31. Jaxson
31
Jaxson
O ne thing I’ve learned over the years of navigating the treacherous winter storm of the Sovereignty is to trust my intuition. Sometimes, no matter how much information I think I don’t have, if I have a feeling about something, I’ve learned to follow it. At worst, it was nothing, and I was just being paranoid. At best, I was right all along.
If I believed in the Sovereignty, the doctrine would say that’s the Supreme Force speaking to me. Other religions would say that it was their respective deities. From Allah to Buddha. What all of it really comes down to is a bunch of neural pathways made over years and decades by the brain that makes it subconsciously recognize a pattern that lends to a certain conclusion even if we can’t consciously explain it. Everyone has it. Just some have more of a natural talent for it than others or have trained themselves to pay more attention to the patterns.
So when it suddenly occurs to me to call Magdalene about Lauressa the Friday after she takes her rites, I decide to indulge in the feeling and call .
“She took her rites. That’s why you haven’t heard from her,” Magdalene says in a clipped tone.
She’s not telling me something.
“She took her rites five days ago,” I point out.
“She’s been busy.”
“The only thing that’s been keeping her busy is processing, High Demand, and maintaining a cover for doing the books at the store, during which time she would have contacted me. What aren’t you telling me?”
Magdalene is silent on the other line, and I run through every piece of threat and blackmail that I have on her to get her to talk. I don’t want to resort to her little sex tape yet. I don’t need to ruin her. I don’t want to ruin her. I still need her help.
Before I can get to threatening her, she says, “She’s with your father on his spiritual retreat at the farm.”
“By herself,” I say, sitting up.
“He wants to have the bonding ceremony for him and Lauressa before Vindication Day. It’s planned for the first week of August according to Ruth.”
“And you’re telling me this now, knowing she couldn’t get in contact with me to tell me herself?” I ask, having to put my phone down and put it on speaker or else I’ll snap it in half.
“There was nothing to tell.”
“This is not nothing.”
“It is. Because the plan is still the same. Only now we’ve got a strict deadline,” Magdalene says, “And either your little plan is going to work or it’s not going to work. ”
“With time—”
“Face it, Jaxson. If your plan is going to work, it’s going to work in the next couple of months or it’s not. And if it doesn’t work, if we want the Sovereignty to survive, if you want to become Oracle and have Lauressa, you’re going to have to have her in the shadows and be her secret lover the same way all the other conduits who have had lovers did and do.”
Part of me is irritated because this has clearly been her plan all along. To cooperate with Lauressa and me, wait for us to, in her opinion, inevitably fail, get Lauressa bonded with my father, wait for her to get pregnant with a boy child, and have my father declare him future Oracle. Because at the end of the day, Magdalene’s goal is only the survival of the Sovereignty, and she’s made it clear that she doesn’t think that if I become Oracle, it will survive in the end. She’d prefer Lauressa to be bonded to my father, have his child, and have him named heir over me.
Magdalene adds, “If it makes you feel any better, your father is a stickler for the appearance of propriety. He’ll probably just go on some long walks with her, have a couple of dinners, and bore her to death with his gracious wisdom.”
That’s what my father would do with any other woman in the Sovereignty. Women who would probably sell everything they own just to be glanced at by the man who calls himself the Oracle. Who would hang on every word the man says without challenging him. But Lauressa says what’s on her mind, argues, and won’t do as she’s told if it doesn’t make any sense to her. Even worse than that, if she’s not told not to do something, she’ll undoubtedly do it even if she thinks there are people who would probably rather her not.
Her fierceness has amused me as much as it’s infuriated me. No doubt, it will infuriate my father. But the difference is that I love Lauressa. Violently. Obsessively. Torturously. In ways that would make people question if I loved her at all. But I do. To my father, Lauressa is just a useful tool to exercise his control over me by flaunting in my face what’s rightfully mine after he’s stolen it from me. There are other ways to do that. Less effective ways. But also ways that don’t leave her alive or where I can keep an eye on her.
Not to mention, Magdalene doesn’t have the added knowledge that my father is trafficking girls into Chicago, so I don’t have as much faith in his propriety as she does.
All that said, there’s little I can do about it all the way from South Carolina, so I snap at her, “You get her to the store and have her call me as soon as she’s back.”
I hang up the phone, not waiting for Magdalene to argue with me about that. It would be a waste of time because at the end of it all, she’s going to do exactly as I say and make sure I’m able to talk to Lauressa.
Monday morning, I get a call, but not from Lauressa or even Magdalene. It’s Landon.
I’m tempted not to answer the phone. The last person I want to deal with is him right now. But I answer anyway. Just in case I need to talk him down from doing something stupid.
“He did something to her,” Landon says as soon as I answer.
“Did something to who? ”
“Lauressa. Our father, the Oracle! He… She’s been answering her phone and sending pictures all weekend and it suddenly stopped Sunday night. Then the Oracle came back this morning without her to go back to Colorado. He said that she liked it so much out there that she decided to stay for a couple of more days, but she’s not answering her phone. I think he did something to her.”
I’m already out of my chair, contacting my pilots to be here in the next hour to fly me to Chicago. I prefer commercial public flights normally. They’re a lot more discreet when I don’t want anyone to know where I’m going and how I’m moving. Not to mention, it silences the voice of my sister in my head talking about carbon footprints and the ecological nightmare private jets are. But Lauressa is more important than my carbon footprint right now.
“Do you have anyone who can drive out to the farm and find out if she’s still there?” I ask.
“So that the Oracle can find out that I’m doubting his word when they inevitably report me for not trusting him?” Landon asks.
Landon’s statement is one of the many reasons I refused to take the position of the High Priest. Without an official title, I could hire my own men and make them more or less loyal to me. As long as I’m not outright going against the Oracle, they’ll do what I say, no questions asked.
“Then you and Caleb go,” I say.
“Jaxson, I’m going to be in enough trouble as it is when you show up here and the Oracle wonders how you found out.”
“Exactly. So what’s one more act of rebellion?”
“Jaxson— ”
“You wouldn’t have called me if you thought there wasn’t something we could do about it. You wouldn’t have called me if you weren’t ready to take a stand against the Oracle.”
“I didn’t say all that,” Landon mutters. “It’s just that Lauressa… with everything with the Oracle and that stupid podcast and South Carolina… I just want to be sure.”
“Then go be sure that she’s at the farm and call me afterward.”
“But how—”
I hang up the phone, not interested in having to take my brother’s hand and walk him step by step into how to do this without the Oracle or the S-Team finding out. He’s mostly hidden an entire relationship from everyone since he was sixteen. He can figure out how to case the farm and find out if Lauressa is there.
“Is Res okay?” J asks, coming out of his room.
“What did I tell you about eavesdropping on me when I’m on my calls?”
“What did I tell you about talking so loud that I don’t try to eavesdrop? It just happens.”
“I’m dropping you off at the Yates’ while I’m gone. I can trust you and Serenity not to sneak out in the middle of the night and get yourselves into trouble, can’t I?”
“The Yates! No!”
“Did something happen between you and Serenity that you haven’t told me that you don’t want to go there?” I ask.
“What? No! Me and Rini are fine,” J says. “I want to come with you if Res is in trouble. ”
“The last place you need to be if Res is in trouble is Chicago. Stay with the Yates’.”
“Jaxson—”
“J, you’re wasting time I could be spending helping Lauressa,” I say bluntly.
J closes his mouth. “Fine. But call me as soon as you hear something.”
I nod, leaving two of my men instructions to get J to the Yates’ and then they’re to follow me directly to Chicago when they’re done.
The jet is waiting for me when I get there, and it only takes the time for me to board and be seated for us to be in the air headed straight for Chicago. I keep waiting for a phone call from Landon, but logically, I know getting out to the farm is going to take at least a couple of hours even in the best of traffic and going top speeds.
By the time I hear anything from Landon, I’m walking off my jet to the waiting car.
“She’s not here. I checked the entire place.”
“You checked the trails.”
“Yes.”
“Dad’s private quarters and meditation area?”
“I’m in Dad’s private fucking altar, Jaxson,” Landon says. “I am so fucked if he finds out I was here. I’m fucked if he doesn’t. Supreme Force—”
I tune him out. He’s given me the important information. Lauressa isn’t at the farm. He could have taken her anywhere. She could be across state lines. She could be dead, and we’d be looking for a body, in which case, I’m razing the entire Sovereignty to the ground, complete with assassinations, tortures, and public humiliation via a tip to the federal government about the trafficking being funded by—
The trafficking…
I know from Sandford’s daughter that her father was taking the supposed shipment from South Carolina to Chicago. But I never managed to track the shipment between Landon, J, and Serenity. The plan was simply to wait for the next shipment to come in and track it from there. But the third Thursday is almost a month away, and if Lauressa is in my father’s grasp, she doesn’t have that kind of time. That means I have to resort to the riskier plan to find out where the shipment is.
Talking to Priest Maines himself.
I don’t want my father to know that I’m in the city yet, so I go to Jessie’s. Her husband is on the S-Team, but he’s usually away at work until late in the evening, so her place should be safe.
When I arrive, just like last time I was here, it’s not Jessie who answers the door. It’s Magdalene.
“Jaxson,” Magdalene says with a frown. “How did you get into the city so quickly?”
I would assume that Landon told her I was coming if not for the fact that she still seems confused that I’m here at all.
“What are you talking about? I got here so quickly?”
“For the meeting…”
“Meeting,” I say and then check my email.
Sure enough, there’s an invite from my father’s offices calling for a mandatory meeting of all his priests and priestesses nationally and internationally. It’s the international part that makes me raise an eyebrow. My father has called countless meetings for every level of the Sovereignty over the years. But rarely does he mandate that Sovereigns from the altars internationally come into the country. Usually, they’re allowed to livestream in. But my father has called them all in for a meeting at six pm Wednesday.
“Your plan is actually working,” Magdalene says as she leads me inside. “It seems like hearing actual personal stories that the Oracle hasn’t been able to get ahead of is doing the trick. People are talking about that last podcast, and they’re talking about it a lot. Especially since Lauressa planted the idea that your father might not be the true chosen Oracle? Now they’re starting to talk.”
The last podcast was Abigail reading the stories, letters, and reports Abner had collected over the years of negative, sordid, and outright exploitative behavior from my father. She was supposed to record it in advance, but at the last minute, Abigail changed the plan so that she’d be live with a live chat for people to ask questions. Though the Sovereigns are supposed to be ignoring it, there were many in the chat who said that they could corroborate details and backed up that “Dr. Cult” wasn’t lying. Since then, Abigail’s been inundated with DMs and emails, most with verification to prove validity. She’s only been waiting to talk to Lauressa to figure out what to do with it all.
“It’s not good,” Jessie confirms. “There was some talk before, but now there’s a lot more. One of my friends… hers was one of the stories read. The one with the S-Team member that raped her. ”
“That would be something to celebrate if Lauressa weren’t missing,” I snap.
“Missing. I told you. She—”
“Went on a spiritual retreat with my father and didn’t come back. Landon checked the farm. She’s not there.”
“Landon. Since when is he in on this?”
“Since he found out the Oracle is running a trafficking scheme,” I say. I ignore Magdalene’s surprised outburst and Jessie’s gasp. “He gets a shipment from South Carolina every third Thursday. I suspect that his little retreats in his private meditation chambers are doing whatever it is he does with those girls.”
“Girls!” Magdalene says, and if she weren’t on board with taking my father down before, she is now.
“Wait a minute,” Jessie says. “It’s one thing to accuse him of killing Raphael and all the other stuff. But trafficking girls?”
“He wouldn’t be the first religious leader known to,” Magdalene mutters.
I continue to ignore them and add, “If Lauressa’s not at the farm, she must be wherever they hold the girls until my father does whatever he’s doing to them. I think the High Priest in South Carolina knows where that is.”
“So you’re going back to South Carolina to question him?” Jessie asks.
“He can’t. We have that meeting Wednesday. Once the Oracle finds out you’re in the city with that coming up, he’ll start asking questions if you leave,” Magdalene points out.
She’s right about that, and I wish I’d taken one moment to slow down and think it all through before I got on a plane and came here. But like all things when it comes to Lauressa, I lose all control and my ability to act rationally diminishes.
“Some of my men are back in South Carolina,” I say. “I’ll have them bring Maines to me.”
“And then what?” Jessie asks.
“We make him atone.”
My plans for atonement never come to fruition.
Only hours after I gave my men the instruction to bring Priest Maines to me, I am looking at his dead body.
It’s not surprising. If my men were willing to kill themselves just because I told them to on account of seeing Lauressa naked, of course one of my dad’s most dedicated men who’s running his trafficking scheme killed himself at even the thought that he might be forced to betray his leader.
I leave my men at the safe house with the body, with the instructions to check for trackers and monitors. If the man was given cyanide to off himself, it’s not a stretch of the imagination that there might be some hidden monitor on him that lets my father know that he’s dead. If that’s the case, my window for finding exactly where he takes his illegal merchandise and where Lauressa might be has significantly narrowed.
“Now what?” Magdalene asks once I return .
Somehow I find myself bouncing Deaccan in my lap as I contemplate what my options are. I could question the S-Team, but they’re likely more loyal to my father than Priest Maines was. My men are currently searching the docks where they hold the girls until pickup on the third Thursday, and they’re creating the pretense to force Maines’s family out of his home so they can search it for clues. But that could take days that we don’t have time for. I’m positive my father didn’t just kill her. Otherwise, why would he go through the trouble of saying she’s at the farm instead of running away or something? But that might not be true the longer it takes to find her.
One thing I know about Lauressa is that she’s not afraid of death, or if she is, she’s able to overcome that fear relatively easily. I held a fucking dagger to her neck, and she still found a way to rebel against me. But my father and his men wouldn’t be so merciful.
“Jaxson,” Magdalene says.
“I heard you,” I snap.
“Then what?”
I don’t know. But I refuse to admit that to Magdalene. I refuse to say it out loud. There’s something I’m missing. Something I overlooked before…
The doorbell rings.
“That must be Landon,” Jessie says, getting up to open the door.
Magdalene looks at me when she’s left and says, “You know that whatever happens, it needs to happen by Thursday. If we let your father get ahead of this with his priests and priestesses, this little plan of yours is over. It won’t matter if we find Lauressa. ”
Before I can answer that, Jessie and Landon come into the room, but they aren’t alone. Lilah, Mason, and Adah are behind them.
I open my mouth to demand why they’re here, only to be cut off by Adah, who says, “Down boy. We can help you find Lauressa.”
“Why?” I ask, even though I can very well be wasting time. “Your Oracle said she’s at the farm.”
“And my son says she’s not there, and if there’s anyone I’m going to believe over the Oracle, it’s my baby boy,” Lilah snaps, looking completely distraught over this.
“No,” I say, stepping toward her. Because I know how this works. The first thing everyone in the Sovereignty is taught is to always obey and believe the Oracle. No matter what or who tells you otherwise. Lilah wouldn’t just believe her “baby boy” if there wasn’t something else.
“What do you know?” I demand.
“I’ve been listening to Dr. Cult… about the Sovereignty is all. Not about… I still think the Sovereignty is good and true and the Supreme Force is real and—”
“Get on with it, Lilah,” I demand.
“Hey,” Landon says, stepping forward. “That’s my mother.”
“It’s okay, honey. He’s just scared for the woman he loves. I understand,” Lilah says, making Landon back down. “Just… I think there may be some merit to him not being the true Oracle.”
“That doesn’t help me find—”
“Let them finish,” Landon says.
“Them?” I ask, my eyes finding Mason’s .
Like with Landon, while Mason is my blood brother, we weren’t raised as such. By the time I was born, he was in his late teens, and by the time I met him, he was an adult man. My opinion of him is the opinion I made of him when I met him after Candace died. That he was a spineless man who ran behind my father as a glorified secretary with no power, despite the fact that he’s the Oracle’s son, and that he was ultimately more harmless than everyone else.
“We were… involved in our youth,” Lilah says delicately. “We were supposed to get married. But your father…”
“Your father did the same thing to them that he’s trying to do with you, Lauressa,” Adah says. “But instead of lying down and rolling over belly-up, he fought your father on it. Both of them did.”
“When did this happen?” I ask.
Lilah waves a dismissive hand and says, “You would have been too young to know about it. You actually weren’t living at the main house at the time. That was after Nancy got her own place with Candace. Anyway, we tried to run, but your father’s men… they took us and… I had no choice. I gave in right away. He threatened to kill your brother. He said that’s what happens when you defy the will of the Supreme Force. I came back and married him, but your brother… He wouldn’t give up, and your father took him somewhere and lied that he’d left on his own and… and…” Lilah bursts into tears.
I leave the comforting of her to Magdalene, who pulls the woman into a hug, and turn to Mason.
“Do you have any idea where he took you?” I demand, not needing to know the details.
“You believe us,” Mason says. “Just like that. ”
“I didn’t need a podcast to tell me that our father is an evil man,” I state. “He killed Candace.”
“He what?” Jessie and Magdalene say simultaneously.
“He killed…” Jessie trails off. “You’re lying.”
“Technically, he gave Nancy the order,” I add.
Now Jessie is crying, and Adah is pulling her into a hug.
Magdalene simply looks at me and says, “Well, I suppose she had her death coming then.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I look at Mason and say again, “Do you know where he took you?”
“Yes,” Mason says. “I searched for it for years until I found it. Whatever he does with the place, Samson is in on it.”
I can’t say I’m not surprised at Mason’s cooperation. Here I thought he was spineless.
“I know what you think of me,” Mason says, as though reading my mind. “That I’m our father’s spineless son who runs around behind him as little more than his secretary.”
“But you, Magdalene, and Jessie aren’t the only ones who have had questions about the Oracle’s methods.” Mason huffs, “If he even is the true Oracle at this point. I knew the man wasn’t great, but killing the true Oracle?”
Even after everything, the only blasphemy they’ll entertain is that our father is an imposter. Not that the entire Sovereignty is a scam. I’m so close. I can practically taste the power of that kind of influence. But first things first. Lauressa.