Page 114 of My Unhinged Alphas
She frowns. “Like what?”
“Out in the open,” he says. “Making scenes. Drawing attention. Using public chaos. Unless they absolutely have to.”
Knox says nothing. Doesn’t need to. Havoc has it.
Havoc goes on, voice easy, almost conversational. “Whatever they do, they do in the shadows. Quiet. Covert. They avoid attention. That’s the point.”
I nod once. “We don’t like witnesses.”
Lena looks between us. Still guarded. Still suspicious. “So what,” she says. “I’m supposed to believe the shooting at the café and the alley just happened to line up with all this?”
“No,” Havoc says. “You’re supposed to understand that if the Brotherhood wanted you taken, you wouldn’t be standing here arguing about it.”
She looks at Knox again. “So you’re saying whoever fired at the café wasn’t doing it just to scare me.”
Knox’s voice stays flat. “I’m saying it wasn’t random.”
The room goes quiet.
Lena folds her arms tighter. “That still doesn’t prove it wasn’t staged.”
Havoc’s smile fades a little. “You think we asked the Brotherhood to fire at a café in broad daylight just to convince you of something?”
She lifts her chin. “I think I don’t know any of you well enough to rule anything out.”
Fair.
I push off the door and take a step into the room. “Then rule this out. The Brotherhood doesn’t answer to us like that. They don’t do favors. They don’t perform. And they sure as hell don’t risk exposure just to help us make a point.”
“The only time they made an exception,” I say, “was with Elias Vane.”
Lena goes still. Then her eyes widen. “Wait. The serial killer?”
Nobody answers right away.
That’s answer enough.
She looks between us, stunned now. “You’re saying the Brotherhood took him out?”
Havoc’s grin comes back, slow and ugly and pleased with itself. “He didn’t just end up with his neck twisted in the gorge.”
Lena stares at him.
Knox says nothing.
I keep my eyes on hers. “No.”
She looks genuinely shaken now, trying to fit that into everything else she thinks she knows about the world. “But he broke out of prison. There was a nationwide manhunt. They said he was armed. They said he vanished.”
Havoc lifts one shoulder. “And then he didn’t.”
Her mouth parts slightly. “Jesus.”
“Elias Vane had become too public to handle quietly,” I say.
Lena’s voice comes out thinner now. “So they just… killed him?”
Knox finally speaks. “He was a problem.”
