29. Magnus
MAGNUS
When I woke up, it was still light out, telling me I hadn’t been asleep that long.
The other thing I knew was someone was in the house who shouldn’t be.
Carefully, I slipped out of bed and grabbed the gun off the nightstand, checking to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber.
Padding to the door, I paused, listening.
Where were the other two?
I’d planned to go to our warehouse where we kept supplies and bring some things back to the house.
We didn’t like to keep any guns, ammo, or other tools of the trade in the house while we were gone.
Especially because a family lived downstairs with small children, and I would never put them at risk if they found their way up here.
The door to the guest room was cracked open, but I couldn’t see anything from this vantage point.
By the sounds of it, whoever it was, was probably in the kitchen.
This meant they were far enough away I could get the drop on them before they even knew I was in the house.
Looking over my shoulder, Harper was still curled up on her side, blonde hair splayed across the pillow, face relaxed in sleep.
No one was getting near her, and I didn’t care if it meant I dropped a body in the living room to keep her safe.
Silently, I moved out of the room, closing the door securely behind me, ensuring I would hear it if she woke up. Keeping my back to the wall, I stealthily padded down the short hallway pausing right before it opened into the living room.
How the fuck had this person gotten in here in the first place? Where the fuck were the others?
I headed for the opposite side of the living room so that if this person walked out, they wouldn’t see me right away.
As I reached the door to the kitchen, I stopped to listen once more, trying to get a sense of who this person was.
Straining my ear, I heard the sound of… munching?
Sniffing the air, I smelled butter. Was this person eating popcorn in our kitchen?
The realization hit me, and I knew who was in my house and why my brothers weren’t at all worried about it.
Tucking the gun in the waistband of my pants, I shoved open the door.
There, sitting at the table eating a bowl of fucking popcorn was Mouse, our cousin—the only living family we had any connection to.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” I demanded. “I almost shot you, ya’ damn idiot.”
Mouse was discovered when Jaxson thought doing one of those ancestry things was a smart idea.
He wanted to know if we had any family out there since we didn’t know who our dad was.
Of course, after I found out about it, we borrowed Weston’s skills to erase our DNA profile from the worldwide web.
Yet before that happened, we found Mouse, or Michael, who was a match to us from our mother’s side.
Jaxson begged for us to meet him, and when we did, it surprised me how much we had in common.
He wasn’t an assassin but a highly skilled con artist, one we’ve worked with on a few occasions.
He was just as batshit crazy as we were, making him easy to get along with.
Mouse never stayed in one place long, always off to the next big score or bright idea.
Like now, he’d popped up out of nowhere to hang out for a few days and move on.
The weirdest part was he looked as if he could be our brother. Same colored hair, skin, and angular jaw, but for him being a skinny-ass bitch with blue eyes, he’d be our fourth. Even then, it was hard to knock the family resemblance, so we decided to claim him.
“Um… I’ve been here for at least five minutes, if not more. I stopped being worried about getting shot after the first kernel popped, and you didn’t come for my ass,” Mouse pointed out, shoving more popcorn in his mouth.
“Did we even have popcorn here?” I asked, looking around at all the cabinets with the doors all open. “You really couldn’t take the time to close the door when you didn’t find what you wanted?”
Mouse just grinned. “Nah, I knew it would piss you off. As for the popcorn, the other two went to the store while you were sleeping. You must have been out if you didn’t hear that either.”
“Maggie?” Harper’s sleepy voice drifted down the hall.
Mouse dropped his feet from the table and sat up straight as Harper walked up, putting her arm around me. “Didn’t mean to leave you like that, doll, but we got a visitor.”
The bowl of popcorn dropped, spilling all over the floor as Mouse gaped at my woman. Harper gave him a sweet smile and a small wave, still not awake. Then she paused to really look at him then turned to look up at me. “Did you have a little brother I didn’t know about?”
“No, doll, Mouse is our cousin. The only family we own up to. Don’t believe a word out of his mouth, though. He’s a shifty son of a bitch,” I warned, giving him a hard look as I pulled her closer to me.
“That can’t be… no fucking way,” Mouse blurted, pointing at Harper. “That’s her, isn’t it, the woman you’ve been obsessed with for the last few years?”
Harper chuckled as she moved to stand in front of me, leaning on my chest so I could wrap her up in my arms. “I suppose I should be flattered that you talked about me to your family. As for your question, yes, I’m Harper, the woman they’d been stalking for the past three years.
” She paused, then looked up at me questioningly.
“Although, I shouldn’t assume this hasn’t happened before with someone else.
Who knows how many women you’ve stalked, then talked into marrying you. ”
Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Just one, and so far, it’s working out pretty well for us.”
Mouse was on his feet and standing in front of Harper, reaching out to grab her left hand but stopped when a gun was pointed at him.
“God, Maggie, you’re such a dick sometimes.” Harper huffed. “He’s family. Why would he want to hurt me? If he knows you at all, he knows better than to do something so stupid.”
“Family or not, no one is allowed to touch you so casually,” I remarked more for Mouse’s benefit than hers, not lowering the gun.
Mouse put his hands up and backed away slowly, the popcorn crunching under his feet until he sat back in the chair he left.
“Whoa, Mag, what the hell, man?” Ghost yelled as he entered the living room. “It’s just Mouse. No need to pull a gun on the guy.”
I shifted Harper over to him so she wasn’t so close to the gun. One person’s aftermath all over her was enough. She didn’t need to have it happen twice. “Mouse tried to touch what wasn’t his.”
That got Ghost’s attention as he hid Harper behind him. “That true, Mouse?”
Mouse just sat there cross-legged on the kitchen chair, grinning like a fool. “Oh, man, this is just too good. I can’t believe it. You actually found a woman who is willing to be shared between the three of you and is the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever seen!”
The sound of a gun rounding a bullet into the chamber echoed as Jaxson walked into the dining area from the patio. “What did you just say?”
“Oh good, all of you are here now,” Mouse said excitedly, clapping his hands together. “I want to hear it all. How did she end up with you? How did you propose? Give me all the details.”
Harper poked her head out from around Ghost and laughed. “Oh my God, you remind me of my best friend’s ex-boyfriend. Well, I guess they are back together now. Anyway, you remind me of this guy’s dad. You don’t happen to know a Dante Black, do you?”
Mouse’s eyes got extremely wide as his jaw hit the floor for the second time today. “You, you, know Dante Black? How is that even possible? No one knows that man, not really. He is a ghost. A legend only talked about in certain circles.”
“Or,” Harper cut in. “He’s the dad of the guy dating your roommate, best friend, sister-from-another-mister. Dante is amazing, and sadly, I’ve only met him twice, but he certainly leaves an impression.”
“Holy fuck,” Mouse screamed, leaping out of his chair, hand in his hair. “You’re Two Tricks’s best friend!”
Harper looked at us, unsure if she should confirm or deny that accusation. “It’s fine. We’ll just shoot him if he does something stupid,” I assured her.
“Yes, Dax is my best friend and the reason I ended up with these three,” she answered as she wiggled her way out from between Ghost and me.
“Will you two please lower your guns?” she demanded, irritation lacing her tone.
Jaxson and I gave each other a look, then nodded, putting our guns away.
“Thank you. Now, Mouse, after you’re done cleaning up that popcorn, you can join us in the living room,” she announced and waved at us to follow her.
Ghost smiled from ear to ear as he watched her walk away. “God, she’s so sexy when she gets bossy like that.” Then he followed after her.
Jaxson grunted his agreement and smacked Mouse upside the head. “Pull your shit together, will you? You’re embarrassing us, and you’re the first person we actually like she’s met. Don’t make it weird.”
Mouse rubbed the back of his head and stuck his tongue out at Jaxson.
“Hey,” I barked, getting his attention. “I’m sure since you rifled through the place, you know where the cleaning supplies are. Don’t make me have to come back in here and check on you.”
“Damn, she’s got you three hook-line-and-sinker, doesn’t she?” Mouse taunted as he scooped popcorn back into the bowl. “Go on. I’ll be out in a minute. There’s no way I’m giving you a reason to kill me before I find out what the hell is going on.”
“What makes you think we’re going to tell you anything?” I challenged Mouse.
He just gave me a withering look. “Did you really think I tracked your ass down just to catch up? I got information to exchange with you that I know you’ll want if rumors are true.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. When Mouse had information, it meant shit was about to hit the fan. If that were the case, then we needed to get a move on this real quick.