Page 4 of Fight

Before I can think about how to word it and tell her such monumental news, the sound of the front door opens. I’m instantly standing, my gun in my hand and aimed at the entrance to the front room, ready for whoever decides to walk through it. The guys are all doing the same, their faces set like stone as their weapons are aimed in the same direction as mine. They all look fucking hot, all severe and deadly. Which is obviously something that I should be focusing on right now.

I have no idea where my grandmother or Gerald is because I’m now facing the other way, toward the door, with the couch between us. I do know, however, that they are both entirely capable of looking after themselves, and I don’t need to worry about them.

A tall woman with the hint of what I’m assuming is a full sleeve of tattoos peeking out from under the cuff of her jacket, dark hair, and blue eyes walks into the room, taking her coat off. She sees us all standing there and stops, raising her eyebrow and pausing halfway through taking her jacket off; however, she’s got her jacket off far enough that we can all see that she’s armed.

I expect there to be some kind of movement for Rome to say, what are you doing here or something else along those lines, but that doesn’t happen. Everyone in the room simply freezes as they all stare at her. Keeping my gun raised, I glance at the others to see what the problem is and whether I should say something, only to find Mase and Mal with their weapons lowered and their eyes wide with disbelief.

It’s because of their expressions and the shock on the other's faces that I decide to remain silent and confused, hoping that someone fills me in quickly because I have no idea if this woman is a threat or not, even though everyone seems to be surprised to see her, I’m at a loss.

Finally, the twins seem to get over their shock and say together, “Malory?”

The woman called Malory nods her head once, seemingly slightly confused, before her eyes widen slightly, filling with tears as she questions, “Mase? Malachi?”

They both nod and then immediately put their weapons away and rush her, surrounding her and wrapping her in both of their arms as they hold her tightly, and she smiles, tears dripping down her cheeks. I’m even more thoroughly confused, but following the other's lead, I put my weapon away. I don’t want to intrude on the moment that is clearly happening by speaking and asking the obvious question, but I’m practically vibrating with curiosity now.

The guys clearly don’t want to interrupt the moment either because Rome, sensing my curiosity, mouths to me, “I’ll tell you in a second.”

I nod, even though I want to know now.

Rome

Ican see how curious Jynx is; she’s not even trying to hide it and is practically bouncing where she is with the need to know. It’s understandable; it’s not often that we react like this. I don’t want to interrupt though, so I just tell her that I’ll explain in a minute even though I know that it's going to be obvious and the twins are most likely going to explain it themselves.

Eventually, the twins step back, and they both go back to staring at her before Mason asks, “What the fuck happened?”

Mal adds, “We thought you were dead!”

My gaze moves to Jynx as her eyes widen, and she mutters, too quietly for them to hear, “Their sister?”

I nod, “Yeah.”

“Fuck,” is her simple reply as she falls silent again.

“That’s a long story; maybe we should sit down?” Malory replies.

Mason and Malachi head straight for Jynx as Mase picks her up and sits down on the couch, holding her on his lap, and Mal pulls her legs over his and grabs her hand. She looks slightly shocked but clearly senses that they need this right now because she stays where she is and watches them both with concern.

Seeing their positioning, Malory raises her eyebrow slightly but smiles happily. It’s obvious to see how much Jynx cares for the twins and how much they care for her. She loves her brothers and just wants them to be happy. I can’t fucking believe that she’s alive. She shouldn’t be; we all know what our families are like; they should’ve killed her purely because her healing was going to take a long time, and then there was no guarantee that she would be useful to them once she was healed. They would’ve rather just gotten rid of her entirely and been done with it.

The twins told us that they were sent away on the night that it happened, although I’m not sure why. It’s not something that they would usually shield them from, so I don’t know why they thought it was different this time.

“Okay, what happened? And how did you end up here with Demelza?” Mase asks, and Jynx’s head moves to her grandmother, who is already watching her with a smile.

“Do you know about the cameras?” she asks, looking at all of us, and when we nod, she continues, “Well, using those, one of Demelza’s staff, who was still here, was gathering information in the hopes that Demelza and Gerald would come back and help with the escalating situation eventually. She found out what had happened to me, and she was also more than aware of what our parents would do to me; she had been watching long enough,” Malory starts to explain.

Demelza interrupts at this point to add, “I left no way of contacting Gerald and me, we were both so focused on trying to find our son, and we had no intentions of coming back here.”

Jynx frowns as she asks, “If the staff member that you mentioned had been watching the houses for a while, she had a backlog of information to give to Demelza when she came back, then she would’ve seen the guys and the kinds of conditions that they were subjected to. So why didn’t she do anything?”

Understanding fills Malory’s eyes as she replies honestly, “Because she couldn’t. She’s not trained, and most of the other staff left when Gerald and Demelza did. There were only a handful of members that stayed behind to look after the house, and that included the cleaning crew our grandparents got. She wasn’t trained, none of them were; they had no way of actually being able to help the boys apart from not snitching on them when they saw them all together.”

Jynx nods, “Okay, I understand that, and I understand that they did the best with what they could.”

Malory smiles and then continues her explanation, “As I was saying, she found out, and when she realised that they weren’t going just to shoot me where I was, she quickly made a plan to see if she could help me. I don’t really know why they didn’t decide to shoot me then and there when I was already laid out on the table, vulnerable, bleeding, and in pain, but they didn’t. They sent the twins out, which was also unusual and made me fearful of what they had planned for me.

“Living in my family, you expect death. You get comfortable walking alongside it, but something about them sending the boys away and then seeing a car waiting for me outside made me incredibly nervous. When I got in the car, which they unceremoniously threw me in, it sped off before anyone else could get in it. It turns out that they stupidly left the car unattended while they came and got me, and Emmy, Demelza’s staff member, saw the opportunity and hijacked the car. My family was so unprepared for it that there was no way that they were going to catch up to us, and as soon as we were outside of the town limits and we were sure that we weren’t being followed, Emmy started to explain who she was.

“We very quickly decided that we couldn’t go back to the town, not for a while at least because they would be watching and expecting that. We also needed to get my knee seen to properly, so we headed as far away as we could, driving for days to make sure that we were out of the reach of them and the town's reach. Then, using money that she had taken from the fifth family estate, she paid for the hospital and my lengthy rehabilitation that taught me how to walk again. She stayed with me the whole time, never left me alone, and put up with all of my temper tantrums because I was struggling and the many times I almost gave up. We were gone for years. It took me years to regain control and get back to being strong enough that I could comfortably hold my own against someone again.

---