Page 79 of Chaos Crown

“She had no idea she owned everything around her,” Roan breathed. “Neither did your grandmother, your father... or you.”

“No.” Emotion leaked into Ivy’s voice. “None of us knew. The Sisters wanted it that way. Caution for her family’s last hope drove Sabrina de Souza to protect that old deed. She brought a copy to her meeting with the judge, where she was told even though it said eight thousand acres, Bedlam was now an official town. She couldn’t own it, but that twelve-acre farm was all hers.

“Matter of fact, why didn’t Sabrina bring her that crusty old piece of paper? She’d destroy it, and write up a new one that listed their actual property.” Her gaze drifted over his shoulder. “I don’t know where we’d be today if Sabrina had fallen for that trick, but she didn’t. Sabrina kept it locked in a safe deposit box, and didn’t tell anyone about it or where it was.”

“Why did your grandmother try to trick her out of the deed?” Roan asked Dad. “She didn’t even know what she had.”

“That’s exactly why. Things have changed in the last hundred years,” Jack said. “The Sisters have the vote. They have land, businesses, money, choices. Everything they’d lose back then if they didn’t accept Amadeo’s wife’s deal. Now they have a town they control absolutely. They have the power, and they can have the money. Why should they be held back by a clueless farmer?

“Ever since Sabrina de Souza returned to town, the Society of Sisters has had a new goal. Destroy that deed.”

Legend half rose from the armchair. “But... not our mothers, right? They’re not after—”

“Yes, your mothers,” Dad snapped. “Are you kidding? People whisper around town that it’s a mother’s blindness that explains why Josephine, Marjorie, and Eileen don’t rein you boys in or see how you behave. But it’s your blindness that didn’t let you look past what your mothers have told you.

“Boys, by the time my grandmother’s generation took over the Sisters, they reneged on the deal. There were millions beneath their shoes and no de Souzas around to stop them. They’ve been secretly mining the land for decades.

“Started by your great-grandmother,” Dad said to Roan, blowing his brows up his forehead. “Continued by your grandmothers and now your mothers. They are the wealthiest women in this region, boys. By so much more than you could imagine.”

I opened my mouth, but not a damn word came out. For the first time since we came screaming out the womb, we were speechless.

“Naturally, they were careful. They had the same issue as Amadeo, but no right of ownership to back them up. If people found out why Crystal Canyon got its name, it’d be overrun by fortune hunters. And if the de Souzas found out, that’d be even worse.

“They amassed their wealth, but were cautious in explaining it. Josephine Banks lives in a mansion provided by the university. She didn’t buy it. The mayor’s son rides around in a 1957 Corvette worth one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, because her husband bought it for a steal in some romantic tale.”

Arsenio crushed the sheets in his fist. He was told the same romantic tale.

“Eileen was under more scrutiny as a judge, but I’m sure you enjoyed all those vacations in your childhood, Jacques. Especially your summers in France.”

Jacques could’ve been chipped from stone. And Ivy... Ivy didn’t look at either of us, and I couldn’t blame her. Our mothers made themselves rich while she scrubbed chickenshit from her boots and watched her grandmother toil from sunup to sundown. Framing us for murder wasn’t a betrayal. It was years’ worth of karma falling on our heads.

“But your mother wasn’t happy with our cover story.” I knew Dad was talking to me, though I didn’t look away from Ivy. “I was the descendant of the Sister. The money was mine, and when I was trying to win her heart, I used it to take her all over the world.

“But then we had kids,” Dad said, voice heavy. “And we had to settle down while I fulfilled my duty to the hand that fed me—serving as sheriff and making every threat to the Sisters go away. Nora wasn’t pleased. Not with this house. Not with this life of wearing jeans and bargain threads while she pretended to live on a sheriff’s wife’s salary.”

My voice was dead. “That’s why she dropped us like hot shit and ran to Isaac.”

“There were many reasons why she left, son.” Dad lifted his hand as if searching for mine. I didn’t reach back. It dropped by his side. “Yes, that was part of it. With a wealthy husband, she didn’t have to hide her money anymore. I hate to say this, because I know she loves Paris, but getting pregnant by Isaac was by design. Once he finally left his first wife, playing pretend with me was over.

“She ran off with the sweet little girl I thought was my daughter, and my secret. Nora used her knowledge of the Society to get all my money in the divorce, then she blackmailed Marjorie, Eileen, Josephine, and Cynthia St. James for a place among the Sisters. If she wasn’t getting a cut of the money and their power, the whole world would find out the truth.”

I chuckled. “No wonder you were always sending me to shrinks, testing me for psychopathy. I come by my dead soul honest.”

“No, Cairo. There’s nothing wrong with you, son. You’re just... garden variety screwed up by your parents like the rest.”

That was the same thing I said to Dad all those months ago in an interrogation room.

“So our moms have us risking everything to protect Bedlam from being exploited, because they want to be the only ones exploiting it,” Legend said, voice deadened. “And because of that, several generations of our families have been trying to get their hands on that deed. But what are we saying? That old scrap of paper is still valid?”

“Of course it is.” Jacques stood and started pacing. “Deeds don’t expire. A de Souza never sold the land. They never signed it away. The owner of Bedlam is Amadeo de Souza’s last descendant.”

The truth hit me hard and fast in the face. “That’s why Steven Ellis had you sign that contract.”

“Yes,” she replied, shaking her head. “It really does all make sense now. The contract said all the land I owned would go to Steven Ellis if it wasn’t inherited by a blood relative. The land wasn’t the farm. It was Bedlam.”

“So he knows about the deed,” Legend said.

Ivy made a harsh noise. “He knows about the deed. The Sisters know about the deed. The Black Letter Crew knows about the deed. Everyone fucking knew but me.”

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