Page 159 of My Unhinged Alphas
Lena rolls her eyes. “And you report to someone called Apostle. Am I getting that right?”
I shake my head. “We report to the Elders. We don’t directly contact the Apostles.”
“And the guy today was an Elder?” she asks.
“No, a Shepherd, they clean stuff up for us,” Havoc says.
“You mean dead bodies,” she says, looking uncomfortable.
He shrugs. “Amongst other things.”
“Do I even want to know? Actually, don’t bother.” She sighs. “Oh my God my head hurts already.”
“The Brotherhood is a complex organization, and even we don’t know all parts of it,” I tell her. “Now I hope we’re done with the questions.”
She asks the next one anyway. “How long have you three known each other?”
I don’t answer right away. Not because I can’t. Because I know Havoc will, and I’m trying to decide whether stopping him is worth the effort.
It isn’t.
“Years,” he says. “Long enough to know all the boring parts and still not leave.”
I glance at him. “That’s one version.”
He shrugs. “It’s the charming version.”
Lena leans forward a little from the back. I see her in the mirror, chin resting near the front seat, watching us both. “What’s the real version?”
Havoc looks at me, smiling like he knows exactly how much I hate this already.
Then he says, “Vale came in first. Pretty boy with trauma and a death wish. Knox after that, all military background and control issues. Me last, because apparently God wanted to make sure nobody got too comfortable.”
I grip the wheel a little tighter.
Lena says, “That answered almost nothing.”
“I thought it was quite informative,” Havoc says.
“It was colorful,” she says. “Not informative.”
I should shut this down. Instead I hear myself say, “We weren’t assigned together at first.”
Havoc turns his head just enough to look at me. Mild surprise. He recovers fast.
Lena catches it too, because of course she does. “But?”
“But we worked well together.”
Havoc laughs under his breath. “Translation: everyone else either annoyed him or died.”
I look at him. “Keep talking.”
He smiles wider, which is answer enough on its own.
Lena says, “And you all just… stayed together?”
“No,” I say. “Nothing about this works that simply.”
