Page 156 of My Unhinged Alphas
Havoc pushes off the desk and glances at Lena. “While Scarface plays retrieval boy, we get to do the fun part.”
She looks from him to Knox. “I hate the way you say things.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to any of you.”
“That’s healthy,” he says.
Knox cuts in before Havoc can keep going. “You need to understand what protection means.”
Lena’s face closes a little at the word. “I’m starting to think it doesn’t mean anything good.”
“No,” Knox says. “It means limits. Visibility. We keep you close. We don’t let you wander. We don’t let strangers near you. We don’t let you call the police.”
There’s the line.
Lena stares at him. “Still insane, by the way.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Havoc says, quieter now, less mocking than before. “The Brotherhood doesn’t handle things through the cops. Never has.”
She looks at him, then at Knox. “Why?”
“Because police ask questions,” Knox says.
“And?” she asks.
“And the Brotherhood prefers problems handled before they become paperwork,” Havoc says.
She lets out a disbelieving breath. “That is one of the worst sentences I’ve ever heard.”
“Probably,” Knox says. “Still true.”
I leave before I can hear more. I take Knox’s car, leaving Havoc’s truck by the house.
The Brotherhood doesn’t like men with divided loyalties. Doesn’t forgive personal attachments. Doesn’t tolerate hesitation where duty should be free of conflict, of emotions. I’ve heard too many stories not to know that. Men who wanted something too much. Men who got soft where they should have been sharp. Men who believed they could protect and desire the same person without it costing them.
It always costs them, and I know we won’t be any different.
I don’t like how much of this no longer feels theoretical.
Worse, I don’t like that I can’t fully trust the Brotherhood to help if this gets bigger.
That thought is its own kind of sickness. Not because I think the Brotherhood is weak. Because I don’t know if I can trust them. Because even after working so many years for them, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
There’s nothing in Lena’s background that makes sense.
The road is wet from earlier mist, the city still in that washed-out hour where everything looks unfinished. Traffic hasn’t built yet. Just delivery vans, a couple of taxis, people with actual normal lives moving through a morning that still belongs to them.
I keep one hand on the wheel and go back over it again.
Foster care. No family anyone can name. No money. No obvious enemies. No history that reads like motive. Yet, her name was on a redacted file which gave little away.
My grip tightens slightly on the wheel.
Then there’s Voss.
Last night at the club, he was too careful. He knew the name Lena meant something. I saw it on his face before he smothered it. He gave us the minimum, told us to walk away, and acted like that would be enough.
