Chapter Thirty-Two
Slate
Grandfather arrived back in town last night and it’s never good when he comes back so soon after leaving.
We all think it’s because he presumed Amelie would fail all his tests and he could convince – or manipulate – the board into letting one of us Knox brothers run the show.
We know that would be Kalen, but let’s face it, Kalen can barely adult let alone run a whole organisation.
Amelie and Kalen are MIA this morning, whereas everyone else is accounted for. We have a decent bunch of initiates this year; we’ve never had so many outrun or outsmart the dogs before. It may be childish, but we need people who can think outside the box. Weak links are not acceptable.
“Where are they?” Grandfather booms, clearly agitated by Amelie and Kalen not being here yet.
Onyx and I didn’t look for Kalen last night, we knew that he would figure it out eventually, but maybe we gave him too much credit and need to send out a search party to find him.
“We lost Amelie as soon as we let them loose, and Kalen...Well, Amelie may have set him up so that the dogs went after him,” I say. Onyx laughs. Sawyer snorts trying to cover it with a cough. It was funny.
“You think it’s funny that the future of The Order is missing?” Grandfather snaps.
“You had to be there, and I think you’re mistaken because Amelie is the future. She hasn’t failed any of your little tests.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Dad, how about we calm down and just wait a little longer for them both,” Dad says, trying to calm Grandfather down a little, especially since he brought another board member with him, Dirk Kessler. I don’t think they plan to tell Amelie, but she’s related to the guy.
The sound of a car engine breaks the tension, and a moment later Amelie struts in the room with a massive grin on her face. “Sorry I’m late, I didn’t sleep very well.”
“Nice of you to finally join us,” Grandfather complains, drinking his whiskey. Who the hell drinks at nine in the morning?
“You’re welcome, but Kalen doesn’t appear to be here yet. Are we waiting on him or can we eat?”
She doesn’t address the fact that Laura isn’t here. Dad must have made sure she was busy.
“Eat, while we wait for Kalen,” Dad says, much to our grandfather's disgust.
Amelie fixes herself a plate, taking a seat beside Sawyer. The tension in the room is once again thick. Dad and Sawyer keep up the conversation with Grandfather and Dirk. The rest of us just pick at our food.
The front door slams open, smashing against the wall with a loud bang, and all of our attention is drawn to the hallway where Kalen comes storming in. He’s still in his lion tamer outfit, covered in dirt, his hair matted with leaves falling out.
“Thanks for helping me, assholes,” he spits, glaring at me and Onyx.
“What did you want us to do?” Onyx says with a smile.
“Oh, I don’t know, call off the dogs?” he snaps, picking a loose twig from his hair.
“You know they are trained to stay on the scent until daylight, or they come to the borders of the school land,” Onyx calmly points out, trying to hide his smile. Kalen looks like a mess. Even I have to bite back a grin.
“Oh, I know. I had to hide outside the school until morning. I have a bite mark on my ass!”
Amelie laughs and doesn’t try to hide it.
Kalen’s attention falls to her and he saunters across the room and takes the seat to her left. Leaning over, he whispers something in her ear and a huge smile spreads across her face.
“You think you’re so smart,” Grandfather snaps. Amelie looks over at him and nods.
“Pretty genius if you ask me,” she says with a smirk. “I didn’t think it would work, but it was hilarious to watch.”
I knew she was in that tree! I wasn’t sure if I heard a laugh or an animal.
“It was you in the tree,” I say.
“Yep!” She grins proudly. “I rubbed myself on Kalen and then changed into Jasper's shirt and ran for my life.”
“Amelie, I forgot to introduce you to Dirk Kessler, a friend of my father’s.” Amelie looks at my dad, and then towards Dirk and Grandfather. Her eyes scan the knot tattoo on the inside of his left wrist.
“Nice to meet you,” she says politely.
“You’re Marco’s daughter.” Confusion washes over Amelie's face.
“You know my dad?” she questions.
“A long time ago, when he was no older than you. Before he went back to Australia.”
Amelie and Dirk talk quietly amongst themselves. We know that Dirk is Debbie's uncle. We’ve wanted to tell Amelie about Laura for a while now, but we are bound by The Order under some old fucking bylaws.
Most of The Order might run on favours, and a lot is above board and about getting ahead in life, but it isn’t all like that.
There are a lot of illegal activities: drugs, guns, trafficking – though we draw the line at sex slaves and children.
We even do good in that department, using our connections to bring those criminals to justice.
Though with us being in university, we have never been involved in any of those things directly.
Instead, we have specialised teams that we send in and do that, because we have connections everywhere.
The Order is blood in and blood out, we recruit members while in uni, from select families.
If you have a kid with a mob boss father, chances are they will join the mob.
There isn’t any type of person we don’t have in The Order.
Onyx has already expressed his interest in running the marksmen division; he will sic The Order on those who haven’t complied, and his teams will do what needs to be done.
It’s a lot to take in, but we have grown up in this world.
No one is forced to join; even when you pass your last test, you get a choice.
That’s where Baxter fucked up. He was happy to join, but now he tries to distance himself and he was hand-picked by his family to follow in their footsteps.
He should have just said no, but because he didn’t, he’s here til the bitter end.
Many of our Ghosts – our invisibles – come from the Branson family.
We never underestimate Baxter; he has been trained as a weapon.
We also never force anyone into a role they don’t want, but that pisses off the board.
Baxter is one of the best they have ever seen.
He never leaves a trail, he can pop up out of nowhere and kill a man using pressure points before they would notice he is even there.
He’s smooth and reliable, he just prefers violence and mess.
Baxter also isn’t stupid, he knows why we want Amelie, which is why we also know he will try whatever he can to stop her from joining.
For whatever reason, he is drawn to her – but it doesn’t appear to be in a sexual way.
Their whole relationship baffles me. We know that he has been planning to go off grid when he finishes here at Knox, which will ultimately sign his own death certificate.
If Amelie takes over, he won’t be able to – his connection to her will save him.
It would be better for him if she does take over, so why is he so against it happening?
Grandfather, clearly annoyed by how well Amelie is doing, excuses himself and takes Dirk and my father with him. He says that they have business to attend to, but we’ve learnt that is code for ‘I’m done with this conversation’.
“What was that all about?” Amelie asks. We all look at her.
“How about we take a walk? I have Marshmallow locked up in the laundry room.”
When Sawyer mentions Marshmallow, Amelie’s eyes light up and she jumps out of her chair ready to go. Kalen runs upstairs to change.
We all head to the back of the house, and Marshmallow starts yapping when he hears us coming. Amelie runs ahead and opens the door, the white fluff ball jumps into her arms and licks her face.
“Hey, baby,” she coos, “Did you miss me?”
Sawyer joins her and Onyx stands beside me. Something is up with him and he hasn’t spoken to me about it, which worries me. The issue with him is that if he keeps it bottled up, someone will pay the price later. He usually attends more of Taco’s fights when he has something on his chest.
“What’s up with you?” I ask while we watch Amelie and Sawyer take the dog out the back door.
“Hearing Amelie say she wore Jasper’s shirt makes me want to slice him to pieces. She’s fucking me up and I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“You know letting people in isn’t a bad thing.”
“That's easy for you to say. She left us once before, so what’s stopping her from going again? When she finds out exactly what our future holds in The Order she may very well disappear.”
“Stop being a big baby,” Kalen says, coming up behind us. “I have a plan.”
“And what’s that, oh smart one?” Onyx says sarcastically, looking him up and down as if to say ‘look how well your last plan worked out for you’.
“Well, we use her hatred of Laura to get her to join The Order. Like, properly. At the moment she’s only interested in getting answers.
We need her to stay, so we give her a real reason to want to join.
When she finds out about her” – Kalen lowers his voice – “real mother. I suspect she will be furious and want to use The Order’s resources. ”
“That's all good in theory, but she has Smalls, and when she feels threatened, she’ll turn to him,” I say.
And it’s true, all we can do is hope that she wants this, and if she does, that she will stick around with us.
We all messed up with her, and we know it.
Every single one of us has so much baggage – from our childhood to being in The Order.
Don’t get me wrong we would all live and die for The Order, but Amelie is a game changer.
We know it, Dad knows it, and even Grandfather and the board knows it.
One person has come into our lives and is stripping us of everything we have ever believed in.
Onyx lashes out when he doesn’t understand his emotions, and I’m an enabler when it comes to my twin.
I’ve always tried to please him, to somehow wash away his guilt over what happened to me as a kid.
Kalen is a people pleaser and has always wanted to be us.
When he went against us it was a shock which made Onyx and I realise that we feel the same way about Amelie.
Sawyer is harder to read. He used to need his job, he said he felt like it was a way to atone for the death of his friend, for his past. I’m not sure how his logic works, considering the things we do in The Order, but it could possibly have been a way to justify why he does it.
Yet without a fight, he walked away from his job.
As Kalen would say: we’re all pussy whipped.
“Are you two butt munchers coming?” Kalen yells, taking off after Amelie and Sawyer.
By the time we catch up to them they are all sitting on a grassy area. Amelie is lying down with her head in Sawyer’s lap...why do girls do that? I’m sure his hard dick would be a very uncomfortable pillow. Kalen is chasing the fluff ball around.
“So, is anyone going to tell me what your grandfather's problem with me is?” Amelie asks just as Kalen plops down on the ground beside her.
“He’s a fucking asshole,” Onyx declares, and he isn’t wrong.
“That, I could have figured out on my own,” she says, sitting up so she is facing all of us.
“Let’s just say, you are very important to The Order.
Our grandfather wants to rule the world, so to speak, but the board is full of very old pretentious men who love to follow the rules – rules that were written over a hundred years ago – and so he is struggling with the fact that you’re a woman.
He can’t figure out a way he can bend this to fit in with his agenda,” Sawyer answers for us.
“And what do you all think about this?”
“In all honesty, we want to take control and bring The Order into the twenty-first century, but to do that The Order must have one clear leader. Unfortunately, the founders made sure that it wouldn’t happen easily.”
“And you need me for that?” She’s shrewd, I’ll give her that.
“We do, yes. You and some board members. We need four board members on our side. I think we have three and with your weird friendship with Branson, we could get four.”
“So I’m just a pawn?” She looks at Sawyer for clarification.
“No, we wouldn’t do that. We know we fucked up last term, but you need to understand, Amelie, that once you’re in The Order there is only one way out and it’s in a pretty casket covered in your favourite flowers,” Kalen adds.
“We need you to trust us, but we also know that is a huge ask after everything,” I say, turning towards her.
“Okay,” she says. We all turn to her, shocked, not expecting her to be so easily persuaded.
“I know there are things you can’t tell me, but just know that beyond all this Order crap, if you hurt me or lie to me again, there will be no second chances.
Swear to me, because fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. ”
“Cross our hearts and hope to die,” Kalen says, making a cross sign over his chest.
“All of you do it.”
Sawyer and I do it. Onyx is reluctant, but huffs and crosses his when we all stare at him.
“If we are all in, we are all in. The five of us. That means you’re ours, Amelie. Besides, my brothers and I don’t share well,” Onyx adds, which shocks us. He’s usually a man of limited words.
“I’m all in,” Amelie says, crawling towards Onyx, her big brown eyes taking him in like he’s her prey. Onyx gulps and she smiles.
“Good, now I can beat the stupid out of Jasper for giving our woman his clothes to wear.”
“I’m in!” Kalen announces and I laugh.
“No one is beating Jasper. He is a valuable part of the team and we need to remember that,” Sawyer, ever the voice of reason, adds.
Sawyer’s phone rings. Our father has ordered us back to the house.
Onyx agrees to take Amelie back to the academy while we deal with our grandfather.
We plan to keep her away from him as much as possible until the final trial.
I’m hoping Kalen can spend some one-on-one time with the old man and get some clues on what he has planned, because the one thing we know is that it is going to be a lot harder than anything he has ever dished out before.
He has a point to prove: that women don’t belong amongst men.
The sooner he is exiled into retirement, the better.