“No.”
“Fine. I’ll get my own and we can be twinsies.” I laugh at the face he pulls. “Got you.”
After everyone finishes their duets, Miss Alba looks my way expectantly. Shit! I was supposed to be thinking of a theme and not teasing my new bodyguard.
“So what will next week's theme be, Amelie?” she asks. I stand and stare at her while someone coughsAussie slag.
“Australian artists,” I say, giving the girl who called me a slag a pointed look that says ‘in your face’. I doubt any of these wannabes can wing the next lesson.
“Good choice. I want to mix it up, so each person in the duet will pick a song to sing to the other person. Something that relates to them, but it must be by an Australian artist. You have until Friday to have it ready, but I suggest you get to know your partners a little better first, so that you can choose an appropriate song.”
Most of the students groan, they probably don’t know a great deal about each other beyond their names. I love Australian music. Smalls and Aadi may always listen to R&B and though I love it, my guilty pleasure is pumping some Guy Sebastian. Which I blame Chelsea for. She has a sick obsession with singing shows, and although I didn’t watch the year he won because I was only about four years old, she loves him so much that I was sucked down a rabbit hole of Australian talent thanks to her.
I can’t wait to see what song Slate chooses, this will give me a good idea about how he feels. All I need to do is find the perfect song to draw him back in and make him believe all is good. Every single one of them is lying to me, I can feel it in my bones, and where I come from there is a saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That shouldn’t be hard, all I need to do is keep my feelings in check. I liked them all a lot, and those feelings still linger deep down inside. But I plan to shove them down even deeper and keep them hidden. Kalen will be my Achilles’ heel. He was almost my undoing when I left, and I have a gut feeling he will be again.
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 theydorun 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 anyreallyclassified 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, whichhelps 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 isthrown 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.”
