Page 2 of Breaking the Code

He scowls at me. You can see his disdain for me and the disbelief of my position in the Society on his face.

I sigh. I’m so fucking tired of this. Yes, I’m tiny and boyish, and while I’m not violent or aggressive normally, I’ll do what’s necessary to protect myself and those I deem worthy. I don’t have to be violent or aggressive or built. I know ways to kill people that don’t require me to even leave my techy sanctuary just down the hallway.

Plus, I want all this over so I can spend more time with him.

I lean back in my chair and fold my arms over my chest. I stare at creepy guy before glancing at Everly and her men. Damon is watching me. As uneasy as I am around them at times still, I know they have my back. Damon dips his head. That one tiny bit of reassurance is all I need. I turn back to the asshat in front of me.

“Seriously? I know everything there is to know about you. It’s not as if I can’t pull them from your record. So unless you’d like to have another conversation with Damon, put your finger on the scanner like a good little boy.”

I point toward Everly and her men, and creepy guy’s gaze follows my finger. Damon stares at the man in front of me, and I fucking chuckle as creepy guy’s eyes widen when he realizes who Damon is.

Creepy turns back at me and puts his finger on the scanner, going through the process with no further complaints.

I continue to dole out communication devices and catalog DNA, fingerprints, and retina scans. Half of these idiots will lose the device almost as soon as they leave the room. The other half will probably need a dummy manual or training wheels to use them.

My job is information and security. Information is what I did for the Order. They were too stupid to let me implement security protocols. Owen and the others who’ve died learned their lesson on stupidity too late.

Everly is a different story. She and her men are smart enough to know better. They wanted to know every security measure I could devise, and then they wanted it implemented.

Now I do for the Society what Owen Black should’ve had me do for the Order. Not that I would’ve done for them what I’m doing for the Society. I wasn’t with those fuckers willingly. I did what I had to do to keep my fucking head and not get sold into slavery.

Everly changed all that, with my help, of course, but now she and I and all the others in this room were going to break the code. We will hunt down every last member of the Order methodically. We won’t rest until we’ve ferreted out every last one of those perverted, abusive assholes.

Then the Order will pay, and looking at the people in these rooms, it will be a bloody, painful debt to honor.

PART 1

THE PAST

I didn’t choose this life.

They chose it for me.

CHAPTER ONE

DRAVEN

Ten years ago - Age 25

“Simon! I’m home,” I call as I enter my mother’s ancestral home.

The vast, thick wood doors slam shut behind me. When I lived here with my family, a butler always met us at the door. I swore the old man waited and watched out the window for us to arrive because we never once opened the doors ourselves.

Stopping at the hall table just outside the library—a room I’ll always consider my grandfather’s; his memory infuses every surface—I pick up the post. Among the rest o’ the envelopes, I find a thick, nondescript letter. I toss all o’ it but the one that captured my attention back into the bowl. Simon says that is the place for such things. I lived in this house for most o’ my life, and nae once realized there was a place for the mail, but I dinnae argue with Simon. My dad told me once a happy wife meant a happy life, and while Simon isnae my wife, I figure it still holds true.

I head into the library, tossing my coat on an armchair. Simon’ll yell at me for sure, but I cannae let him wear the pants all the time. Sitting behind my desk, I flip the parcel over several times, testing its weight. There’s nae anything on it, but it’s heavy.

Shrugging my shoulders, I open it.

Tucked inside the outer envelope, I find another addressed to my father from his father, who we were to spend Christmas with the year my life went to hell.

Swallowing back the trepidation I feel at the thought o’ what I’ll find inside, I open it carefully.

Life as I know it ceases to exist.

As I pour over the contents o’ the package, the trepidation I felt before opening it swells into a sea o’ emotion that chokes me. My stomach is in knots, and the paper in my hands rattles from the shaking I cannae control.

I’ve been told for years my parents and sister died in a car crash. Yet the missive I’m holding leads me to believe something verra different.

---