Chapter Nineteen
Onyx
We never meet at Head Office unless Grandfather or the board come to stick their noses in where they don’t fucking belong. Although technically speaking they do run The Order, my brothers and I have been groomed to take control. And soon too.
The board just has to pick when. We have a feeling it’s when Oldham finally bloody dies; the guy is riddled with cancer and still clinging to life.
I don’t even care if he’s a relative of mine.
Where was he when we were suffering through our childhood?
Nowhere to be seen. He’s dead to me already, now I just need him to hurry up and actually die so that we can take control.
The Order was founded originally by seven ‘Brothers’. There are exceptions to that rule, but it’s all top secret. We have to take over as a higher member before we can know any really classified information. We follow the rules we are given.
And there really are a lot of rules, but only the old assholes seem to follow them as if they are law.
Laws which are so outdated that we plan to change it up, bring The Order into current times.
Families are also ranked within The Order, which helps if every founding member's ancestors decide to have spawn at the same time.
And the Knox family just happens to be near the top of the list.
“Harold,” I address him, he likes to be called Sir.
“Did your crackhead parents drop you on your head?”
Harold Knox. Grandfather. We mutually hate each other with a passion.
He hates that Dad adopted us. Our blood links us to The Order, and now, so does the Knox surname.
He hates it. He keeps demanding that Kalen should be his reigning heir, but both Dad and Kalen have said we are all Knox Sons, and so Sawyer gets the ‘heir’ title.
Dad says that it isn’t against the rules.
“More than likely...Sir,” I reply, with just enough respect to mask my snark.
“Father, leave my son alone and come sit down.” Dad saves me from getting into an altercation. “I'm sure you didn’t fly all this way just to give Onyx a hard time.”
The old bastard mutters under his breath and goes to join Sawyer and Dad at the table. Slate and Kalen finally decide to join us too. We all take our seats, just the way we would if this were an official meeting. Harold sits at the head of the table alone.
“As you all know, we are handing The Order over. It’s time for us to retire.”
“And we are more than ready, Grandfather,” Kalen says with a smile. Little shit loves being the favourite; kisses Harold’s ass every chance he gets.
“I’m afraid I have been made aware of some rules that were overlooked. Your father decided to fill me in, and it’s less than ideal.”
“What rules?” I snap. I have put up with this guy and his bullshit for too long to have my title taken away from me now. New recruits get the shit jobs; they have to take anything that is thrown their way and we have been no exception, working our way up through hard work and perseverance.
“I’m sure your father has filled you in a little, but the rules of our organisation state that Amelie will be solely taking over The Order, as long as she passes initiation.
I have considered just killing her myself, but if any harm comes to her before she has a chance to rule, The Order will go into the hands of the Deveraux family; bottom of the ladder, gutter trash. ”
“How?” Slate asks.
“Because the laws were written back when women were so insignificant, they didn’t think to add it in, so now we are stuck with that son of a bitch’s daughter taking over.”
So this is why our father’s speech about Laura not being Amelie’s mum was important...pieces start clicking together. What’s our father's motive? He has all of us and now Amelie, so he has to benefit somehow. There’s something Harold and Dad are not telling us.
“Are there no loopholes in these rules?” I ask, and my brothers all stare at me, jaws hanging wide.
They can’t seriously think Amelie running The Order is a good thing?
We had an inkling our father wanted to change the rules so girls could join, and we agreed that they would bring so much more to the organisation.
We figured that is what Amelie was here for, but there is no way she could do some of the things required to be in charge.
It’s ludicrous to expect The Order to go from having no women to being ruled by one!
“Maybe I underestimated you,” Harold says with an air of shrewdness that I don’t like at all. “There is one loophole. One of you must knock her up. An heir will render the father temporarily in charge, long enough to get a board vote to change the law.”
“I’ll do it,” Kalen says, stunning us all into silence. Harold beams like all his dreams just came true.
“How is that even possible, if women have never been in The Order?” Sawyer asks. He has a point.
“It was a way for new leadership, son. We have never had any two founding families have children before. Previous generations were always happy to share the top of the food chain.”
“Until you,” I snap, facing Harold. “This is all on you. How does it feel that it backfired? It wasn’t supposed to be Amelie's father that got the heir. You wanted it to be Dad.”
“You got me. So sue me for wanting the Knox name to reign. I messed up. Kalen’s mother is from a founding family, but it turned out that Maggie’s father was sterile and they used a donor to conceive her.
She isn’t pure at all. Barely a Davis in anything beside name.
I wasn’t informed of this until after Kalen was already conceived.
I pushed your father towards the wrong girl. ”
“You’re a real piece of work,” I spit, getting to my feet. I have to get out of this room before I say something I’ll regret.
“You can’t seriously be thinking of getting Amelie pregnant?” Sawyer seethes. He takes a threatening step towards Kalen, but Slate and I grab him. I’ve never seen him so angry; his entire body is rigid with rage.
“Of course not, she has the bar in her arm. She isn’t stupid enough to accidentally get pregnant, but he doesn’t need to know that. Besides, I doubt Amelie would want what The Order entails. Especially when she realises we’re not good people. One way or another, he needs to go.”
“He isn’t the only one with an agenda,” I say.
I fill them in on my thoughts that Dad is on our side not Harold’s, but perhaps still up to something.
They’re not convinced, but at least agree to keep it in mind, just in case.
It does seem elaborate to adopt us all, just to take control of The Order, when he has always been on our side, pushing for us to take control.
“You all know she’s getting close to figuring this out. I say we tell her something. If we don’t, there’s a chance that we will never get her back,” Sawyer says.
“If what Grandad is saying is true, maybe it’s for the best if she hates us. What are her options here? If she joins, The Order will ruin everything good about her,” Slate adds bitterly.
“I’m too selfish to let her go. I would marry her in a heartbeat,” Kalen vows. Dramatic little shit.
“You’re all idiots! We can’t tell her shit.
We can help her to start looking in the right direction.
When she understands The Order, our rules, she’ll forgive us.
The Order won’t ruin her. Did any of you look at her brother’s and her friend’s files?
The dad is good; he has hidden his crimes well, but the others are sloppy.
If she goes back to Australia, the alternative for her is worse than The Order.
At least in our organisation, we can protect her. ”
“We know about their underworld connections. Dad even tried to get them to work with us, years ago, but her father won’t have it. He hates The Order as much as Branson does. Aadi and Jason – Smalls – run that shit now. I’m still not sure why they live under the pretences they do,” Sawyer explains.
“Fuck! Why would her father let her come here? Dad has always wanted to take over Australia; he has connections everywhere else but there. I told you he is hiding shit from us. I say, we butter up Gramps, push her into initiation, and get that old bastard off the board. He has been saying for years that he is going to retire, but it never happens. I say we find a way to make him. Dad can take his place and we have better control over him, because we know how he thinks and operates.”
“We would have to kill Grandfather before he would willingly walk away,” Kalen points out cheerily, like we’re not sitting around discussing murder. Maybe he thinks we’re joking.
“I’ll do it,” I say without hesitation. I have no loyalty to him, other than The Order.
“That would be your funeral, Bro. You know we can’t do that,” Slate says, being the voice of reason when it comes to my safety, as usual.
“How about we worry about this later? We have training again, and I quite enjoy watching Amelie struggle through the course and curse us out,” Sawyer adds with a smile.
Of course he does. He is the only one of us that she has forgiven.
Slate told us that she wants a truth from us and we have been debating back and forth what we could even say; anything related to The Order is out of the question.
We’ve been debating telling her the real truth, about Debbie, but we know she’ll lose the plot over it.
Which not only means that she’ll know we are lying about something, but she’ll learn that her entire family are liars too.
I’m not sure I want to shatter her world.
I doubt that kind of truth telling will lead to her forgiving us.
We know she has the old diary from when The Order was first started. I’ve considered having a few pages of the translated version sent to her, maybe anonymously. I’m not sure. I feel like we need to start nudging her in the right direction. I’ll think on it.
“Let's head out. I’ve added some mud to the course today.”
Kalen laughs and mutters that Amelie will hate that. She’s been running the course with us every night this week, and she’s still moaning as much as she did on Monday.
Kalen, the idiot, actually wants to buy her a damn puppy to earn his forgiveness; a very bad idea since she will know we listen in on her. But Kalen is going to do whatever he wants to.
We all head to the offsite warehouse that holds the training course. In previous years it’s always been set up outside, but they said it would be too cold for Amelie this year and so we got moved indoors. Dad and Sawyer are suckers; they don’t give her enough credit.
The upside to the warehouse is that it’s at the back of the school property. You still have to leave the grounds to access it because there is no track through the school that a car can fit through. Walking would take way too long anyway.
When we pull up, Amelie’s bodyguard’s car is parked out the front. Sawyer won’t let me punch his smug face. The older guy, Frost, who watches her is more to my liking.
We walk inside as a unit and all four of us stop dead in our tracks.
Amelie is already running the course, her curly hair pulled back behind her head, which is already covered in mud.
The damn security guard is following closely behind her.
My jaw clamps shut when they reach the spider web at the mid-way point of the course; Amelie gets stuck and he has the nerve to push her up by her ass.
A growl leaves Sawyer’s throat, and he steps forward.
I throw my hand out to stop him. If anyone gets to punch the guy, it’s me.
We watch in silence as they complete the track.
The douche whispers something to her, and she squeals and jumps into his arms. This time all four of us march forward, not stopping until we reach them.
“Fucker!” Kalen roars and launches himself forward, but Frost jumps out of nowhere and catches Kalen mid-launch, pulling him to the ground. He laughs while he does it.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Amelie,” that fucker Jasper says, and winks at her before walking off. Frost watches us carefully while Jasper leaves.
“You two looked awfully cosy already,” I snap. I’m trying to reign in my temper, I really am, but someone else besides my brothers touching her does something to me. And I don’t like it.
When I thought she was using my mum for her vendetta against Laura, I was fuming.
I reminded myself that I can’t have feelings for anyone besides my brothers, because everyone I get close to leaves, and she only solidified that when she ran back to Australia.
Those I love always get hurt, usually because of me.
Everything that happened to Slate was my fault because I never stood up for him.
I was too weak to put myself in the way and cop some of the abuse.
“What is your problem? You all force me to participate and Jasper was helping me train because you assholes didn’t show up on time. He stayed behind on his own time…”
“He had his hands on your ass,” Kalen throws back at her.
“How else would he have pushed me up huh, by the twat?” she counters with a smile. “I’m not yours, Kalen.”
“No, but you are mine and the next time he puts his hands on you, I will cut them off, finger by finger and make him eat them,” Sawyer states, and Amelie doesn’t look pleased.
She may be five foot nothing, but she has fire in her bones.
I’m glad. I hope Sawyer pisses her off with the overprotective bullshit we all seem to feel for her, so that she gets mad at him too.
“That’s a tad over the top. You’re starting to sound like Baxter, and we all know he’s a sick fucker.”
“You think he’s sick, baby? You really don’t know that much about us. Your bodyguard won’t see out the weekend if his hands are not kept to himself,” I add.
She really has no idea what we are capable of, being part of The Snaidhm comes with getting your hands dirty. Bloody.
She frowns at me.
“I think this is one of those cultural things again. Where I come from ‘sick’ means crazy or awesome.”
“Well here it means twisted,” I tell her.
She squirms uncomfortably. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if she is cut out for this life.
“Ugh, I’m not your baby!” she snaps, walking away from us and moving back towards the start of the course. “Hurry up, some of us have better things to do tonight.”
We all follow her and I note that something has changed in her today; all this week she has complained and whined about having to run the course, and now all of a sudden she is about to go through for a second time? Game on, baby, I’m about to make this run a little less fun.