Page 18 of Sinful Palace

5

Willow

Shivering,I wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck. Warm air was piping into the private elevator, but it didn’t help. I’d felt cold and shaky ever since my most recent ‘lesson’ from Logan, and the feeling showed no sign of dissipating anytime soon.

The elevator came to a smooth halt. I stepped out onto the ground floor with Logan by my side. Mal and Adam were back on my security detail now, and they were faithfully trailing behind us.

From what I’d overheard while Logan was on the phone to someone earlier, Adam was in a bit of trouble for leaving me alone outside the other night. However, the Thornes hadn’t fired him, because he’d raced off to help after being called up by Mal, which they could hardly fault him for. On top of that, he was also a loyal employee to them, and he’d never revealed anything about the fucked-up stuff that went on behind closed doors at Thorne House. That loyalty could be tested, however, if they let him go.

I wished they would, though. I wished they would fire both agents or do something else to piss them off, just so they’d snap and tell the world what this crazy family was doing to me. Then again, if they were ever let go, the Thornes would probably have them killed to ensure their permanent silence.

Sighing, I looked down at the marble tiles as I followed Logan across the lobby to the eastern wing of Wonderland’s ground floor. The Order had called a meeting for all members to discuss the recent data breach, and they were holding it in a lavish function room right here.

Usually, Order meetings were held at the underground headquarters in the secret D.C. tunnels, but for security reasons, they’d decided to host tonight’s event here instead. Those ‘security reasons’ mostly involved me. The data breach had only involved my secret confession, and with all the media furor and public outrage surrounding my family at the moment, the Order had deemed it unsafe for me to be roaming around the city.

Unbelievably, Wonderland was actually the safest place for me at the moment.

“Won’t your mom think it’s weird that she’s the only one home for dinner?” I asked, catching up to Logan. With Chuck in the high council for the Order, and Logan and me in the general membership, Elizabeth would be left all alone upstairs tonight.

Logan shook his head. “She went out to the city with some friends earlier,” he said. “She wouldn’t think it’s weird, anyway. Dad is busy most nights, so him being gone at dinnertime is nothing out of the ordinary. As for us, we could just say we decided to go out on a date if she ever wondered why we weren’t there.”

“Oh. Right.”

He put an arm out to stop me. “The meeting is in that room,” he said, pointing to our left. “We’re early, though, so I don’t know if we can go in yet.”

He told Mal and Adam to keep an eye on me while he went and spoke to the security guards standing outside the double doors of the function room. While he was gone, I cast my eyes around the expansive space, taking in the bright restaurants and bars on the other side.

A familiar face popped into my line of sight a moment later. Rowan Harris was standing by the glass window of a sports bar directly across from the function room. He held a half-empty beer schooner in one hand, and he seemed to be alone. He caught my eye in the same few seconds I noticed him, and he shot me a surprised look before smiling and raising one hand in a wave.

I waved back just as Logan returned to my side. “We can’t go in yet,” he said. “They said the high council is still setting things up with Q.”

My eyes widened. “Q is going to be at the meeting?”

Logan shook his head. “He’s going to be talking to us via video link.”

I pressed my lips together as an urge to giggle overcame me. The thought of the secret supreme leader of the Order video-conferencing a meeting with his subordinate members seemed completely ludicrous to me.

“What’s so funny?” Logan asked, brows furrowing as he stared down at me. By now my shoulders were shaking with barely-concealed mirth.

“Sorry,” I said, trying my best to control myself. “It’s just the idea of Q Skyping with us. He’s meant to be the big, shadowy leader of an elite secret society, oozing with power and influence, and then he goes and does something as mundane as a video conference.”

I expected Logan to roll his eyes at my lowbrow sense of humor, but he grinned instead. It wasn’t one of the scornful smirks he liked to pull on me most of the time. It was a genuine smile, making his usually-cold gray eyes light up. “You’re right,” he said. “It does seem pretty ridiculous.”

“Why is he doing it?”

Logan shrugged. “He doesn’t want to be in the same room as all of us, I guess. Too risky. Someone could discover his identity.”

“Do you think anyone will ever find out who he is?”

“Doubt it. Not knowing is the point.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I murmured. I still thought it was really weird that no one in the Order knew who the leader was, even though the reasoning behind it had been explained to me before.

I looked across the room again to see Rowan still standing on the edge of the sports bar. He waved at me again and beckoned for me to go over to him.

I turned back to Logan. “Can I go and say hi to Rowan? He’s at Varsity,” I said, pointing toward the bar.

He frowned. “No. The meeting starts in ten minutes.”

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