Page 2 of The Wolf and the Monarch

“Well, don’t drink the coffee. It will just ruin your good mood,” Spence mentioned.

“Oh, fuck off,” Travis practically growled and punched his brother on the arm.

Matthew chuckled. “Luckily, I brought my own from home.”

Travis immediately scoffed, “is it really that bad?!”

“Yes.” The other three men in the room immediately answered in unison and Travis huffed, folding his arms across his broad chest. It was always pretty funny to see him throw a tantrum considering the way he looked. All three Madison brothers looked pretty similar. Their genes were strong, that was for sure. Spence and Travis both had brown hair and brown eyes, they were both tall and muscular (Travis moreso). Spence wore glasses and had a crooked nose from when he broke it a handful of years ago. Travis was tattooed from the neck down. The only places on him that weren’t inked were his palms but he probably had plans for those soon. His dad also had brown hair but it was now greying pretty rapidly, and he had blue eyes. He didn’t have any tattoos or anything, but he was missing his left ear. He had lost it on a mission when he was in his twenties and never bothered to fix it.

Benji’s gaze drifted from his uncle and back to his dad. He was glad to see he was in a good mood but the more he looked at him from across the room, the more he noticed that he was also a bit spacey. His uncles would try to bring him into the conversation and he would just throw a casual ‘uh huh’ or ‘yep’ in there. It was just kind of weird. Spence mentioned a big job. He was probably just thinking about it, Benji supposed.

Before he was able to question it further, Andi walked in a few minutes later. The twins threw a nod at each other and Benji shifted his eyes towards their dad. Andi shifted her own towards him and cocked her brow. He just barely shrugged a shoulder then sipped his coffee again. “Morning, everyone,” she said simply. “Cold out there today.”

Andi, Benji’s twin sister, was a tech genius and computer savant. She really didn’t like being called a hacker because she said it made her ‘feel icky’ but, at the end of the day, that’s what she was. She could get into any system and manipulate it with ease. In all their time working together, Benji had never seen her sweat about hacking something. It was really quite impressive. She had even begun to teach him some things. Benji would never be nearly as good as she was considering that was not his wheelhouse, but it was nice to know some things.

What was his wheelhouse was stealth. It had always been that way, even when he was a kid. He was always sneaking them cookies or candy when they shouldn’t have been eating it. He just put that skill into his job now. He was the guy they sent in when they wanted something done quickly and quietly. His smaller stature, standing at five foot nine on a good day, really worked to his advantage and he never took it for granted.

“It’s freezing,” Benji said, shaking his head.

“You always think it’s cold though.” Travis commented.

He wasn’t wrong. “It’s colder than normal though. You have to admit that.” Everyone shrugged in agreement, except for Matthew. “Right, dad?” He asked.

“Hm?” His dad immediately sounded, looking up to Ben. “What?”

“It’s colder than normal.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. Your mom turned the heat up last night.” That sounded about right. Benji got his freeze baby nature from her. He was half expecting his dad to continue the conversation, but he just went back to staring off at nothing, clearly thinking about something. The twins glanced at each other again and gave each other the look that said they would talk about it later.

A few minutes later, Andi was settled in and Matthew was standing up from his seat, walking towards the door. “Everyone. Meet in the drawing room in five,” he stated clearly and concisely before he stepped out. Immediately, the four left in the room glanced at each other and Spence huffed. They would be finding out what the issue was soon enough, Benji supposed.

Chapter Two

Benji

A few moments after his dad’s announcement, Spence and Travis got up and moseyed out of the room, leaving the twins alone for a couple minutes. Benji stood up and grabbed his cup. “He’s acting weird, right?” He asked.

Andi immediately sighed and ran a hand along her forehead. “I’ve only been here a couple minutes but it’s painfully obvious.”

“It’s been like that since he walked in,” he shrugged. “He came in smiling but…he’s just been spacing out. He doesn’t really do that.”

She shook her head. “That’s so weird,” her lip turned up. “Now I’m even more curious about this mission.”

Benji just flicked his brows and took another sip of the shitty coffee. “I guess we’ll be finding out in a minute.”

His sister huffed while grabbing her emotional support water bottle then stepped out from behind her desk. “Let’s go.”

The twins walked out of the office and down the hall to the drawing room. Walking inside, they took a seat at a table beside each other. Benji immediately folded his arms across his chest while Andi grabbed the pen and paper that was kept on the table. Inside the room, there was a large white board on the wall with a projector pointing at it and a podium in front of it. There were four tables in the room, each with two chairs at it and a few file cabinets in the back of the room as well. His uncles were chitchatting with each other, as always, until Matthew entered the room. Immediately, the room went quiet and all four of them watched as he walked over to the board. Benji couldn’t help but sit up straighter in his seat, keeping his gaze steadily on his dad.

“Right,” Matthew huffed. “We have a new mission that is rather urgent.”

“They usually are.” Travis mentioned and raised his brow.

“More urgent.” Matthew corrected as he grabbed a remote that was hung on the wall. With a couple clicks on the remote, the lights turned off and the projector turned on, showing a blueprint. Benji took a few moments to look it over before he turned his gaze back to his dad. “The assignment itself should be quite simple. We are to wipe a computer completely. There should be absolutely no way for anyone to access whatever is currently on that hard drive or the cloud once we're finished with it.”

“What’s currently on it?” Benji asked.

“A lot of things,” Matthew sighed, “from names of people they have their eye on taking out to plans that could very well start a war.”