Chapter 8
The name was Peter Shaw.
Junior capo.
Thirty-eight.
Ambitious.
Careful enough to look harmless.
Peter moved four senior captains from the lower lawn to the covered terrace thirty minutes before Elliot was chained.
He claimed the sun was too strong.
I almost laughed.
It was.
Especially for a three-year-old chained beneath it.
Peter stood in my office that evening looking pale.
“Agatha asked me to adjust seating.”
“Why?”
“She said she wanted certain men close for a discussion.”
“What discussion?”
He looked toward Julian.
Wrong choice.
I noticed.
Peter finally said:
“Continuity.”
There was that word.
Every coup eventually discovers vocabulary polite enough for dinner.
“What were you promised?”
“Nothing.”
I waited.
“Peter.”
He exhaled.
“Promotion.”
Julian looked away.
“To what?”
“Regional deputy if the family council formed.”
There.
Council creates seats.
Seats create favors.
Favors create loyalty.
Not a temporary guardrail around an emotional boss.
A new structure.
Agatha had already begun filling it before anyone voted.
“How many positions?”
Peter hesitated.
“Five discussed.”
The three-person council would formally oversee me.
Beneath it, Julian would reorganize territories.
Peter gains promotion.
Two other men gain preferred routes.
Agatha controls appointments.
I looked at her.
“You weren’t planning oversight.”
She said nothing.
“You were building an alternate government.”
Julian laughed.
“Dramatic.”
I turned.
“You distributed jobs before the council existed.”
Silence.
That ended the argument.
Peter spoke again.
“I didn’t know about Elliot.”
Agatha stared at him.
He continued.
“I swear.”
I believed him.
Partly.
That mattered.
Not every man who listened to Agatha had agreed to child cruelty.
Some had been attracted to reform.
Some to promotion.
Some to resentment.
If I treated them all as identical, I would create the faction she wanted.
I looked at Peter.
“You keep your rank.”
He blinked.
Julian looked furious.
“But?”
I continued.
“You lose every promised promotion.”
Peter nodded quickly.
“And you tell every man Agatha approached exactly what happened in that garden.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
May you like
The conspiracy would not die through punishment.
It would die through exposure.
