15. Favor
FIFTEEN
FAVOR
CONNOR
Adrian told me that he would handle the King of the Order. Since my bro is honest to a fault when it comes to the rest of us, I believed him. At the very least, he has just as much to lose if Jack decides to use his role as the head of the secret society to separate me from Haven.
Three weeks into Haven’s stay at my house, it’s the beginning of July. I’m sure that, outside of my secluded house, Harmony Heights is preparing for the Claiming ceremony in mid-August. In a way, I am, too, just not like how they are.
That’s why, I figure that Jack will either pull rank now or wait until after the ceremony to try to use my position in the Order to get me to fall in line.
Not like that’s going to happen. It won’t.
I’ll fucking slice my hand off at the wrist to get rid of the Order brand on it before I let the King take Haven away from me.
Now, do I know that there’s no walking away from being an Owed?
Sure do. Just cutting my hand off wouldn’t keep the King from imposing the true sentence: death.
But since I’d rather die before losing Haven again, that’s fine, too.
Cutting my hand off would be more of a statement before he sends Dallas after me, and since I don’t want to make one of my oldest friends responsible for putting me down, I think it’s best for all involved that the King decide to let me have Haven and drop the whole idea that she was supposed to marry Adrian.
I’m the perfect Owed otherwise. Why mess up a good thing because I fell in love with Haven long before he decided to arrange her marriage to his nephew?
All logical arguments, if you ask me. I pleaded my case to Adrian and Dallas, both fellas agreed, and Adrian made it his purpose to handle Jack.
Whether that meant finding another Used to toss at Jack to be his latest mistress or reminding him that Adrian is responsible for keeping the books for the Order, I don’t know, but for the first three weeks, it seemed to have worked.
And then, one afternoon while Haven was napping and I was sitting in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee and watching her snore adorably on my phone, the doorbell rang.
Just in case, I checked my texts. Nope. Didn’t miss any from one of my bros.
No missed calls, either. After what happened last time, I told Adrian not to come to my house.
He passed the message along to the rest of our buddies.
Unless I needed them—or there was an emergency—they weren’t supposed to come here and bother Haven.
But if it’s not one of them, who’s out there?
I could’ve ignored it. Who knows? Maybe it was a Jehovah’s Witness or something. I could’ve ignored it.
I didn’t.
Through the peephole, I see a man in his late forties.
He has thick dark hair, going silver at the edges.
His eyes are dark, his expression annoyed.
Like most of the old guard—those at the top of the Order’s chain of command, serving right beneath Jack—he’s wearing an expensively tailored suit.
Standing on my porch, waiting for me to answer, he’s anxiously tugging on one sleeve.
I recognize him. It’s Barry Wise, and he obviously doesn’t want to be here.
It’s equally as obvious that Jack must’ve sent him.
Wise is a lawyer that works for the Order. One of Jack’s personal team of pet attorneys, I don’t know exactly what he does, only that he doesn’t often do it. Not when he spends most of his time boozing over at the King’s Court, taking two or three Used into the backrooms at a time.
I get the feeling he’d rather be there than on my porch. Only a direct order from Jack would have him out there—or because he’s doing something that’ll get him a bonus from the King, and maybe a little more action at the Court.
Either way, he’s here, and I better handle this before Haven wakes up again.
Pulling open the door, I step out onto the porch so I can join Wise out there.
He sticks out his hand, making sure I can see the matching brand on his right palm. “Connor! How are you? How’s your old man?”
I’m not in the mood for the small talk bullshit that comes when one Owed is talking to another. Same for the stupid fucking handshake. I do it, because it’s expected of me, just like how I tell him that Dad’s fine, I’m fine, and, look at that, the weather’s great.
By the way, Barry, what the fuck do you want?
I don’t ask him that. I don’t need to. Once the small talk BS is done, Wise gets right to the point.
"Heard Haven Smith is back in town."
Damn it.
“Did you?” My smile appears automatically. The charming, harmless grin that should be a warning, but to a man like Wise, it won’t be. “Where did you hear that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Yes. It does.
I wait.
He shrugs. “I overheard the St. James kid mention it when I was passing by his office. He was on the phone. Pretty sure it was with the King’s boy. He mentioned Roger Smith’s daughter… and I heard him say something about the Heyward place.”
Desmond, Desmond, Desmond… if he hadn’t been there to help me rescue Haven, I’d kill him for opening his mouth and talking about Haven and me where anyone could hear him.
Wise studies me closely. “Is it true? Do you have her here with you?”
I shake my head, the lie coming easily. “Me? Why would I?”
“That’s a good question, Connor. And, to be honest, not really my concern. If you want to keep the girl, keep the girl. Rog was a buddy of mine. He’d want her to be with a respected Owed. I don’t know why she skipped town, but if she’s back… maybe this is for the best, you know.”
Oh. I know…
“If I had her,” I say.
“Right. If you had her.”
I pause for a moment. “Does Jack know? About this rumor that Haven’s back in town?”
Did you tell him? Or did you come straight here to put the squeeze on me first? Because, make no mistake, that’s what’s happening. It’s only a matter of when he starts turning the screws, but it’s coming, and thumbing the bulge in my pants pocket, I’m ready for it.
“The King, you mean?”
Sure. I nod.
“He suspects it. He also suspects that his nephew is covering it up. But he doesn’t know.” Wise lays his hand on my shoulder. “He doesn’t have to know, either. We can keep it between you and me.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You’d do that?”
“Sure, sure. I mean, my silence isn’t cheap, but once you buy it, you have it.”
There it is. Exactly what I was expecting.
His hand is still on my shoulder. That’s a mistake.
Ducking out from under it, I ask, “Who does know?”
I’m sure he thinks what I’m really asking is: who else do I have to pay off?
“Just me. Unless Desmond started running his mouth to someone else, I was the only one who overheard him this morning.”
Wow. What did he do? Cut out his nooner so he could run here and try to blackmail me immediately?
Big mistake, Wise. Fucking huge.
I glance behind me. I left the door open because I was hoping he would leave right away. Now? I purposely close it, then gesture down the stairs.
“Why don’t we take this away from the front?” I ask him. “We can discuss business where no one can overhear us.”
Let him think that Haven is just inside my door, listening. She shouldn’t be; she’s locked in the basement, currently napping. But what he doesn’t know…
“Of course, son. Yeah. I understand.”
He doesn’t—but he will.
“If she did something get herself ruined, I think it would be much better if you took her off the Order’s hands,” he tells me.
“But I understand if we can’t come to an agreement.
It works for me either way. I’ve always admired the tits on Rog’s girl.
If you don’t want her, I’ll be happy to break her in down at the Court, if you know what I mean. ”
Oh, Barry… I know exactly what you mean.
Pretending like he hadn’t just signed his death warrant with that comment, I tell him, “This way.”
Together, we move around to the side of the house. I gesture for Wise to take the lead, murmuring that we’d have more privacy in the backyard. Meanwhile, once he turns his back on me, I reach into my pants pocket. I have my pocketknife out and open before we reach the patio.
Once we have, Wise turns to me as though ready to extort me some more. Too slow, asshole. I lunge forward, grabbing his chin, jerking his head back. With my other hand, I slash with my knife, cutting a smile into his throat.
He gasps, then he gurgles, then he clutches his neck before falling to his knees.
Still wearing my charming grin, I kick him in the shoulder until he’s flat on his back, choking on his blood. He jerks, and I wait, and then he dies—and I shake my head.
Dumb fuck. Blackmail me all you want, but he made the biggest mistake in the world by threatening Haven. Worse, he sexualized her. He’s got at least twenty years on her, he was a friend of her father’s, and he was eyeballing her tits.
He’s lucky I didn’t make him suffer first. Later, I’ll wish that I did. For now, I just spit on the bastard before reaching for the phone stuffed in my back pocket.
You know what? Jack can suspect that I have Haven all he wants.
If he decides to send his goons to interfere, that’s fine with me.
I’m two bodies down, and when it comes to protecting my sweetheart, I’ll kill a thousand more.
I swear, I’ll kill each and every person who thinks they can try to take Haven away from me.
Looking at the woods ahead of me, I have the space to bury them, plus a guileless grin that I’ll slap on my face every time I deny knowing what happened to them.
I’m perfectly capable of handling Barry here. But just in case he really isn’t the only one who knows… and just in case Haven is awake and needs me…
I select one of the few contacts in my phone. It dials, and I wait for Dallas to answer.
“Hey, bro. I need a favor…”
Later, I’ll blame that Barry bastard for everything that happens next.
I’ll admit that, as easy and right as it was to eliminate a threat to my Haven, it threw me off a little.
Dallas told me he would be right over to handle my body problem for me.
I made another call—this time to Adrian—to fill him in on what happened…
and to get him to remind Desmond to keep his mouth shut before I did it for him.
After that, I went back inside. I wasn’t too worried about leaving Wise out back. Just in case, I covered him up with a tarp that’s been moldering away in the barely used shed for years, then hurried for the basement.
I don’t know why I went down there instead of to my private bathroom.
I guess I just needed to be close to Haven directly after killing for her.
I didn’t even notice that I was covered in blood until I stepped into the basement.
Luckily, she was still sleeping, and I rushed to the sink to wash my hands and scrub my pocketknife.
That’s where I made my first mistake. So it didn’t rust, I left it on the drying mat while I left the basement, in favor of going upstairs to wash off the last of the blood in the shower.
I did, changing my clothes, and throwing the bloody ones out; the last thing I needed was my laundry service wondering what happened to them.
Once I had, I checked my phone. The cameras revealed that Haven was up again, sitting in the main part of the basement, reading a book. Since I had two missed calls—one from Dallas, one from Adrian—I decided to check in with them before heading downstairs to start an early dinner for Haven.
Everything seemed fine. I cooked a chicken and rice dish that she constantly ordered as take-out; when I noticed it was a favorite of hers, it’s one of the first recipes I taught myself to cook. The surprise on her face when she tasted it before digging in… I was on cloud fucking nine.
She even let me sit on the couch with her while she watched a movie.
I could almost pretend that I was watching it with her instead of watching her take it in, and by the time she seemed to be yawning, getting sleepy even though she took the hour nap earlier…
I really thought we were having a great evening together.
I had no idea that my sneaky sweetheart was lulling me into a false sense of security until it was way too late.
I’d had a day myself. Deciding that it was time to head upstairs so that Haven would get ready for bed—and then I could sneak down here again to be close to her—I blew her a kiss, told her I’d see her in the morning, then started up the stairs.
After that, all hell basically breaks loose.
I didn’t hear her on the stairs. I’ll swear that. She must’ve gotten up, tiptoed behind me, and followed me up as quiet as a mouse because I had no idea that she was there—until she uses my own pocketknife to jab me in the ass.
Seriously.
She actually stabs me in the ass.