Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
Levi
“You can really stop fussing. I’m fine.” I give Zephyrine a doubtful look.
She's been at my bedside in the ranch house every day during my recovery from my collapsed lung.
Fluffing my pillows, feeding me, and trying to make sure I have everything I could possibly want to read and watch while I was on bed rest.
I loved the first few days of it. Having her care for me in the wake of everything, knowing she was alive and well and safe from her father.
It kept my mind at ease. But now, I’m ready for the end of the nursemaid-nun routine, and eager to have some semblance of what we had from before—to have my girl back.
My girl.
For now. Not for much longer though. With Charlotte and Zephyrine’s research into the relics, it’s obvious we need to return them.
They belong back in the hands of the nuns at the convent, where they can stay safe until they’re returned to their rightful place.
The same is true of Zephyrine. She’ll go back to being Sister Mary Anthony, and I'll lose her forever.
But first, we have to make a final decision on the information we have about her father. How to best get it out to the public, and I want Zephyrine in on the decision process. So tonight, we’ve got one final meeting with my family and the Kellys to see what options we have in front of us.
“So to summarize…” Grant glances around the table, sitting back in his chair as he surveys the whole group of us—Zephyrine, me, Charlotte, Hudson, Finn, Ramsey, Hazel, Dakota, Aspen, and Rowan.
“There’s a series of black books that were pulled from the Schaefer vault.
A forensic accountant we hired confirmed it has all the telltale signs of off-book accounting— embezzlement of public funds, bribery of public and private officials, and some piss-poor money-laundering scams that seem to have lost him money. ”
“That’s what he gets for going to someone other than the Stocktons,” Hudson muses.
Grant tilts his head, a small smirk forming in acknowledgment.
“We need to decide what we want to do with it. How to wield it in the most politically damaging way. If we can find a journalist who we might trust to break the story,” I explain.
“How do we prove that the papers are authentic without getting you arrested?” Dakota asks thoughtfully.
“That’s part of the problem we have to solve,” I answer.
“This is fucked.” Ramsey stares at the stack of paperwork on the table.
I made physical copies just in case something ever happened to the digitals, but I also made backup drives of the backup drives, so it’s unlikely. Still, I like to be thorough.
“I mean, it’s unsurprising. It seems like he caught Dad up in one of his bad deals, and that’s how he got dragged into all this relic business in the first place.
They were trying to recoup losses. The governor wanted Dad to help with his little side project, and he roped him into it by telling him it’d be the way to make himself whole again with money,” I continue.
“Knowing full fucking well it was never going to pay off because he was never going to sell them.” Grant’s pissed.
“Which is probably another reason why he killed them. They can’t ask for their money back or turn him into the cops for reneging if they aren’t alive to do it.” Ramsey comes to the same conclusion the rest of us have.
“And why he wanted us dead. It's the only way to bury this for good,” I add.
“But why go after the ranch? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. He sent Curtis on a mission to marry me in hopes of what?” Hazel asks.
She thought she was divorced from my youngest brother, Ramsey, when this mystery started to come to light.
She was engaged to a man who was working at our casino, and he was involved with her almost from the day he appeared in town.
Thankfully, Ramsey had come home from jail just in time to intervene and help us unravel his plan and win his wife back.
“Well, he knew we never handed over the relic. His guys jumped the gun and killed our parents before we had a chance to come home. So I imagine Curtis was here to find it on the property.”
“It seems like a reach, but then it seems like the governor was making a lot of unforced errors.” Hazel shakes her head, and half the table nods along.
“Thankfully. I’d hate to see what someone fully competent in his position could do,” Rowan comments.
“But he’s always had a problem with money. Never enough of it, right?” Hudson looks between Grant, who’s summarizing the findings, and Charlotte, who uncovered them.
“Correct,” they agree in unison.
“He’s drowning in debts, and they’ve made him vulnerable to a lot of bad actors. He’s chosen to get in bed with a number of them. This information”—Charlotte taps the stack of paperwork as she speaks—“could take down his whole career and half the people in the state of Colorado.”
“Including us?” Ramsey asks.
“Our parents. But they’re already buried,” I answer.
“But what about your role in the robbery?”
“Tougher, but we’ve hired a lawyer who says it would be an easy deal for immunity if we had the right people on our side. But we need to find some people in high places if we want to get that immunity deal.” I explain our biggest dilemma.
“Someone who wants the same things we want.” Hudson points out the politically advantageous nature of the documents.
Any opponent of the governor would be eager to have it.
We just need to know we can trust them to use it wisely.
I don’t want the governor weaseling out of career-ending headline stories because he’s still in recovery or because he finds some way to spin this.
“I have an idea,” Hazel chimes in, looking at Ramsey, who nods supportively.
“Share with the class.” Finn smiles at the two of them and then looks back at Charlotte. The four of them are good friends.
“Our friend Bea in Cincinnati. Ramsey saved her life a while back. It’s what landed him in jail,” Hazel explains for Zephyrine’s benefit. “Her father is a senator. In Washington, but still… He’s likely got connections to the senators in Colorado. I wonder if he could set up a meeting?”
“That’s genius.” Dakota smiles at her friend.
Charlotte and Hudson nod along and look at Grant.
“Can we trust her? There are a lot of secrets to keep. A lot of family baggage.”
“She knows family baggage,” Ramsey chimes in. “And she knows secrets. She works in the PR business. If anything, she might be able to help us find the right journalist to spin it, or knows someone who can.”
“Then let’s reach out to her. See what she thinks and if she’s willing. Agreed?” Grant looks around for a consensus from the table, and the plan meets with everyone’s approval.
Zephyrine squeezes my hand under the table, and I give her a reassuring squeeze back.