table.
"Yes," I reply simply and dismissively.
Magdalene glares at me, but it didn’t work on me when we were children, and it doesn’t work now.
“Did the two of you grow up together?” Lauressa asks before Magdalene can respond to me. “Like, as siblings or under the same roof or something?”
“Unfortunately,” I answer at the same time as Magdalene says, “His older sister practically raised us and Jessie. ”
“Jessie?” Lauressa asks.
"My niece," I reply.
“Technically,” Magdalene adds, “they’re more like twins since they were born on the exact same day.”
“Wait. Which sister? Madison?”
Magdalene chokes on her water. “Supreme Force, no. That woman hardly raised Jessie as it is. Jaxson's full-blood sister—Candace.”
Lauressa frowns, her eyebrows furrowing as she looks at me.
“The one who...” she begins, but trails off.
Then I remember that I admitted to her months ago that my mother killed my sister, and she’s not sure whether everyone else knows that.
“Died,” I finish for her. “But we have more important matters to discuss than irrelevant family history.”
“I'm not the one delaying the discussion, but yes, you're right,” Magdalene agrees.
“And I’m going to delay it once more," Lauressa interrupts.
I say nothing at Lauressa’s declaration, but I am curious about what she needs to say. Whatever it is, it’s not something we discussed ahead of time.
"Jaxson may be satisfied checking to make sure you don’t have any recording or listening devices on you, but checking you every time we discuss this doesn’t stop you from going straight to Chicago and telling the Oracle everything that was said," she points out.
“He wouldn’t believe me. Not over one of his only heirs,” Magdalene replies, looking pointedly at me .
It’s good to know that she knows her place in all this.
“He doesn’t have to believe you. But you go to him enough times, and it would be enough to plant the seed of doubt. And just because he wouldn’t believe you doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t. Someone the Oracle would believe might try to find out for themselves before taking back the same story.”
And Lauressa calls me paranoid… Yet… she’s right. Our entire plan hinges on creating enough doubt to loosen my father’s grip on the Sovereignty enough that his priests and priestesses are not only willing to entertain but also believe another possibility. Believe that they’ve been following a false prophet all this time.
If that same tactic could possibly work on Sovereigns who have been brainwashed to worship a man, it could definitely work on me. And I don’t have the benefit of being the supposed unquestionable leader of the Sovereignty to help me. So although it’s not something I thought about, I allow Lauressa to continue.
“So what’s your plan to stop me from doing that?” Magdalene asks.
“I want you to offer me dirt. On yourself. Give me the one thing that ruins you,” Lauressa demands.
“And why would I do that?”
“Mutually assured destruction just in case the Oracle or anyone else gives you a better deal.”
“What makes you think I have anything?”
“There’s something. No one in these types of organizations is completely clean, least of all the people in charge. They’re the ones with the biggest secrets to hide. So what’s your skeleton? ”
Magdalene glares but grabs her purse and pulls out a phone. One of three I uncovered during my earlier search of her. It didn’t have any listening or recording bugs, nor was it giving out any signals, so I thought nothing of it. Apparently, I should have.
Magdalene furiously types on it, digging up whatever she has buried on it before she hands the phone over to me. There’s a picture of a boy who looks to be around three or four, with brown eyes, striking red hair, and a grin plastered on his face as he waves at the camera. It’s the red hair, along with the structure of his face and lips, that gives him away.
“You have a son,” I state, handing Lauressa the phone. “Out of wedlock.”
I’m not surprised that Magdalene is hiding something in and of itself. Like Lauressa said, we all are, and Magdalene has done one hell of a job keeping her dirt dead and buried where no one can find it. I could have found it if I looked, but Magdalene has never been enough of a threat for me to care to look for it. And if I had been looking for it, I would have never thought she was hiding a son.
“Yes, I have a son. No, I’m not married. That’s what makes this so damning,” Magdalene snaps. “And so help me, if anything happens to him, I’m going to blame you and ruin your entire life. Fuck your plan.”
I have absolutely no interest in harming Magdalene’s son, nor allowing someone else to harm him. Some child from some no-name father is no concern of mine. But I can’t help contemplating how she would have hidden this. Her security detail, hand-chosen by herself from amongst the most elite of the Sentry—the all women members of the Sovereignty's paramilitary—would have had to help her and keep it quiet. And she would have needed an excuse to not be seen when her pregnancy started to show and while she recovered from the birth.
Suddenly, it comes to me how she hid this.
“That stroke you had a few years ago from stress and had to stay confined for a year to recover. It wasn’t a stroke. You forged the medical records and physical therapy to hide that you were pregnant and giving birth,” I say.
"Yes," Magdalene grunts.
It was a smart move. Faking such a debilitating medical emergency and coming back after making what seemed like a full recovery? Not only could she excuse any fatigue or symptoms afterward as lingering from a stroke, but it also gave her a story of faith and the Supreme Force’s mercy and love for its servants.
Lauressa isn’t satisfied. “That’s still not enough. So what if you have a kid? A boy at that. The Sovereignty doesn’t believe in the virgin birth, right? They’d just call you the new coming of Mary, guided by the Supreme Force. Revealing that might benefit you.” Lauressa pauses. “Who’s his father?”
Magdalene’s lips tighten, and it’s clear that’s the secret she wants to keep buried even more.
It takes everything in me not to grin at my Lauressa’s ruthlessness. Her cunning. Her determination. The things I sensed and saw in her when I first decided she would be mine. It’s nice to see her embrace this side of herself after so long of denying it to me and herself.
She pulls up another file. Moans and groans come from the phone as she hands it to Lauressa first. Based on the sounds coming from the video, I can take a guess at what it is.
“There’s more on there where that came from,” Magdalene admits.
"Perfect," Lauressa breathes and then hands me the phone.
My suspicions were right. It’s a video much more scandalous than simply having a child out of wedlock. It shows Magdalene naked, being fucked by two men while moaning around the cock of another, with a woman bent underneath her. And it’s recent.
I shut off the screen and go to hand it to my men to scrub all the incriminating photos and videos.
When I return, Magdalene, humiliated more than she expected to be in this one night, finally snaps, "What’s your fucking plan?"
Lauressa and I don't delay the point any further.
In the end, Magdalene's as skeptical of Lauressa’s plan as I was at first.
"You want to convince the entire Sovereignty that the man who’s been leading it for over thirty years is a false prophet?" Magdalene asks.
"We don’t need the entire Sovereignty. We just need the inner circle," I say.
"They’re not like us, Jaxson. They believe in the Sovereignty, hook, line, and sinker,” Magdalene points out.
“Exactly. The Sovereignty isn’t one man. One man just happens to lead it,” I repeat, having said something to the effect a thousand times in schools run by the Sovereignty where they drilled this into us.
“We just need to break his hold over them," Lauressa insists.
“And say I believe we can do that. How? We can’t just start spreading rumors around the inner circle. That’s the quickest way to get the Oracle to move against us.”
"We’re going to use my podcast, High Demand ," Lauressa answers.
“High Demand… isn’t that run by Dr. Cult?”
“Yes,” Lauressa admits.
Magdalene looks between Lauressa and I before stating, "You're Dr. Cult. That's how you two met."
Neither I nor Lauressa confirm Magdalene's statement. Not that Magdalene needs the confirmation.
Lauressa continues, "The only thing I need from you is every grievance, gripe, and dissatisfaction you know from members of the Sovereignty about the Oracle and his priests. I’ll tailor my interviews with Raphael’s followers and Jaxson’s father’s opposition."
"If you can get any of Raphael’s supporters to talk. There’s a lot of bad blood between them and the Sovereigns who follow Abdiel."
“That’s why you aren’t going to do anything. I’ll reach out myself. As Dr. Cult," Lauressa says.
"And if this doesn’t work? What’s your backup plan?" Magdalene asks.
“It’s going to work," I state firmly, knowing exactly where Magdalene is going with this. It was one of the first things that grudgingly crossed my mind as a possibility when I almost resigned myself to losing Lauressa to my father. I discarded it almost as soon as I thought it. Magdalene has no reason to.
"But if it doesn’t, there’s one more way to salvage this. You’re not going to like it," Magdalene says, speaking directly to Lauressa now.
“No,” I warn.
Magdalene presses on. "We’d rush your rites, let the Oracle perform the bonding ceremony—"
“No.”
“Then we let him get you pregnant, and with some manipulation, get him to declare the child his heir, and kill him afterward.”
Lauressa opens and closes her mouth in dismay. “You’re asking me to let an old man rape me.”
“Just lie there and take it. Imagine it’s Jaxson,” Magdalene shrugs.
“No,” I state with finality that Magdalene ignores.
She continues, “For me, the sisterhood stays intact. Jaxson, you get Lauressa and control of the Sovereignty by proxy through her and her son. Everyone gets what they want.”
“That’s not what I want,” I snap.
“You want Lauressa, and you want control of the Sovereignty. You’d get both. Just not the way you’d prefer.”
It’s not about preference. It’s about Lauressa deserving more than just being my dirty little secret. I want to show her off. I want people to see how brilliant she is, and know that they can’t have her because I own her. Not because some old man laid a claim on that not even death could break according to the Sovereignty's rules. It’s about not having worked this hard only to rule the Sovereignty from the shadows, and not having the respect and power that comes with it. It’s about having no desire to raise the bastard child of my father.
“Wait. Why would my son become the Oracle?” Lauressa asks. “He wouldn’t skip over Jaxson and his brothers.”
“It won’t be Mason or Landon," Magdalene states. She's not wrong. "Jaxson’s the obvious pick for now. But it’s no secret that the Oracle doesn’t like his choices for heir. He’s been looking for another conduit for a while. If we can trick him into thinking his new, favorite conduit had his son, they’d probably be named heir as soon as they’re born.”
Just because I’m pissed at Magdalene right now doesn’t mean that I don’t have enough sense to know that she’s right. Out of his three sons, I’m the best pick. But it’s not a pick that my father is thrilled about, or else he would have named me his heir a long time ago. Devoted as I’ve been to my father in the last two decades, that wasn’t always the case, and it’s no secret that he’s never forgiven me for it. I’m just the only choice he has… unless he has another son. Which is why Jessie always let me know if there were ever whispers of my father taking another conduit.
Still. Just because I have sense doesn’t mean I like hearing it.
“Get out,” I snap, unwilling to hear anything else Magdalene has to say on the matter. “You know the plan. You know what we need. There’s no purpose to you being here.”
Magdalene doesn’t look offended. Simply stands as she says, “This isn’t personal. I’m not suggesting this because I want you to suffer. But your father is powerful, and if we can’t break his power, the next best option is directing him to use that power in a way that benefits us. I know you’re not used to doing things that way, but you may not have a choice.”
With that, she shows herself out of the dining room to where my security will make sure she leaves the premises.
“Your plan will work,” I say after I can no longer deal with Lauressa’s silence. “My father won’t touch you.”
“But what if she’s right?” Lauressa asks.
“She’s wrong.”
“She’s thinking pragmatically. She’s thinking about the Sovereignty. You’re thinking about me. And your pride.”
“You still question my devotion to you,” I state. It’s not a question. She does. “You still doubt that I won’t let any harm come to you.”
“I don’t doubt that you’ll do everything in your power,” Lauressa says bluntly. “And honestly, that’s all I care about.”
She gets up from the table and leaves. Part of me wants to get up and follow her. To remind her what my power is. That the power I exercise to bend her to my will is only a fraction of what I’ll exercise if it means keeping her safe.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Lauressa, it’s that pain, torment, and outright force aren’t permanent motivators for her. It’s pressure that I have to constantly apply. Constantly remind her of. Constantly force her to see. Because once she gets a moment to breathe, a moment to think outside her torment, Lauressa is good at laying out the facts and rationalizing herself out of what she let herself be convinced of in her torment. The fact that I’ve still failed to break her out of her habit of cursing proves that point .
Thus, that leaves me to prove to her that when I say I’ll do everything to protect her, I will do everything to protect her. Within my power and beyond it if needed.
I can’t even be angry that she doubts me. Lauressa has been taught her whole life to follow a bunch of rules from a god that not only failed her in the end but turned out to be a farce. It’s only natural that when I call myself her god and her my greatest servant, she has her doubts. Her faith has been misplaced before. So the only rational conclusion for her to make is that I’m going to fail her.
She’s wrong, but she’s not wrong for making the assumption.
In the event that her plan fails and I can’t usurp my father, the only option I’m willing to turn to is scorched earth on the entire Sovereignty. But it has to be more than just killing my father, his most important priests, and a few of his inner circle. If I do that, he becomes a martyr who reinvigorates and radicalizes the Sovereignty, and I’d become some Judas figure in the Sovereignty mythos. The same way Loving Eden is now treating their former Deacon Board and Lauressa’s brother. Even worse, now they have the sympathy of the entire broader community. Her revenge may have been personally cathartic, and she’ll never have to face the man who abused her and the people who enabled him, but Loving Eden is still standing even though its building and old leaders are little more than ash.
If I’m going to potentially destroy the Sovereignty, I’ll have to completely expose the rot until there’s nothing for them to stand on. A few months ago, the idea of destroying the Sovereignty was an unfathomable thought. A few months ago, I would have forsaken anything and anyone who even had the inkling of destroying it .
But cults are a dime a dozen. I have the resources and charisma to start another cult. Lauressa is one of a kind. And she’s mine, and I’ll implode my entire life before I let anyone, least of all my father, have her.
I pick up a piece of paper from the pile that has all the Sovereignty’s suspicious financial dealings. Things with the accounting and books that Abner brought to my attention months ago, but that I’d dismissed as unimportant at the time and that Lauressa simply shrugged at because all religious organizations had less than reputable financial dealings somewhere. That may be true, but as the old saying also goes, follow the money.