Page 31

“Alrighty then,” Trick chuckles.
“Why don’t we wrap up warm and sit on the deck? We can get the fire pit going and burn the rubbish.” I suggest. One of my favourite things to do is to sit around the fire pit wrapped up with a blanket and Rafe’s hot chocolate while it snows.
“That’s a great idea. We’ve got too much to put into the fire in here anyway,” Trick replies and then adds, “I’ll go and tell the guys.”
Once he's gone, I decide to make a start on gathering all the paper and cardboard, putting it into bags ready to take out to the fire pit area, and then taking them through the kitchen to put by the backdoors in the extension so they’re ready to take out to the fire pit, giving kisses to those of my men who are in here as I walk through.
“We’ve got so much meat left over, as well as the stuff I bought for the buffet, so I’m going to set it all up on the table, and people can just help themselves throughout the day,” Rafe says as I make another trip through the kitchen.
“Good idea, there’s no point cooking anything when we’ve got so much food left over. Besides, I love a good Boxing Day feast.” I reply.
“I know,” Rafe chuckles before going back to setting up what looks like a cheese board.
By the time I’m done bagging up the burnable trash from around the house, Jynx and the guys arrive, with Lyric and her men not far behind. With me gathering up the trash and the guys doing the kitchen, there’s actually not much to do, and they’re all more than happy to go along with my plan.
It’s not long before we’re all sitting around the huge fire pit, hot chocolates in hand while conversations are going on around us, and Jensen’s head is still buried in the book. It kind of surprises me when Ezra and Ace take an interest in what he’s reading and then, thanks to Jensen’s epic description of the series, decide to start reading it as well. Out of all of the members of our family, those three are the three that get on the best, and when we’re not working, you quite often find them hanging out together.
We’ve gotten through a vast majority of the trash before Jensen suddenly sits up straight and stares at Jynx.
“Dude, are you okay?” she questions, looking amused.
“No.” he replies bluntly, and when we all look at him in confusion, he adds, “With everything going on for Christmas, I completely forgot that you are the head of the Ravens. I’m going to need some more information like right now.”
Atlas sits forward in his seat, “Fuck, I’d forgotten about that. Spill the beans, Jynx.”
All of us watch her intently as Jynx’s men all chuckle.
Grinning, she says, “Alright, well, I guess I’ll start from the beginning, and I’ll keep it as short as I can. The Raven’s killed my mom to try and get me to comply and give them back an heirloom that my grandmother had stolen from them.”
Luc interrupts, “Your grandmother?”
“Oh yeah, she’s a badass. Jynx’s skills are inherited, but that’s a completely different story,” Rome grins, looking proud.
“Fair enough,” Luc replies, looking intrigued.
“Obviously, I wasn’t going to let that stand, and I definitely wasn’t going to give them what they wanted. So we took the head of the Ravens out to send our own message.” Jynx explains.
“Fucking hell.” Rage exclaims and then adds, “Did you guys know what would happen if you killed the head of the Ravens?”
Jynx shakes her head, “Nope, I had no idea until we got back home and found Sawyer being held in my library with a shotgun trained on him.”
“Wow, so you’re the head of the Ravens,” Jonah mutters.
Jynx grins, looking proud, “Yep.”
“I’m assuming that’s how you know Mona?” I ask her, trying to put some of the pieces together.
I mean, we’ve all always known that there is more to Jynx and the guys and that there’s a reason that they cannot be employed by Mr R; we have never known the real reason, and we haven’t needed to. There are a lot of things about our lives and what we do that we can’t share with them, and we all know that which is why it’s never an issue when things or situations don’t get explained because we know that there’s a damn good reason for it and if we could know then we would.
“Yes. She was actually our first official job, although she hired the Ravens because Jynx was in charge and already had a reputation with her,” Rip explains.
“You’re fucking impressive, you know that?” Lyric smiles.
“And don’t you forget it,” Jynx adds.
“I don’t think we could ever even dream of forgetting it.” Trick answers honestly, making us chuckle.
“It does mean that I can call in even more backup on the case with Rylie if I need to,” Jynx points out.