Page 22 of My Unhinged Alphas
Most people would call him unstable. They’d be wrong.
He’s a live grenade, yes. But a controlled one. I’ve seen him hold position under fire without flinching. I’ve seen him move through chaos with terrifying precision. When it matters, he doesn’t lose himself.
He thinks I believe I’m better than him. I can see it in the way he watches me sometimes. The way he waits for correction. But the truth is simpler than that.
I don’t think I’m above him. I think I’m responsible for him. There’s a difference.
Vale sits behind us, silent, gaze angled toward the window. He always goes quiet before we move in. His silence isn’t emptiness; it’s concentration. He’s already mapping the building in his head, already calculating how things might go wrong.
Streetlights streak across the windshield as we leave the main roads. The industrial district is darker, quieter, the buildings spaced wider apart. The harbor is somewhere to our right, the air faintly salted even through the closed windows.
Havoc glances at me. “You’re in your head again,” he says.
“I’m driving.”
“You’re thinking.”
“I’m always thinking.”
He smirks faintly and looks back at the road.
He thinks I suppress something he embraces. Violence. He enjoys it openly. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. When it’s time to hurt someone, he steps into it like it’s the most honest thing in the world.
I understand that feeling better than I admit.
I don’t flinch from violence. I never have. I learned early how to compartmentalize it, how to apply it when necessary and shut it off when it isn’t. In the military, it was structured. Directed. Justified by flags and orders and chain of command.
The Brotherhood is different. Here, violence is quieter, more deliberate, not patriotic. But I feel it all the same. The clarity. The narrowing of purpose. The moment when everything reduces to objective and outcome.
I just don’t smile about it.
The building comes into view at the end of the block. Two stories of concrete and dim light bleeding through the edges of boarded windows. I slow the car without speaking.
Two vehicles are parked outside.
Havoc notices immediately. “We’re not alone.”
“No,” I say.
Two vehicles means more than one body inside. It means witnesses, associates, guards. It means variables.
I pull to a stop a short distance away and kill the engine. Silence settles in the car, heavy but not tense. I open the center console and take out the masks. I hand one to Havoc first.
He takes it, studies it for half a second, then looks at me.
“Follow the rules,” I say evenly.
He tilts his head. “I always do.”
“That’s not accurate.”
A corner of his mouth lifts.
I look back toward the building. “Two cars means more than one person inside. Anyone who is not a victim is a liability. If they move against us, they die.”
Havoc nods once. “And him?” he asks.
“The target stays alive.”
