35. Jaxson
35
Jaxson
I t’s been a long day, and the day isn’t even halfway through yet.
When I sent a team of my most loyal men ahead to surveil the location Mason gave me, I busied myself with mindless work to distract myself from the wait, knowing that I wouldn’t get any useful information until Tuesday night at the earliest, but likely much later. First, they had to make the drive to the location, which took three hours; then they needed to set up surveillance, and after that, the surveillance needed to go on for at least twenty-four hours to get anything particularly useful, especially if not many people were coming and going. Realistically, I knew I wouldn’t know anything until Wednesday night.
What I forgot to count on was Lauressa’s own ingenuity and resourcefulness. I should know. During the months when she was in denial of her place with me and at my side, she was constantly finding ways to take back control, thwart my plans, and, in general, outmaneuver me. It’s one of the reasons she captivated me in the first place. Like myself, she not only hides her hand, she hides two other cards up her sleeves, comprised of a myriad of useful skills, tricks, and unlikely connections to one-up someone when they try to force her to conform.
So before I could get an intelligence report from my men, I received her phone call telling me where she was. The confirmation of her location was all I was waiting for, and I needed to go to her myself.
By car, the place where she’s being held, the very place my men are watching, is three hours away. Having access to a private jet significantly reduced that time. With Lilah and Adah in tow after insisting they come too and having no time to argue with them about it, we arrived at the city of Lauressa’s location in thirty minutes and took another fifteen to get there.
My only goal had been to get Lauressa to my side again and figure out what to do from there. I’d been prepared to cut my losses, to give up any ambitions of ruling the Sovereignty and resort to my plan of burning it to the ground. I hadn’t imagined in my wildest dreams that my father would chase Lauressa out of that building, drag her in front of him, and admit from his mouth that he killed Raphael while my men were on surveillance, visually and audio recording the entire encounter while livestreaming it to me, Adah, and Lilah.
Even better than the surveillance audio is the audio recording from staying on the phone line with Lauressa in the hour it took to get to her.
Now that we have that admission, my father’s hold on the Sovereignty is done .
The question is what to do with the admission and how. And I’ve only got until Saturday to figure it out, the day that we postponed the meeting my father called.
“It’s on two separate recordings,” Landon snaps. “We all saw it. Mom and Adah saw it. Your men all witnessed it. How can that not be enough to prove anything?”
Landon is treating this entire thing like we’re dealing with rational people. If the people in the Sovereignty were rational, the Sovereignty wouldn’t exist. Even if some of them are still rational, they won’t be rational about this. Years of indoctrination have trained them to believe everything but what their eyes tell them without an obvious sign from the Supreme Force to tell them otherwise. No matter how many experts we bring in to show the recordings weren’t doctored, that multiple people witnessed it, people will question it. They’ll call us false witnesses. They’ll say that we’re Judas, persecuting their savior just like he said he would be by the people he trusted the most.
But instead of explaining all that to Landon and risking completely disillusioning him from the Sovereignty, I say, “If all you’re going to do is sit there and whine without giving any meaningful solutions to this mess, go make yourself useful. I’m sure Magdalene could use your help.”
Landon looks like he wants to argue with me, but instead gets up from my desk and goes, presumably, to do exactly what I suggested. Only he stops halfway.
I resist letting out a sigh.
"Jaxson. About…" He trails off.
"Yes," I prompt .
"About me and Caleb. I… Since you already know, I'm just letting you know…" He trails off again.
"I had no intention of outing you before. I have no intention of outing you now. The only reason you'll ever be outed is because you outed yourself," I answer curtly. Of all things, Landon and his indiscreet relationship with Caleb isn't even on the list of things I'm concerned about.
"But you're going to Oracle… You're…"
" If I'm anointed as the one true Oracle, one of the first things I plan to do is commune with the Supreme Force about this matter. It's not a stretch of the imagination that a false Oracle might not have been telling the truth about his communion the many times I petitioned him about the matter," I answer.
"You… You asked Dad about… about me and Caleb?"
"No. I asked about it in general because I didn't think the Supreme Force would disapprove of it and that it was keeping some of the Supreme Force's chosen Sovereigns from finding their place," I state.
Landon looks at me for a long time. So long, I start to wonder if I might have broken something in him. Then, before I can react, he crosses the room and throws his arms around me in a hug.
"Get off," I snap.
"Lauressa was right about you," Landon says instead of letting go.
"Depends on what she said."
Landon finally lets me go with a pep in his step and in a much better mood than he was when he was going to leave the first time.
"Where are you going? "
"Don't worry. You're not getting rid of me permanently."
"Unfortunately."
"I'm going to help Magdalene. Like you said," he calls from the hall before disappearing completely.
Magdalene, while concerned about the fallout of my father’s admission after seeing it on camera, has been more concerned about the girls found captive in the building disguised as a home for down-on-their-luck men. She’s taking names, trying to find families, and also trying to find bodies. Considering what Lauressa witnessed while she was spending time with my father at his farm, there are many bodies to find, and it’s best that we discover where they’re hidden before anyone else does and can use it against the Sovereignty. Now that it looks like I can keep the Sovereignty intact, the last thing I want is for anyone to equate my father’s sins with it. Which means the fewer people who know about the more heinous of his crimes, the better. I’ll personally make sure he gets his due justice.
Speaking of Lauressa, she’s the one I need right now. Not just for her expertise in control, manipulation, and cults, which would help lend to a solution to the most pressing issue, but also just to have her with me. Her smile. Her wit. Her banter. Her fire. Her stubbornness.
But since being checked over by a doctor and having Lilah fuss over her like a surrogate mother, she’s been asleep. She was so tired that she didn’t want to eat despite the fact that she had only had a little water in the last three days. So the doctor wrapped her sprained wrist and put her on an IV, and she’s been out ever for the last ten hours while I try to figure out this entire mess .
For a moment, I wonder how I ever got anything done without her. Was I always this ineffective without her to bounce my ideas off of? It almost makes me wonder if there’s actual credence to the Sovereignty’s teaching that a man can’t be a real man who can affect change without a woman by his side. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, it is true that Lauressa is my better half. Not having her here with me dealing with this feels like I’ve got a broken leg in a cast and am being forced to walk without a crutch. I’ll eventually get to where I need to be, but she makes things so much easier.
My phone rings.
“What?” I ask, not even bothering with the pretense of politeness. I’m not in a good mood and don’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.
“You have a visitor downstairs.”
“Tell them I’m not seeing anyone right now,” I reply. If it were anyone I needed to talk to right now, I’d know they were coming already.
“It’s the Queen Priestess.”
“I’ll be right down,” I say, hanging up the phone.
I get up way too quickly, and the wound in my side from yesterday screams in pain, causing me to take a moment to center myself and focus to ignore it. I should be resting, according to the doctor, but when the Sovereignty is on the line, there is no rest.
When I get downstairs, Bathsheba Devine is sitting comfortably in the living room, waiting for my arrival. I wouldn’t know she was comfortably in her seventies looking at her youthful beige-brown skin. Her hair, still as dark as it was in her youth even while streaked with gray. The curls of her natural hair straightened and styled in eighties-style blowout waves. Her dark eyes as sharp and cold as they've ever been.
While I’ve seen her around the Sovereignty my entire life, I’ve only met her once and certainly never had a full conversation with her.
“Queen Priestess,” I say cautiously. Because until we formally announce that my father is no longer Oracle and technically never should have been, that’s exactly what she is. Until I know what she wants, it’s better to play into the respectabilities of the Sovereignty.
“Cut the games and call me Bathsheba,” she snaps as she fixes her coffee. “We both know why I’m here.”
“Do we?” I ask, sitting across from her, the pain in my side immediately easing.
She glares at me over the rim of her coffee, takes a sip, and says, “I know what my husband admitted to you in front of over a dozen witnesses. I know that you have it on tape. And I know that we both know it won’t be enough alone to convince the Sovereignty that he’s not the one true Oracle.”
“Who gave you that story?” I ask, not keen on admitting to any of that without knowing who and what her source is.
“My son,” she says.
“Mason.”
“He’s the only son I have.”
It’s a very pointed jab. A reminder that Bathsheba has never seen any of my father’s other children as her own. She's always kept her distance from them and the conduits .
“Don’t worry. I couldn’t care less what you do with the Sovereignty. I couldn’t care less that you’ve been jockeying to become the heir to the seat of Oracle since my husband ordered your mother to kill your sister. As long as my husband loses and is ruined in all this, I don’t care who wins this stupid game of thrones insanity, even if the winner is you,” she says spitefully.
“Last I checked, I didn’t do anything to earn your spite except expose the husband you claim to want to see lose.”
“You didn’t. Unfortunately for you, I’m not a big enough person to separate how much I despise Nancy Graham from her last living child.”
“Can’t say I blame you for that. We have hating Nancy Graham in common.”
“Maybe we do. But you don’t understand what it was like, watching my husband pine after another woman. With her blonde hair and her blue eyes. And then to have a child by her and justify his adultery by making her a conduit twenty years later, only to have another boy child who you knew as soon as he was born would steal the birthright that rightfully belonged to your son,” she snaps at me. Then she adds derisively, “Even if it is all a huge scam.”
“That’s a blasphemous thing to say.”
Bathsheba scoffs. “As if you actually think so. I clocked you from the moment I met you. You were always too sharp and too curious to actually believe that any of this was true. But too ambitious not to see the opportunity the Sovereignty could provide. Even if I hadn’t, only a man who knew this was all just one big scam would be brave enough to attempt to discredit the sitting Oracle over a woman. Otherwise, you would have just killed him like Abdiel killed Zachariah and Raphael.”
There’s not much in the Sovereignty that surprises me anymore, but Bathsheba’s words do, for multiple reasons.
“Dad knew he was running a con?” I ask.
Bathsheba laughs. “Supreme Force, no! He believes every single thing that came out of Zachariah’s mouth. If Zachariah had told my husband to eat his own bowel movement to please him and the Supreme Force, he would have done it."
“But he killed him.”
“And Judas betrayed Jesus,” Bathsheba says with a shrug. Then she adds, “And you’re betraying your father.”
“I hate my father.”
“Same can be said about Judas with Jesus. Doesn’t mean he didn’t see Jesus as his friend. Doesn’t mean he didn’t love him too.”
“Trust me, there’s no love in my heart for my father.”
Bathsheba laughs. “If you weren’t Nancy’s son, I think I would like you, Jaxson. As it is, I can get over it enough to help you.”
“How?” I ask.
“In two ways. First, by giving you a piece of advice.” Bathsheba leans forward and whispers as though we aren’t the only two around to hear her, “Never be such an arrogant bastard that you think that even if people did find out your crimes, you would get away with them, so you store evidence of said crimes with your wife.”
I smirk, seeing exactly how she plans to help me but playing her game nonetheless.
“And the second way? ”
“By giving the evidence of my arrogant bastard husband’s crimes over to his arrogant bastard son,” she says with a smile. “With a few conditions, of course.”
“Name them,” I state.
“I want to keep the house in Colorado. Take it out of the Sovereignty’s and my husband’s name and put it in mine. I don’t care what legal loopholes you have to go through to do it, just do it.”
“Done.”
“Once you expose my husband for a fraud and get people to believe you, everything he’s ever done, every decree in the Sovereignty will be undone. I’ve got a list of good ones that I want you to declare as valid,” she says.
“That all depends on what your definition of good is and if it continues to protect the longevity of the Sovereignty.”
“Fair,” Bathsheba says without argument. “This next one is non-negotiable.”
I nod, indicating for her to name it.
“Once you expose my husband for a fraud, that’s also going to invalidate his bonds to Lilah and Adah and put them at risk for being accused of adultery and fornication. I want to make sure you don’t punish them for this. None of what my husband did was their fault. So no giving them time out the Sovereignty for it or any slander toward them.”
“I was under the impression that you hated all your husband’s conduits.”
“I hated your mother. Your mother was messing with my husband long before he became Oracle to justify it, even though people conveniently overlook that. Although I don’t particularly wish to be friends with them, I can at least admit Lilah and Adah were manipulated like every other person in this mess. I can sympathize with them in ways only another woman can sympathize with other women, even those she hates. They don’t deserve to be punished for this, and neither do their children. I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out a way to spin this with Dr. Cult’s help.”
“Dr. Cult is an enemy to the Sovereignty and—”
“The enemy of my enemy is my ally,” Bathsheba says before continuing on with her conditions. “I don’t know where you’re holding my husband or what you plan to do with him, but whatever it is, I want you to make sure that he rots. I don’t want to hear or see even a hair from him ever again.”
“I was going to do that anyway.”
“Perhaps… but you never know with men. They protect their own.”
“Anything else?” I ask.
“No. I won’t give you trouble. Neither will Mason and Madison,” she assures.
“Thank you,” I reply. Genuinely. She doesn't have to do this, after all.
Bathsheba laughs. “No. Thank you for giving my husband what he’s had coming. If I knew I could trust you to do it, I would have come to you a long time ago.”