“No, Ez.” I dropped my voice. “You’re not admitting—"
“Lincoln? Ezra?” Mom’s voice came through the house again. Dad hadn’t waited to tell her, which was probably for the best considering everyone but Mom was in the loop.
“She doesn’t sound pissed,” Ezra said hopefully.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I reminded him.
Unsurprisingly, the kitchen was filled with the entire family. None of them had cared for Dad’s order about leaving us alone. Privacy was something you learned to sacrifice as a Foster. If it wasn’t one of our siblings, it was one of our cousins, and if it wasn’t them, then it was the wider family.
Mom watched us like a hawk when we came into the room. “The rest of you can leave. I want a word with your brothers,” she told everyone.
“Aww, Mom. Come on. Ezra never gets in trouble,” Row whined.
It took a single look from Mom for Rowan to backtrack at record speed, grab his twin and leave.
Dad might have been head of the family, but Mom was the true commander-in-chief. We’d all realised as we grew up that Momma was the truly terrifying one out of the pair. Dad wore his anger like a badge of pride and most of us took after him but Mom — you never knew what you’d get and that was what made everyone nervous.
“Come on, Park,” Chase said, slipping out of his chair and jerking his head towards the floor.
Parker abandoned all of her things and heaved a sigh. “Mom,” she said. “Can Link take me to the field tomorrow since I missed training?” It was her way of asking if Mom would keep us alive for at least one more day.
“If he’s not at work, then sure. Now, go with you brother.”
Joining Chase at the door, I watched as the last safety net we had disappeared.
“Do you want to tell me what happened today?” Mom asked, taking a seat at the island. She was calm and composed, the way I’d always known her to be.
“We got into a fight,” Ezra told her. He walked around the island and sat down beside her, taking her hand.
My eyes were drawn to the tattoos that decorated her forearm. Six perfectly inked paw prints. One for each of us. The first two, the ones closest to her wrist, were no longer an outline but filled in. Momma had done it at the same time Ezra and I took our vow, flinching less than we did as they modified her art. Five of those prints would eventually be black as we all stepped into the family business.
“Over?” Mom asked him.
She usually melted for Ez. They shared a bond that none of us quite understood. Ezra was the son who stopped her stepping on her dress and topped up her champagne glass. Mom worried about all of us but there were occasions when Ez had come home late or hadn’t checked in and Mom almost lost herself in the stress it induced. Only Dad was able to talk her down in those moments.
“Does it matter?” I asked in return.
Dad, who was stood behind Mom with his hands on her shoulders, rolled his eyes, signalling I’d taken the wrong route.
“Does it matter?” Mom repeated quietly. “You’re half semester away from graduating, Lincoln, and you’ve just gotten yourself expelled. So, yes. Yes, it matters.”
“Mom, you know how people are with us. It didn’t have to be over anything specific.”
The family name came with a lot of whispers. Most people had no clue what we truly did, but they liked to gossip and kept a wide berth. I think that’s the reason we were all so close. Family, you could trust. Strangers? Not so much. For the most part, it didn’t bother us but every now and then someone would try to flex and prove that we weren’t anything special culminating in a hallway brawl. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that was what had happened again.
“I’ll speak to Principal Slater on Monday morning and see what I can do,” Mom said looking between the both of us.
I supressed the urge to snort at her response. Principal Slater had been desperate to get rid of us the moment we stepped through the high school doors. It was only thanks to our parents and their deep pockets that we’d lasted as long as we had. No amount of money would buy us out of this one. Causing a senator’s son to swallow his front teeth for throwing a homophobic slur at Ez without warning or basis was a stickier situation than we usually found ourselves in school.
“It was Monty Ford’s boy,” Dad muttered to her.
Her head whipped around to look at him. “You didn’t think to mention that earlier?” Mom asked him, sounding alarmed. “We don’t need to give him any reason to put us under a microscope.”
Monty Ford’s entire campaign had been based on cleaning up crime in the state. It was amusing to watch the promises he made to voters when good old Monty hadn’t managed to pin anything down solidly. Sure, the petty crime rates had dropped but Monty knew there was something bigger and he was out to get us. His golden ticket to the white house. He was fucking delusional if he thought that would ever happen.
“I’ll fix it,” Dad said to her gently. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Fixing it wouldn’t be an issue if you hadn’t removed my contact number from the school. We could have avoided all this because I could have made a case with Monty there and then.” Mom let out a sigh and turned her attention back towards us. “We can find somewhere new for you to start and finish out the year.”
