He only lacked a seat in the capitol.
La Roux was the anonymous scribe who had penned the Slave Bill. He wished to abolish slavery among the highborn, at least for those who had done nothing so criminal as plunge into bankruptcy due to a few business missteps. His claim was that it stifled innovation.
Though Lila only had time for a quick skim of La Roux’s proposal, his idea seemed sound, though far too progressive to pass the High House. After all, the highborn typically did not trust theories of obscure lowborn economics professors, and La Roux’s resolution had been built upon one. Even if his resolution passed, the High Council of Judges would never approve it.
La Roux had to know that.
Perhaps the man believed he could sway others to his cause if he crafted a good enough speech, if he managed to swing enough votes his way, if he depended upon the conscience of his brothers.
No wonder he’d never gotten out of Beaulac. La Roux really was an idealist. A rather naïve one if he thought the resolution would save his career. The only thing his resolution would do was make him a ripe target for any matrons who would balk at the idea of losing so many rebellious daughters to industry. Daughters less bold than Alexandra Wilson, who’d risked everything and lost in the end.
That wasn’t the only resolution he’d crafted. He’d also crafted the Slave Freedom Bill. He wished to give freedom to any slave who fought against the empire, no matter their sentence, no matter their crime. A family member could fight in place of one not old enough, strong enough, or healthy enough to carry the burden themselves.
He believed war was coming. He believed they’d need far more soldiers to win.
La Roux was probably right about that. The oracle had said as much. She and her sisters had been having the visions for too long.
Or so they claimed.
That didn’t mean his idea was sound, though. Any matron who heard about La Roux’s work might find it worth their time to get rid of him, for the amount of coverage both resolutions would generate in the press might destabilize all workborn throughout the commonwealth, generating a ripple of frustration among the masses.
The mere rumor of such bills had done enough already.
The fact of them might sound the death knell for all slavery in the Allied Lands.
Implicating La Roux in some sort of criminal activity would be one way to end the threat. Would her mother have found such sabotage worth her time? Would she have devoted resources toward silencing the senator?
Lila had to wonder if the Baron even existed. She’d always believed her mother when she claimed she didn’t have to resort to hackers and bugs, that a well-placed spy could tell you everything you needed or wanted to know. What if it turned out that she was the same as any of them in the end? What if she had led her own daughter by the nose? It was the chairwoman who had told her La Roux’s nickname. Perhaps she’d sent the article to them both, just so that Lila would fall into line as prime, just so she could get a troublesome senator removed from the senate in one shot. If she’d been the Baron all along, then she’d also controlled Reaper, which meant that she’d been responsible for Celeste and Patrick Wilson’s downfall.
Oh gods, why didn’t the whole plot seem far-fetched?
Whether or not her mother was behind it, La Roux would need protection. Moreover, Lila would have to find enough evidence linking her mother or another matron to the case. She’d also need to find evidence that the trap in the mental health registry had been faked. Lila had merely seen that the trap was crude and accepted the dates after a cursory scan, but she’d have to dig deeper now.
And if her mother was behind it?
What then?
Lila did not want to think about the consequences. If her mother really was behind the ruse and Lila gave the data to Chief Shaw, then she’d either have to take over as chairwoman of Wolf Industries or pick someone else to run it.
Neither idea appealed to her.
Who could she trust to take care of the family?
Her mother had posed the question thousands of times, over hundreds of cups of tea and glasses of wine. Now that the answer actually mattered, now that she would have to answer it, Lila balked.
That wasn’t even the worst part. Not only would she have to appoint a new chairwoman, but she’d have to lead her matron to the gallows.
Could she do that to her own mother?
In that moment, Lila understood Alex so much better. It was one thing to turn in famil
y for a slave’s term. It was another thing altogether to turn them into the executioner.
But if her mother had done what Lila suspected, she deserved the noose, didn’t she? She likely didn’t even care if Lila figured out her plan. After all, Lila would have to take up her position, and they both knew how she felt about that. Perhaps she’d gambled that her daughter would merely trade the knowledge for her mark, so long as she could retain her relationship with the family and seal her mother from BullNet for good.
The only thing she knew was that La Roux wasn’t the Baron. He didn’t have enough time to moonlight as a hacker. Besides, he was a senator of Bullstow. That might have given him opportunity, but where would he have picked up the skills?
The doorknob rattled, and Lila tucked the senator’s palm back into his pocket. She then picked up her wine glass and darted to the window, gazing out into the darkness as though she had been lost in thought.