Page 69 of Sinful Palace

“Hm. Okay.” I twisted my lips. “How would I go about becoming one of the shadow council members?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because if Q wanted you, he would’ve told you.”

“Fair enough.” I tilted my head to the side. “Why are you suddenly being so honest and telling me all this stuff, anyway? You’ve been acting shady for weeks, so you’ll have to forgive me for finding the sudden change suspicious.”

“I’m hoping to make you see reason. As I said before, I don’t want you or Willow looking into the Order and getting yourselves into trouble.”

“If we think something bad is going on, we should be allowed to ask questions.”

“No.” He narrowed his eyes. “Once you pledge yourself to the society, that’s it. You don’t question anything. You accept your place, stay quiet and do whatever is asked of you. It’s all for the greater good.”

“Yeah, so we’ve been told.” I blew out a short, irate breath.

Dad’s fingers curled up tightly, knuckles going white. “Logan, you have somewhat of an advantage over other Order members in that you have a father on the high council. But even then, there’s only so much I can do to protect you and Willow. If you take this too far and make Q angry enough, he won’t hesitate to deal with you.”

My chest tightened. “Is that a threat?”

“I’m just telling you what I know.”

“Well, it sounded like a veiled threat,” I replied, hands squeezing into fists. “Wait, no, scratch that. It sounded like a blatant threat.”

“It wasn’t. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“And I don’t want you or any of your Order minions to threaten my fiancée,” I said, jaw clenching hard.

“You really aren’t going to drop this?”

“Not unless I can meet with Q and have him tell me right to my face that Willow isn’t in danger. But obviously that’s not going to happen.”

A muscle tightened in his left cheek. “Well, you could always request a meeting, but I highly doubt he’ll agree to it.”

“What?”

“Any Order member can request a meeting with Q.”

“How?”

“By approaching a council member like me and asking, of course. We have a number to call which goes straight to a voicemail box, and we leave a message with the request. Q gets back to us eventually, usually with a no. If he says yes, a time and location for the meeting is provided.”

“Uh… why didn’t I know about this before now?”

He leaned back, a smug gleam in his eyes. “You never asked. Besides, it’s pointless. I haven’t seen Q accept a meeting with anyone in over two decades.”

I decided to call his bluff.

“I’ll take my chances,” I said. “Make the call. See if he’ll meet with me.”

He gave me a hard look. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”

“Yup.”

“Fine. Don’t expect any miracles, though.” He smiled thinly.

I smiled back at him. “We’ll see.”

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