Page 220 of My Unhinged Alphas
The silence that follows is immediate and absolute.
Even Havoc turns to look at him.
Knox doesn’t seem to notice. Or he notices and no longer cares. His face is set, his voice level, but something has shiftedin him all the same. Not the controlled pushback of a man questioning orders. Something more fundamental than that.
The Apostle says nothing.
Knox goes on. “You don’t get to disappear her entire life, wait until she’s useful or endangered enough to reclaim, and call it protection. If she listens to anything you say from here on out, it will be because she chooses to. Not because we pressure her into obedience for you.”
I have seen Knox challenge bad judgment. I have heard him argue tactics, refuse foolish orders, make Elders regret confusing rank with competence. But this is different. He’s not asking for clarification. He’s not trying to improve the Apostle’s plan.
He’s drawing a line.
Havoc’s mouth curves faintly, though there’s no humor in it. Approval, perhaps. Or simple satisfaction at seeing someone else say the thing all three of us are thinking.
“Some job you did hiding her. Her name is all over the files,” Havoc tells him. “You weren’t very good at hiding her tracks.”
“That’s not her name,” the Apostle says.
“What?” I say.
“Lena—that’s her mother’s name. She named our daughter Helena after herself.”
Everything makes more sense now.
“I tried to get her name removed but couldn’t get to all of it,” the Apostle continues.
“Where is she now? Her mother?”
“Dead,” he says simply.
Knox continues to scowl at the Apostle even though we still can’t see his face.
Havoc laughs. “So, you not only abandoned your daughter, you condemned her to this life, and now you want us to play your good little soldiers? Bullshit.”
Something inside me tightens at that, because I know exactly how much it costs him to say it. The Brotherhood does not encourage men like us to speak to Apostles this way. It does not encourage men like us to think of wanting anything outside duty at all.
Yet here we are.
The Apostle’s answer, when it comes, remains measured. “You are letting your emotions muddle your judgment. Now, I don’t know what you’ve got going on with her?—”
“Stop,” Havoc says. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
The Apostle sighs. “Don’t be foolish. She’s my flesh and blood, I’ll never do anything to hurt her.”
“Don’t you get it?” I say. “You’ve already done too much damage, and until you understand that, you won’t get her back. Heck, you still can’t be bothered to show your face.”
I wait for the shadows to dispel but it doesn’t work. He remains hidden.
I turn back to the screen before the silence can harden further. “My father—” I begin. The Apostle’s head shifts slightly. “How is he involved in this?”
I’ve been holding that question back since the moment Lena was taken, since the attack outside her building, since hearing a voice I had buried with the dead. Now that it’s in the room, it feels heavier than I expected.
The Apostle says, “I don’t know.”
I can’t tell if he’s lying or not.
Havoc looks at the screen. “That is a surprisingly useless answer from a man who has spent the last ten minutes rearranging everyone’s understanding of history.”
