Page 389 of Knox Academy Omnibus
“Is there a problem, here?” I snap.
“Yes. He shouldn’t be here,” Oldhams spits, pointing at my father. “He isn’t an active member and he shouldn’t be sitting at a damn board meeting!”
“I asked him to be here?—”
“Because he’s your dad.”
“Because a representative from each of the founding families needs to be present today,” I reply calmly. “As you all know, The Order has been under the reign of the founding families and men for a long time, and I know that has worked for a lot of you in the room but now is the time for change. With that, today we will vote for a new board: one to start off this new journey alongside me, people who will help bring this organisation into the twenty-first century. I mean no disrespect to any of you in this room. I feel like this is a fresh start and I want to achieve great things.”
Some of the men grumble under their breaths. “Raise your hand if you are in favour of the change.”
I watch as my father, Dirk, Monty, Baxter’s grandfather – because he knows Baxter will get his seat anyway – and even Maggie’s grandfather raise their hands. He would have been out by default with his illness anyway, but it’s nice that he appears to be on my side.
I nod my head. “With a majority vote, we will now implement the new board. Gentleman, we thank you for your service.”
The doors slide open and Sawyer walks in followed by all the new board members. Sawyer hands me a slip of paper, and I open it.
“For the Rossi seat we have Aadi. For the Kessler seat we have Bexley.” I swallow a lump in my throat, I still have to talk to her about this, but I’m doing my duties before I can even process it. “For the Davis seat we have Kalen, for the Oldham seat we have Slate, for the Montgomery seat we have Sawyer, for the Branson seat we have Baxter, and for the Knox seat we have Onyx.”
“Wait a damn minute! How is he a Knox? He isn’t even a blood relative,” the old guy from the twin’s seat snaps.
“He doesn’t need to be.” I reply calmly, eternally grateful to Sawyer for filling me in this morning. Turns out Harold changed some of the old laws years ago – around the time Monty startedadopting his sons. Sawyer thinks Harold’s original plan was to stack the board in his favour using his adopted grandsons as pawns. Which would have worked if he didn’t discover that they aren’t so easily manipulated.
“You better explain!” he spits.
“Monty adopted him when he was a child and so did Maggie. So Onyx and Slate have every right to take any seat from within their family lines, be that Oldham, Davis or Knox. I don’t need a board vote to change that bylaw; it was changed years ago by Harold.”
“That’s bullshit, you can’t change laws to suit your own agenda. Stacking a board to fall at your feet.”
“I’m doing no such thing. It’s in the records, which you may check for yourself if you are questioning my leadership.” I raise a brow, and he slides further down his seat, suddenly sheepish. “We’ve created a board that I trust to help make decisions based on what’s best for The Order, not what’s best for Harold.”
Thank god for Monty. After that, he helps usher everyone out of the room, though my dad comes up to me and pulls me into his arms. “Proud of you, kiddo. I’ll see you later today.”
He pulls away, and I’m left facing my new board.
“Welcome everyone to your first official board meeting. Some of you know how this works – probably better than I do - but for my brother and…I guess my sister…who are new, I’m sure you’ll be able to follow along easily enough. I will not be able to take on the new workload by myself, so Sawyer hand picked everyone to aid me in making decisions. Our first agenda is the sex trafficking ring, and every available person is now on the task of hunting down our involvement and shutting it down. Anyone found to be linked in any way has a one way ticket out of The Order and execution teams are to be notified straight away. You will need yourself and three other board members to sign off on an execution. Always make sure any decisions you make,you have a majority vote signed off, and if for any reason you’re unsure, you can come to me. Sawyer, is there anything that I’m forgetting?”
“No, I think you covered it all nicely. All I have to add is that our server was breached and we have done an overhaul of the system. You all now have access to a new email for correspondence.”
He leans down, picks up a briefcase and opens it, pulling out six packets and handing them around the table. “Inside is all of the information to access your accounts. The Order has upgraded your phones, linked all your accounts, and secured the network. Please burn all the paper inside those packets upon reading them. Only you can access your phones, you will have ten seconds to input your thumb print and, if it is not recognised it will send an alert to our servers. The phone will ring, and you have to answer it for voice recognition. After that, if the phone does not recognise you, it goes into self-destruct mode and wipes everything.”
“So unless anyone has any questions or things they would like to talk about, I think we’re done.”
“Actually, I have some leads on the trafficking.” Baxter surprises me by speaking up. So much for being a silent board member. “It’s not much, but I will forward through on email so that everyone is kept up to date. I also have a few jobs that will be required and will send that information as well. After talking with the three musketeers and them giving me everything they know, I think we’re close to finding out who has been working with Harold.”
It's going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. He has over fifty years’ experience within The Order so he knows how to hide from us.
“I would like to set up another meeting with them. This time I want to go to where they canallmeet with me.”
Baxter nods.
“We’ll all meet again soon. Aadi and Bex you will need to meet with the other recruits for training, and to fast track through your initiation, though at this point, with your lineage, it’s simply a box-checking exercise,” Sawyer says.
Bex snorts, I cut a glare to her.
“I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in.And training?What could we possibly be good at? That guy looks like he’s planning a way to murder us all and make it look like a mass suicide.”
Baxter smiles at her comment. She isn’t far from the mark. I’m sure something of that nature has been running through his head since we are keeping him from his stalking activities. I dread to think what he’ll actually do if we don’t find a way to give him his pardon.
