Page 193 of My Unhinged Alphas
“Then why would that be suspicious?”
“Because it’s wrong,” Havoc says. “Not morally. Structurally.”
They’re all having doubts. I can see it now that I know what I’m looking for. Knox’s focus turning inward. Vale’s careful silence. Havoc being less glib than usual, which is the worst sign of all.
So I say it. “You think there’s a mole in the Brotherhood?”
None of them answers immediately.
Which is answer enough.
I set my cup down. “Or maybe Apostle Andrew is trying to warn you.”
Vale looks at me, not unkindly, but not convinced either. “That’s too far-fetched.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” he says. “And besides, why would the Apostle care what’s happening to us?” Theuslands harder than he means it to, I think. He keeps going before anyone can react to it. “We’re not on an active mission anymore.”
And there it is. The sentence hangs there between the trays and the stale toast and the hospital coffee.
Not on an active mission anymore.
Meaning all of this, the fire, the hospital, the contracts, the driving, the planning, the sleepless night, the bruises on Vale’s face and the burns on Havoc’s sleeve and the smoke still in Knox’s lungs, none of it is about duty now.
It’s about me.
I sit back a little, suddenly too aware of myself again.
They’re doing all of this for me now.
* * *
By the time we leave the hospital, nobody says this is a good idea.
Knox rents the car under a name I don’t ask about. Vale checks the slip of paper three separate times, folding and unfolding it like repetition might force a different answer out of it. Havoc drives because he says if we’re walking into a trap, he at least wants control of the music, and Knox tells him to shut up before he even turns the key.
The address takes us away from the hospital district, away from the cheap motels and strip malls and gas stations, into a quieter part of the city where the roads widen and the houses pull back from the street behind walls and old trees. The kind of area where money stops announcing itself and starts assuming you’ll recognize it anyway.
Havoc slows as the GPS voice goes silent.
“That can’t be it,” I say.
But it is.
A long stone wall. Iron gates. A drive curving out of sight. And behind it, visible only in pieces through the trees, a house big enough thatmansionfeels less like exaggeration and more like accounting.
No one says anything for a second.
Then Havoc mutters, “Well. That’s ominous.”
Knox studies the gate without moving. “Code.”
Vale already has the slip out. He reads off the numbers. Havoc leans forward, punches them into the keypad, and all four of us wait.
For half a beat, nothing happens.
Then the gate clicks. It swings inward quietly, almost politely.
