Page 217 of My Unhinged Alphas
The Apostle says nothing.
Havoc takes one step toward the table. “You mean the man you sent us to kill.”
Still nothing.
The silence after that is worse than an answer.
Vale is the first one to look away from the screen. His good eye fixes on the dead man’s chest, where his shirt has torn open during the fight. For a second I think he’s only looking atthe blood. Then his expression changes, and he lifts two fingers slightly toward Knox.
Knox follows the gesture. His brows draw together.
I look too.
There’s a tattoo high on the man’s chest, half-obscured by blood. A small black emblem, simple enough that I might have missed it if Vale hadn’t pointed it out: a circle broken by a vertical line, veiled at the center by three narrow strokes.
Havoc’s face goes still. “That’s Veiled Order.”
The Apostle doesn’t answer.
Knox looks back at the screen. “Why does Mikhail have their mark?”
Silence.
Vale says, slowly, “You sent us after him because he belonged to the Veiled Order.”
“Yes,” Andrew says at last.
Havoc lets out a short, incredulous breath. “That’s not what we were told.”
“You were told what was necessary.”
“No,” Knox says. “You lied to us again and again. Not just this mission but earlier too. All threats were vaguely tied up with the Veiled Order. But that’s all they were, a boogeyman meant to scare us into obedience.”
“He’s not telling us the entire truth,” Vale says, stepping closer as if he can touch the man through the screen. “None of them ever were.”
Finally Andrew speaks. “You’re right about one thing. You don’t know everything about the Veiled Order, and I believe you don’t need to.”
“Bullshit,” Havoc says.
“The Brotherhood overthrew them,” Andrew says. “And then took their infrastructure. Their houses. Their channels. Their language.”
“What the fuck,” Vale says looking astonished.
“The Order had failed,” Andrew says.
“Had it?” Havoc asks. There’s venom in the question.
Andrew’s voice remains level. “It had become divided, compromised, unable to govern itself.”
I think of the masks the three men wore the night I met them. The titles. The files. The Apostles, the Elders, the Shepherds. All of it suddenly less ancient than I assumed, less sacred, perhaps less theirs than they believed.
Havoc looks at the body again. “He said Lena’s father ruined his life.”
Andrew doesn’t answer.
Knox catches it at once. “Her father was Order too, possibly.”
“He was,” Andrew says.
