She was right.
Fuck.
“My mother lived in the shadows her entire life…” Jo looked away, a shadow falling across her face. “Beryl doesn’t get to die in them.”
“He has guards,” I said. “The staff. Everyone is on his side.”
“They’re bought and paid for, but they don’t follow him. We’ve spent months—years—playing his bitch, learning who is on his side and who isn’t. I’m sure you know what that’s like, and you already have a good idea who we’re talking about.”
I did.
I knew everyone who listened to my grandfather. So I knew that it wasn’t as easy as just knowing who they were.
“So what’s your plan?”
They all shared a look.
“I mean…” Jo trailed off,
rubbing her neck.
“You don’t have one.” I laughed. “Because you know even if we managed to separate my grandfather from his sycophants, he still owns everyone from the cops to the prosecutor to the fucking judge and district attorney. And do you have any proof of all the terrible things he’s done?”
Their mouths parted, but nothing came out.
I dragged my hands through my hair. “Fucking great.”
Keller stepped off the window. “We could get rid of his guards. We could do that. They’re so afraid of him if we told them they’d gotten on Beryl’s bad side, they’d run without looking back. And you know who controls the staff.”
My mother.
It could work. I remembered her shaking hands as she’d sat on my bed. I think, for once, she wouldn’t choose my grandfather.
But it only gave us a small window.
“We still don’t have proof, and we still don’t have a way to keep him in jail…”
But a plan was forming in my mind.
You could raze a country. Become a king.
“If we can get proof, I know how we can keep him in jail, how we can sever those political ties.” They leaned forward, waiting. “We have to steal back the coins.”
Charles threw up his hands. “And I thought Jo was insane.”
“You’re the insane one,” Jo muttered.
“Do you really think you can steal coins twice from Beryl?” Keller asked. “We know the story. We know how our father stole them and tried to use them to free us. Beryl won’t let it happen again.”
Once again, I felt like my father. Maybe decades ago my father stole those coins for a selfish reason. Or maybe he was like me, staring at the mouth of a gluttonous monster about to destroy the world.
“We have no choice,” I said. “It’s the only way. If we don’t, we have no leverage. And if we don’t, he’s too fucking powerful. If he goes through with his plan he’ll be…unstoppable. He could destroy our entire family.”
“And if we somehow manage to pull this off?”
“We use it to topple a throne, to destroy a king. We use the coin to demand a favor of the man my grandfather has been using to threaten me from the beginning: District Attorney Millard.”
“He could challenge.”