“Yes, thank you, Yue Lao,” Jay murmured into my ear.
“Who is Yue Lao?” Vick asked as she bounced over, pulling Jett by his hand to sit by Brey and Jax.
“Oh, I’m so glad you asked,” my mother said. “No one ever asks about Yue Lao anymore.”
“Mom, please don’t tell the story again,” I groaned as I put my face in my hands.
My mother obviously launched into the story about how Yue Lao was the man on the moon who tied soul mates together with a red string. She had a twist now, though. Now, Yue Lao was so annoyed with Dougie that he knocked him out cold the night he’d attacked me.
Everyone listened intently. Jay sat next to me, completely tense the whole time. I knew he hated the story almost as much as me but for very different reasons.
The man still wanted his turn with my ex, and the justice system wasn’t going to allow that for a long time.
My mom smiled at her audience. “Yue Lao is making sure Dougie doesn’t have a soulmate. He got an extra 10 years behind bars for laundering money. It just came out.”
That was new information not even I had heard. “I’m sorry, what? But how? Dougie didn’t have any…”
“Oh, Mikka, hush. You know the mob is taking care of us. Right, boys?”
My mother glanced around and made eye contact with every Stonewood brother in the room.
All of them smiled the same smile I’d seen a million times before. It was the one they gave when they were being ruthless, when they didn’t really care to smile at all.
“Jay?” I turned to him.
“Don’t worry, Wrecking Ball. Lesson of the day: You’re part of the family now. We got you.”