Pretending to Be an Untouchable Crime Boss-Chapter 395: Necessary Step

"I fucking knew it!" Linda shouted as her fist slammed hard into the wooden table, knocking off documents, maps and she did not stop.

Again and again, she kept hitting the table like it was William himself standing in front of her, like if she just hit hard enough she could make him feel even a fraction of what she was feeling right now.

William was walking a path that would destroy everything they had built together, every sacrifice, every risk, every moment they had fought to survive, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing she could say that would pull him back, and that truth hurt far more than any wound ever could, because this wasn’t their fuckign plan.

The plan had always been clear, at least in Linda’s mind, and it was the only thing that made all of this worth it in the first place, because everything they had done, every risk they had taken, every line they had crossed, was leading to this one outcome that would change everything. They were supposed to turn James from a criminal into a legitimate businessman.

The idea was to legalize the drugs that would bring in billions, not just for him but for the entire economy, turning something illegal into something powerful.

That was the future they were building.

A future where James was not just a drug lord, but a force inside the economy itself, someone whose influence could not be erased because it was tied into everything that mattered, someone who could not be removed without shaking the very system that depended on him.

But now William was doing the exact opposite.

He was walking straight toward destruction, toward a path that would burn everything down instead of building it up, a path that would kill the very idea that could have brought in billions and strengthened everything around them. And the worst part was not even what he was doing, but when he chose to say it, during that catastrophe, at the worst possible moment, when every word carried weight, and Linda understood exactly what he meant and why he said it to Madur, especially now when everything was already on the edge of collapse.

It was a plan to keep power, nothing more and nothing less, because if William could not handle the catastrophe, if things began to slip out of his control, then he could simply turn the situation around and use James and the others as a shield, as a sacrifice if needed. He could twist the story, reshape the narrative, and claim that James was taking advantage of the chaos to profit even more from the drugs, turning public anger toward him instead, and as terrible as it sounded, Linda knew it could work, because people needed someone to blame, and William was ready to give them that.

William could say that James and the corrupt ministers had stolen money, that they had drained resources that should have been used to protect people, and that was why nothing had been done before the tsunami, why no proper wave breakers had been built, why buildings were not prepared to survive earthquakes, why there had been no emergency broadcasts in time, why people had been left to die when they could have been saved. He could build the entire story around that idea, piece by piece, until it became the truth in the eyes of everyone watching.

And in the end, he could trace everything back to corruption and to James, turning him from the man they were trying to elevate into the very symbol of everything that had gone wrong.

The reality was that propaganda could work, not just could it certainly would.

"Fuck this motherfucker!" Linda shouted as she slammed her fist down one last time before she finally dropped back into her chair, blood slowly dripping from her torn knuckles, while her heart was beating so fast that she could feel it pounding inside her head.

"That’s bad." A voice suddenly asked, as the wardrobe door on the side of the slowly opened and Thomas stepped out from between Linda’s hanging clothes.

He was the one who had informed Linda about Madur coming.

Since everything had started Thomas, Stephen, Benjamin, and Linda had formed an alliance, one that was never spoken out loud but understood between all of them, because they all knew that in a situation like this, trust was fragile and survival came first, and if they did not act carefully, they could easily be the next ones to fall.

So they prepared.

Each of them placed agents around people who held power, watching, listening, waiting for any shift that could threaten them, and it was one of those agents, a spy assigned to Madur, who had alerted Thomas that he was heading straight for Linda. That was why Thomas had hidden himself inside the closet in her office, waiting in silence, listening to every word.

"Fuck!" Linda shouted as she slammed her hand into the table once again as she turned to look at Thomas, only to pause for a second when she noticed how calm he was... too calm for a situation like this.

"Pills." Thomas said before Linda could even ask. "Though I think we both already know what step is necessary to take. We need to kill William." He said it so calmly that for a second it didn’t even seem serious about it but as Thomas looked directly into Linda’s eyes there was something different in his expression, something calculated, like he was no longer just reacting but planning several steps ahead. "William made you the leader of the operation." Thomas continued. "Which means if he dies during the national emergency, the succession will go to you, and you will be the temporary president until the national emergency is over. He even made a special decree for this." Thomas added, his gaze not leaving her face. "So basically... he built a trap for himself."

Silence between them, or more so silence for Linda, because she knew what Thomas just said was true and that it could work, but the idea of killing William, like truly killing him, was something else entirely, and not just that, that is what made her silent.

Thomas was talking about it like he had already planned it out a long time ago. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"It is not just for James, but William’s death would be for the greater good. Everybody hates him, the Union holds back billions, our trade partners are on the brink of leaving us, and we are getting sanctions too." Thomas kept looking into her eyes. "This catastrophe stamped the death of our nation, so we need somebody who can lead us out of it, and then James can come into the picture too." The certainty in Thomas’s eyes was something Linda had not seen in a long time, not even during the operation. "Linda, we need to kill our president, or this country is going to collapse anyway, even without James’ death."