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“We’ve come to realise recently that pretty much everything that we were told was a lie,” Rome adds a bite to his voice.
“That’s what I thought,” Cecil replies, sounding about as pleased as Rome does, “we’ll put that right in no time and get you up to speed on your proper ancestry, but my point of asking the question was actually to see if you knew that your grandparents Rip, used to take in children all the time, they’d foster them until they could find homes in the town and obviously only fostered kids from the town, and usually only from their employee's families, kids who were either too young to know what was going on around here or understood our ways. Although they were always kept far, far away from any of the darker sides of the business.”
“That’s wow, they trained them?” I can’t help but ask.
Cecil’s head whips around to meet my eyes, “Good heavens, no. They were children. They got to make the choice when they were over eighteen to be trained, it was never forced and never expected, and in fact, they were protected from anything like that. It angers us all that your parents trained you from such a young age. If things were done right, you would’ve only just begun your training.”
“Fucking hell, how did our parents go so far off the fucking rails?” Ace asks.
Cecil looks at Rome, who already has the knowledge in his eyes, as he replies, “Silas, he had a silver tongue that could get you to believe or agree to anything. They followed him and believed his carefully constructed lies that held slivers of truth to make them believe those lies. He turned them against us.”
“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I can’t be. I think I know better than anyone exactly what he’s capable of.” Rome replies grimly, his eyes hard like flint. He takes a deep breath and then firmly changes the subject, “So that’s how you know that Harry will be okay? Hugo and Francis will take him in?”
Cecil’s eyes fill with sympathy and anger on Rome’s behalf, but he lets it go and replies, “Yes, they had that same look about them as they always got when a troubled child needed their help. I highly doubt that he’ll end up being adopted down into the town though. They’ll also get him all the help that he may need psychologically so that there’s no lasting damage for what he’s seen over the last few days and most likely before that as well. He’s in the best possible hands. With people who can truly understand what he’s gone through and any challenging behaviors that may crop up because of it.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Ace exclaims, “I was going to suggest that they get him help. He’ll need it even though he’s so little.”
Cecil smiles, easily reading his grandson, “Don’t worry. I know you are all going home after all this is sorted, and I also know that there’s not much that I can do to convince you otherwise. However, I will insist on regular phone calls and visits. I’ll give you Harry updates on the phone calls; I can see you’ve taken a shine to him.”
Ace chuckles, “Yeah, I guess I have, and we were planning on doing all of that anyway.”
“Good,” Cecil says as I see relief fill his eyes; he is clearly worried that Ace wouldn’t come back once we’ve all left.
I can’t help but think about how different our lives would have been if we had grown up with them instead of our fucked up parents. I mean, it's clear that they care about us all with the same amount of affection that they care about their own grandchild, and it really is just one giant happy family.
We would’ve loved it.
But we may not have gotten to meet Jynx, and I wouldn’t pass up that opportunity for the world, and I know the guys wouldn’t either. She’s our forever, our everything, and we’d all be lost without her.
When we walk back into the main lobby of the house, we find it completely empty, although I can hear plenty of noise from elsewhere in the house, so I know they’re still here somewhere.
“I’ll go and round them all up,” Rome offers.
“I’ll gather them all from down here. You go upstairs, and we’ll meet back here,” Ace says as he disappears, and Rome takes the stairs two at a time.
“We’re in here,” Mason’s voice echoes through the room, and I turn to see him standing in the front room, Jynx looking over the back of the couch, and Mason sitting close by her.
It doesn’t take long for all the grandparents to get caught up on the situation, and as soon as Jynx hears about my grandparents and what they used to do for this town, she’s more than happy to leave a now wide-awake Harry in their care, I think it helps that he instantly takes a shine to them and it's so obvious how much they enjoy kids, they both light up at the sound of his happy giggles.
“Now that’s all sorted, we’d better head back to Gerald and Demelza’s place. We need to get started on the smugglers and what we can find out about them,” Rome says once everything is covered and everyone knows what they’re doing, “I would suggest checking in the woods when you get the chance because since you guys didn’t find the kill sites of the other victims there’s a high chance they’re out there, and they’re probably going to need dealing with.”
Dexter smiles as he claps Rome on the shoulder, “Good thinking. We’ll add it to the list. The first thing that we want to get done is to make sure that the house is safe and clean for Hugo and Francis.”
Francis interrupts, “The most important thing is to make sure that little Harry has a room and a space that he can call his, somewhere that he feels safe.”
Jynx's smile is full of relief when she hears that.
“I haven’t seen Malory about. I thought she was with you guys since she wasn’t at the house?” Mason questions looking worried.
Mason Sr is the one who answers him as he replies, “She decided to celebrate the win against your father, and she went out of town for a few days. She said she’s done all the revision that she possibly could for her final exam in a couple of weeks and that she could use a break that doesn’t involve looking over her shoulder all the time.”
“Good, she deserves a proper vacation,” Malachi smiles.
“She told me to give you her number, but I completely forgot with everything that’s been going on,” Gerald says with a grimace as he pulls out his phone and reads it off for the twins.
Mase chuckles, “No worries, Gerald, thanks.”
Jynx
