Chapter 6

Two yearsago - Age 23

Code races across several screens. Screens I'm always searching. Thankfully, Owen and the others in the order have no clue what is on these screens. They think everything I do, everything I am, is for the Order.

They couldn't be more wrong. I only do what I must and even then I only do it by half measures.

This has been my life in the years since my father was killed. Watching the glow flash through the dark room as images and videos are scanned. Searching for information online about the Order. Finding the things Owen tasks me with finding.

And Samuel.

The thought of that man makes me ill. I do what I have to, to survive, but…

I pull myself away from those thoughts and focus on what's right in front of me. I scan the code and look for the information I need, but the binary isn't what has my attention.

It's him.

The ghost that lurked in the shadows.

As soon as Samuel dropped me off at the Order after our trip abroad, I raced to the computer, determined to find out who was watching us in the warehouse from the shadows. I scoured the internet for weeks, hacking in to video feeds, looking for some hint of him somewhere.

And then I found him. He cased that warehouse for hours. I watched him as he killed Lionel's man outside the building. Then I watched him kill Lionel, the man Samuel met with. He seems to have a thing for necks, considering he broke one and severed the other.

Despite all that, he is perfection. At least in looks, and oh God, those looks make me breathless. I want to crawl under him and call him Daddy.

Not that I've ever called a man Daddy. At least not out loud. There's been a few I'd found online that made me think it, but this man deserves to be called whatever the fuck he wants.

He's massive—big and broad. I know because I triangulated his height after seeing his license because I didn't believe it. No one is six-ten. That's God's territory. But the driver's license hadn't lied to me. He is six-ten and maybe even bigger.

I'm a runt. I know it. On my best day, I'm five foot seven. I'm slender and short with some muscle tone, but not much. I like yoga, not weights so I'm very lean.

My slender and short to his big and broad would be comical if we were ever in a room together—like the people at Guinness are trying to find the most opposite couples or something. We'd look crazy next to one another. I probably wouldn't even come up to his nipples.

Curiosity gets to me, and I giggle as I pull up images of us and manipulate them, proving myself right. It is definitely a hilarious sight. Not as bad as I initially imagined, but still comical.

I don't give a fuck.

I want him.

I want him to claim me, hurt me, abuse me, but only in the feely good ways. The ones I've read about and watched on porn sites. I've been hurt in the ‘that actually hurts motherfucker' kinda ways before. My body carries the marks from the years I've spent under Samuel's thumb.

A chill runs through me. Just his name gives me the shivers. The memories are the stuff of nightmares.

I allow it.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself. And it's not a lie, just not the complete truth, either. I needed some sort of protection from the Order. Samuel was the lesser of two evils. Twenty would probably be a more accurate number than two, though.

After Mum died and Owen Black forced my father and me to move to America because my dad fucked up a job he was given, and Da failed to come up with the money he owed Owen. Life changed for me. Night and day was the best comparison. Life wasn't great before Mum died because she'd been in a coma for a few days and bedridden due to cancer for a few weeks, at least before that. But then Owen came to Scotland, and the day we buried my mother, Da and I were forced onto a plane.

When I was little, I didn't know what it all meant. I just knew how much I missed my mum, and our home, and Mack. But as I got older, I realized who these men were that Da and I lived with. Even worse, I also came to realize I looked like the guys they paraded through the mansion. At first I believed what Da said about them. They were here as interns or for scholarship meetings. Later, I realized they were being shuffled through the house as property to be bought, borrowed, and sold.

That's why I made the executive decision, as soon as I noticed the side eyes, to offer myself up on a silver platter. A last ditch effort to keep myself safe after Da was killed. I'd been worried even before he died that he couldn't keep me safe. I even feared at times that he purposely wouldn't because he was a slave to the Order.

The nightmares of him willingly handing me over to the Order to garner favor were the worst. They'd grown increasingly regular nighttime visitors over the last year of Da's life. He'd been losing favor with Owen at every turn, and I knew he was frantic to get back into Owen's good graces.

As one of the few children who grew up around the Order, I had been a loner because of forced circumstances. I knew the other members had children—well, some of them—but I wasn't permitted to interact with them, really. I know Owen Black has a stepdaughter named Everly, but I've never met her. Owen keeps her removed from things, her and her mother. They are beautiful women who help Owen maintain an honest appearance in the outside world. At least as much as a human-trafficking, drug-dealing, arms-dealer can.

A beeping sound distracts me from my thoughts. I let my gaze race over the screens in front of me, and a name pops out—one I recognize. It's burned in my psyche, flashing like a neon sign on a moonless night.

Helvig.

Maeve Helvig.

I read the post on the message board again. This man that I've found in the code, who's beautiful beyond words and makes me actually want to experience sex with another person, is the son of the Helvig family my father killed for Owen Black. Only my father did what he did best. He fucked up.

How?

Da didn't kill all the Helvigs as he was ordered and as he let on to the Order. He left two of them alive.

Draven Helvig is still alive.

And Maeve Helvig is his sister.

I read back through the message board yet again. Draven learned his sister didn't die nearly twenty years ago. He's learned that the body in his sister's casket is of a missing child.

He may have learned a lot of stuff, but how to hide his tracks online is not one of them. He's posting from the IP address from his own house without a firewall or any proxy servers.

I've gotta protect him.

But first I need to make sure his information is accurate.

Hours later, I lock the screens on my computers and stand from my desk. The shock of what I've uncovered fills me to the brim. It has only grown since I first read the message Draven posted. I stare at the dark screens for a moment, fighting with myself, fighting to keep myself from giving away any of the information I've found.

He needs to know it, but I'm afraid of what he'll do with it. I'm afraid he'll storm the Order.

I turn for the bed. I've been up for hours juiced up on energy drinks, salty chips, and sour candy. If it weren't for my ADHD, I'd have no hope of ever going to sleep. I strip down and slip into bed. Despite my mind racing, the fog of sleep washes over me with ease, and I welcome the oblivion it brings.

My eyes pop open like springs as the ratcheting of a gun slide fills the air, awaking me from a dead sleep. I pull my face from the depths of my pillows as the cold, hard steel of the muzzle presses into the back of my head, pushing it back into the pillow.

"Get up!" Owen growls from above me, punctuating each word with another shove of the gun

Doing as I'm told, I spring from the bed with my heart in my throat. Once on my feet, Owen pushes me out of the room, jerking me down the hall before pulling me downstairs. I grip the banister, my knuckles white from the force, hoping to keep myself upright. I stumble with every step, praying I don't tumble down them head first. The image plays in my head like the one you get when you're following a log truck. I see the stairs rising to meet me with every breath.

"Find me everything you can on Draven Helvig."

Owen's voice is low and calm as he shoves me into the chair in front of the bank of monitors. His cadence is slow and serious. I quake and tears burn trails down my cheeks. I try clenching my teeth to quell the nerves and fear, but that only makes things worse. My hands shake as they hover over the keys, and I cannot make them stop. Nor can I make them begin the search the gun to my head demands.

When I don't move, Owen shoves the gun against my head, straining my neck.

"I will kill you. You're not the only smart piece of ass who can run a computer, Tavish. You're expendable. So, if I were you, I'd do as I was told," he says.

I nod and watch as my fingers drop onto the keyboard like a sports clip being replayed in slow motion. Closing my eyes, I ask for forgiveness. I know what's going to happen to him. Owen told my father years ago to kill the Helvigs.

And he didn't. At least, not all of them.

As usual, my dad screwed up. He was the reason I was in this fucking nightmare. As my fingers fly over the keys, I realize just how stupid my father had been. He wanted to be a badass. He was bad, and an ass, but he wasn't anywhere close to being a badass.

The code flies by, and screens upon screens show me my father took the easy way out and cut corners. I remember that conversation verbatim. It doesn't matter that I was only fucking six years old. It's burned into my psyche like one of those Adverse Childhood Events people are always going on about.

If they only knew.

I sigh. I have the information for Owen. Typically, once he's issued a directive, I'm left to my own devices, but not this time.

"What exactly do you want to know?"

Another shove of the gun against my temple. "Quit asking questions. That's not your role here. I said to find me everything, and I meant fucking everything."

I've got to figure out how to get out of this mess.

Knowing Owen's temper is close to boiling over and not wanting that to happen while he holds a gun at my head, I do as I'm told. My fingers fly over the keys, digging for information I already know. Information that I'm sure is going to lead to me being pistol whipped, but I cannot let Owen near Draven.

Because even if he's never mine, I won't allow the Order to claim him as a casualty of doing business. That's completely unacceptable to me.

The door opens, but I lock my muscles down, so I don't even flinch at the sound. I can't risk it. Not while Owen's in this mood and has a gun to my head. Whoever is at the door pauses, probably as freaked out as I am. Or maybe not. Depends on who's standing there.

"Owen, you're needed at home. There's a problem with your wife."

Zayn.

One of the few bright spots I have inside these walls. He's a decent enough guy. Well, kinda. He's got a psychotic streak when provoked, but he's not like the majority of the Order. He's the Order's occasional tattoo artist and full time mercenary.

"As you can see, I'm busy," Owen growls through his teeth.

I sit perfectly still. Cold rolls through me, leaving me trembling underneath the skin. Clenching my teeth together until I'm sure my molars will pop at any moment, I force myself to remain calm.

Pretty fucking difficult with a gun to my fucking head.

"I'm just relaying the message," Zayn says.

My eyes dart across the screens. It's the only movement I allow myself. One search I'm running catches my eye.

Helvig.

The name flashes on the screen a couple of times with Draven and Maeve's names along with it. The stretch and burn as my eyes widen combined with the name flashing on the screen kicks my pulse up another notch or two.

Jesus! Fuck!

"Fucking bitch is always screwing shit up," Owen growls.

The "bitch" has cancer, and is about to croak, but Owen's not with her for anything other than money or sex, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure he's even with her for the sex considering how often he samples the merchandise.

I hazard a sidelong glance toward Owen, and while the gun is still pointed at me, he looks toward Zayn. Taking a chance, I double tap my mouse and pop open a new screen and start typing search parameters I'm never going to use.

Anything to hide the search I've got going in the background.

"What are you doing, boy?" Owen asks, pushing the gun into my temple and forcing my head toward my shoulder.

"What you asked. See?" I say, pointing at the screen where I'd typed all the search parameters. Luckily, Owen and Zayn are not savvy enough to know that I've added some shit that will bring back inaccurate information. Or rather, information that has nothing to do with the Helvig family.

Owen huffs, shoves the gun against my temple again, and says, "Good. Keep me updated, while I go deal with this fucking cunt I married."

Owen walks away, pushing past Zayn in the doorway. Zayn watches Owen stalk down the hallway. He's footsteps echo off the stone walls angrily.

"You've gotta get out of here, kid."

"Yeah, and how long do you give me before Owen Black and Samuel Nicholson send the entire Order, yourself included, to rain hellfire down on my head?" I deadpan.

"Surely you're smart enough to have set yourself up with an exit plan?"

"I have people I need to find and protect," I explain, pulling up the search I'd hidden from Owen.

"Don't we all, kid," he mumbles.

Confused by the comment he made, I turn and watch Zayn walk away. I didn't think Zayn had anyone in his life. He was alone in the world, but could be wrong. Shaking my head, I laugh at myself mirthlessly. I'm not. Wrong, that is. Owen makes me do a deep dive into everyone's lives on the regular and there's no one is Zayn's life.

If Zayn had someone, I wouldn't blame him for keeping quiet. If you don't want the Order to use those you care about against you, then you keep them as far away from this fucking shitshow as you can.

Sighing, I get up and shut the door, locking it. Sitting back down, I pull out the stash of candy, chips and energy drinks I keep tucked away, and settle in to continue my search into the Helvigs.

I'm going to find Draven's sister. I'm going to find her and send him the information. I want to give him back as much of what my father took from him as I can.

Hours later, I've compiled as much information as I can find. I encrypt it and send it to the email address Draven included in the post he made on the message board, making sure it's not traceable. I cannot have it coming back to bite me in the ass. I only hope it's enough to keep him from killing me for what my father did and for being a part of the Order.