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“I’m sure we’ll think of more as things arise, but for now we’ll get straight on with hiring the lawyers first thing tomorrow,” Rebel states with confidence.
“Tilly. And Charlie,” Ace reminds me.
“Well, we’re going to go after them both still, but obviously we will have to change our methods and be a lot more careful. We need to be squeaky clean. Not even a hint of a shadow can come back on us if we’re going to protect Raven and win this case.”
“Okay, if that’s it…” Thorn begins to get up.
“Wait! I have one more thing. Well, two things actually,” Jax suddenly declares. “I was speaking to Raven and she admitted she had a panic attack the other night, when she was in the house on her own. She says she’s fine when Phoenix is here, but I think she has some sort of PTSD or something, so I don’t want her here alone. Ever, not just at night.”
“Okay, we can do that,” Thorn agrees.
“I’ll get us all added to the biometric door locking system, easily,” Jax states. “But I’ll need you to come down to the security firm’s lab to get scanned.”
“Scanned?” I raise an eyebrow.
“The burglar alarm uses a retinal scanner to disarm.”
“Jesus.” I whistle, impressed.
“I’ll also have the cameras and mics added to all of our phones. And anything else I later think of…I just need to get Phoenix and Raven to somehow agree to wear the tracking jewellery I got for them.”
“Isn’t that a bit overkill, mate?” I ask but he just shoots me a withering look.
“While we’re all around and fighting Cordelia, I think we should all agree to focus on rebuilding the trust and friendship between us all,” Jax continues as if I never even spoke. Knobhead.
“Agreed,” we all reply.
“That means no romance. At all.” He fixes Thorn with an especially hard stare.
“Agreed,” we all add, a lot less enthusiastically this time.
Though to be fair, romance of any kind is probably going to be the furthest thing from Raven’s mind at the moment, and I think we’re all going to be too busy for anything anyway.
“What are you all agreeing on?” comes Raven’s amused voice from the open doorway.
“That we want Thai for dinner, of course!” I immediately quip, making her snort.
“Does that mean you’re staying a while longer?” Her whole face lights up.
“Actually, if it’s okay with you, can we stay the night? You have enough bedrooms, right?” Jax asks.
“Yes,” she laughs. “God knows why Rebel thought we needed a house with 10 bedrooms!”
“Nine. You have a library now,” he points out.
“And I love it!” She beams. “But it’s still more rooms than I need.”
“We stay. Family. Friends. Whatever.” Ace shrugs.
We all file out and wander off to various parts of the house, some going to check out the spare rooms, others going to play with Phoenix.
I hang back and clear up the dining table, smiling to myself; Raven is totally oblivious to the truth. Rebel’s cousin is safely tucked up in Halls of residence this year, but ready to move into the house that he bought her on the other side of Edinburgh next September. No, he bought this house especially for Raven, Phoenix and the guys to build a family in. And I’m glad he’s shit at counting, because it looks like there might just be enough room for me too.
Raven’s Diary
Present day
Holy shit. I feel so sick. I can’t believe that everything just came out in a horrific mess like that. It’s too much to even begin digesting right now. I don’t even know where to begin. I shouldn’t have thrown everyone out. I regret that now. Since they left, I’ve reached for my phone more times than I can count, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to send a message. Just when things were starting to look up, everything had to fall apart. I’m just not sure if we can put this mess back together again.
