Page 194 of My Unhinged Alphas
That somehow makes it worse.
Havoc doesn’t drive through immediately. He sits there with both hands on the wheel, staring up the long drive as if he expects men with rifles to appear from the hedges.
The tires roll over pale gravel, then onto dark stone. The house comes into view in stages: wide front steps, tall windows, pale walls, the kind of entryway built to make visitors feel smaller before they even get inside. Nothing about it looks abandoned. Nothing about it looks hurried either. No lights flashing. No visible guards. No movement behind the glass.
When we finally stop in front of the house, no one gets out right away.
Then Vale notices it first. “There.”
There’s something clipped just inside the gate door, where a person would have to pass close enough to see it if they entered on foot. A single folded note, plain white paper against black iron.
Havoc turns off the engine.
Knox says, “Wait.” He gets out first.
Vale follows before anyone can stop him, moving a little stiffly but not slow enough for Knox to argue. Havoc gets out on my side and makes me wait half a second behind him while the three of them scan the grounds again. Nothing. Just morning light on stone and trimmed hedges and the kind of expensive silence that feels curated.
Then Knox takes the note down and opens it.
He reads it once. His face does not change.
Which tells me nothing.
“What?” I ask.
He hands it to Vale. Vale reads it, then hands it to Havoc. Havoc snorts once, softly, then finally hands it to me.
The message is short.
Clean up. Eat. Get some rest. Further instructions tomorrow.
Just that.
I read it twice, like the second time might reveal some hidden threat in the margins.
It doesn’t.
I look up at the house again.
Vale folds the note again with too much care.
Knox is still looking at the house, jaw set. Then he says, “We check the perimeter.”
And that’s what we do.
We circle the front first. Then the side paths. Then the visible lower windows. We look for cameras, footprints, open entries, signs of forced access, hidden vehicles, anything that would make the whole thing resolve into something ordinary and dangerous instead of strange and dangerous.
At one point Havoc crouches near a hedge and says, “Either this is a trap, or rich people are exhausting.”
Knox doesn’t answer.
Vale says, “Could be both.”
By the time we end up back at the front steps, nobody looks any less tense than when we arrived. And still, none of us suggest that we leave. Because that would mean going back to uncertainty. At least we can see in front of us now.
The front door is unlocked.
Inside, the air is cool and still. The entrance hall is bright, and absurdly normal. Not empty in the abandoned sense. Prepared. A table by the wall. Fresh flowers that no one here seems sentimental enough to actually enjoy. A staircase curving upward. A second note on the entry table with a simple line directing us toward bedrooms upstairs and food in the kitchen.
