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Quinton snorted. “Yeah, baby, I’m sure you’re doing really fuckingfineright about now. We’realldoing fuckingfine.”

Well, it appeared I was doing a good deal better than he was at the moment, but that was understandable. In his shoes, I’d be an absolute wreck too.

What he needed was a distraction. It was actually something we all needed. Good thing I had just the perfect thing to get the job done.

First things first, we had business to take care of.

“We’ve got to talk about Marcus’s house. You can’t keep using it as if it were your own. He might not be in contact with his kids and family on the daily, but sooner or later, they are going to notice he’s missing. When that happens, someone’s going to come looking for him. We can’t be all up in his shit when that happens. That means we’re going to need to find alternate lodgings for those—”

“Baby,” Quinton said, cutting me off, “we’ve got that all taken care of. You don’t need to worry about any of it.”

I sighed as I sat back in the chair and covered Jules’s hand with my own. It was better to have my hands occupied so I wasn’t tempted to pick something up so I could chuck it at Quinton’s head like I really wanted to.

“I had my lawyer draw up the paperwork that says Marcus sold the house and land to Quinton. There’s money in his account to back it up. We also texted his son from his phone before dumping it. Marcus is currently on sabbatical, but when he returns, he won’t be returning here. He’ll be off in search of that fresh start he’s needed ever since Vivian ran off on him. Trust me, everything is sorted. One of his kids might show up asking questions, but we’ve got it covered,” Rain primly informed me.

It sure sounded like they had it covered. And, yay for me, I didn’t even flinch at hearing Rain speak Vivian’s name.

“Okay,” I mumbled sullenly. “On to the next problem then. We should talk about all those kids and what we’re going to do with them. I—”

Again, I was cut off. This time it was Quinton. He was really good at that.

Surprise, surprise.Not.

“We can add on to Marcus’s house. Make it a safe place for them, a fortress if we need to. Hell, I like that idea for our house too. We’re totally putting up a gate at the driveway and a fence all the way around the properties. Those kids need guidance and schooling—what the Council should have given them and didn’t. That’s what we’re going to give them. We’ll have our very own wayward school of magic for little orphan witches. I love it.”

All I could do was glare at the back of his head.

A wayward magic school for orphaned witches? What the hell kind of operation did he think we were running here?

This was our life here. He couldn’t just move a bunch of kids in next door and open up a school for them. At least not without discussing it with the rest of us first.

He was all kinds of crazy.

“Speaking of family,” Damien began, and I snorted. We weren’t talking about family anymore, but it was a good change of subject. “Why aren’t Isobel and Baxter here?”

Did that mean he thought of them as family? I understood Baxter, but Isobel? She might have been my family by default, but I thought most of the others couldn’t stand her. I guessed that didn’t seem to matter when claiming our new family members.

“Isobel opened up the shop and took the little guy with her,” Rain informed us. “She needed something to do, and half those teenage boys next door were looking at her and getting ideas in their heads. That girl should have been born a whole lot uglier, and she would have been doing me a favor.”

Holy hell, but I was not going to read anything into that or it would be me who lost their mind next.

Romero glared at my dad, and I shoved the rest of my sandwich in my mouth to stop myself from calling him out for it.

Tyson groaned loudly, sounding as if he were in pain. “Shit. She can’t be there by herself. She’s mean to the customers.”

I laughed and almost choked on the food I was swallowing. Right, so being nice to the customers was something we were caring about now? In that case, we were screwed, and both Rain and Quinton needed to be fired immediately. Maybe even Damien too. I didn’t think many people found hisI’m looking down on you, peasant, because you’re beneathme attitude to be too appealing, even though he was really freaking pretty to look at while dishing it out.

For that matter, Tyson might actually have to fire himself too, because he wasn’t exactly known for being the nicest of people. He had a bad attitude and could be a huge asshole at times.

Maybe Dash too, now that I thought about it.

Shit.

Who did that leave me with? Jules and the twins. We were so royally screwed, and so were the customers, because those three liked to mess with people and they could be relentless.

What was the matter with these people?

I squeezed Jules’s hand before letting go and standing. I picked up my empty plate and carried it over to the sink. I rinsed it off and placed it in the dishwasher, hoping everyone else would be smart enough to do the same because I was not cleaning up after boys today.