Callum’s POV

Patrick stared at the three of us with a dumbfound expression.

Axel glared at him, I tried to give him a sorry look, while Weylyn hide behind me.

“Okay so we have options,” he said after Axel laid everything out. “Camp is always an option if you want to do that. I can get a social worker down here and we can discuss that. Or we can get you labeled as their guardian. But for now what are we going to do with your mom? She will be charged for two counts of child abandonment if we find her but if more things happened; abuse, neglect, or anything else, we can add those to her charges.”

“Nothing else happened,” Axel said a bit too fast. Patrick and I shared a glance. Something else had clearly happened but I let it go for now.

“Okay so just the original charges. Are we wanted restraining orders if we find her?”

“Yes,” I said as Weylyn shook his head.

“I want to see mama if she comes back,” he said, staring at me with those wide eyes that I always caved to back then. I’d grown out of that.

“Not happening,” I said harshly. “She had her chance and she left. She threw me away and she left you. She’s not going to ruin our lives again. If you want to come live with me, you’re getting the order. You can take it back when you’re 18 but until then I don’t want you seeing her.”

He seemed like he wanted to protest but one look at Axel and his voice died in his throat.

“Okay well we’re going to put a warrant out for her. And when we find her we’ll serve those restraining orders and everything will be taken care of. As far as their criminal records, I’m willing to wave the run away for now but if they do it again camp or jail is on the table.”

“Thank you,” I sighed. “You’ve been such a big help as always.”

“You know I’m always going to be here for you. That being said, I won’t have them be without a legal guardian. Do I need to call someone to help you through that?”

“Jax still has his old social worker’s number. We have a meeting set up with her when we get done here.” He nodded as he looked over his papers one last time.

“Well in that case I don’t want to make you late and I think I have everything I need here. Don’t be a stranger next time,” he teased as he stood up from his desk and began guiding us to the door. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since the wedding.”

“You’re married,” Axel spat as he looked me up and down with a condensing look.

“We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

“I didn’t see her last night.” Patrick’s eyes widened but thankfully didn’t say a word.

“We’ll talk when we get home.” Axel rolled his eyes but thankfully didn’t say a word.

The drive to Francis’ office was quiet. Weylyn was holding his breathe, as if one wrong move and I would give him up, Axel was just pissed off for some reason.

My husbands met us there and before long all of us were crowded around a small corner desk that was covered in paperwork for other cases. Francis looked the way she had all those years ago when Jax’s dad threatened to take his custody back. Her hair was pulled up to a bun, she wore a black pantsuit, and her ‘she/her’ button was still pinned to her lapel.

“Jax!” She yelled the second we walked through the door. “Oh my god look at you! You look so good! And who is this,” she asked as he looked to the teenagers.

“My brothers. Axel and Weylyn Scott, we need to talk about me taking custody of them and what that would mean for all of us.” She nodded before pulling out a scrap piece of paper and began writing.

“Alright well for starters, if you went through the foster class you would get a small amount of money to help pay for them but there are hassles you have to jump through. You could have random home visits, there is always the possibility of them getting taken and separated even if that possibility is small.” Weylyn gasped at the thought as he gripped Axel’s hand harshly. “Given that you are next to kin, legal guardian won’t be hard to achieve at all. It would be a simple signature but you won’t receive any help from the government other than tax benefits when you claim them as dependents. You might have a home visit at the start but even that is unlikely unless abuse is reported.”

I nod as I looked down at the desk.

“So what do we need to do for guardianship?”

“It’s a simple document for you to fill out and sign. I can print two off right now, you’ll need to fill it out as soon as possible, get them notarized by a judge, and then bring them back to me and I’ll handle all the legal stuff for you. Is that what you’re looking for today?”

My heart beats our of my chest as I look over to my brothers before nodding.

“Yea. We’ll take the papers.”

Back at home I sat them down at the table. The papers had both been filled out minus our signatures. I stood at the other side, my husbands at my side as I forced myself to take a deep breath.

“There are things you need to know before we move forward with this,” I said as I stared at the papers. “We’ve tried the parent thing, it didn’t work. I can’t replace what our parents should have done but I can give you a place to live and food to eat. All I ask is that you do the few things that are asked of you. There will be rules but they are all reasonable.”

“Fucking rules,” Axel muttered.

“Before we get to that I wanted to be honest with you,” this caught his attention. “I’m sure you figured out that I didn’t get a scholarship to boarding school when I left. I was selling drugs to try to make extra money for us. I was caught and went to a camp that would keep that off my criminal record. I fought mom to let me stay and she refused. I sent letters when I left, I doubt she let you see them. I never wanted to cut ties with you but after everything happened, I assumed you didn’t need me anymore. I thought Lily was going to step up. I told her to. I hate that she left but I can’t change that. All I can do is offer you a place to be.”

“What will the rules be,” Weylyn asked as Axel rolled his eyes again.

“Same basic rules we had at the house before. Go to school, do your homework, keep your rooms clean, help out around the house, be home no later than 8-“

“8,” Axel whined with a glare. “That’s so unfair.”

“In bed by 10.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“And the biggest thing I care about, no homophobia. Patrick told you I was married and you asked to who, well,” I gestured to the men beside me. “I’m bisexual. I’m in a relationship with all of them. We aren’t married on paper but we consider ourselves as married. If you have a problem with that, I can rip those papers up right now and we can find a better way to do this.”

“We don’t care about that shit Callum,” Axel said, quickly loosing interest in the conversation. “We pretty much knew anyway. You used to flirt with that bag boy at the grocery store all the time.”

Ryder’s eyes went wide as he stared at me.

“You had a boyfriend before me,” he asked.

“I didn’t have a boyfriend and I didn’t flirt with him.”

“You so did. ‘Oh no Riley. I seem to be short a few dollars. Would you be so kind as to cover me just this once. I’ll get you back next time’. Get out of here with that bullshit.”

“Moving on,” I said before Liam could join in on this. “Last thing I care about is Jax. He has Dissociative Identity Disorder and has a few alters that front at times. Jax is the one up front now, Carter is the main protector, and Bram is verbal protector. You’ll learn to tell the differences between them in time but for now all I care about is you knowing about him and not purposefully triggering any of them out. Yelling and fighting will get Carter out faster than anything else and if you goad him into a fight I’m not going to stop him. If you start yelling at Jax and Bram comes out I refuse to help you undo whatever it is you did. Jax is not to be taken lightly either. All three of them are not going to put up with this god complex bullshit you have going on and all of them can and will beat your ass if you throw a punch at them. I know you’ve been fighting since I was still at home but that stops now. We don’t bring violence into this home. Jax has a punching bag, use that if you need it.”

“I’m not scared of him,” Axel scoffs.

“You should be,” Jax answered as he crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles bulging through his shirt. “I have an idea,” he said with a fake smile as he sat down in front of Axel. “How about we go around the room and tell each other the reasons we got in trouble with the law. I’ll start. I was a street fighter. I once gave a guy twice my size a concussion that he almost didn’t wake up from.”

“I was in the biggest gang in the state,” Liam picked up without missing a beat. “The leader is like a brother to me and I was a drug runner for him for 4 years until I was sent away.”

“I was a prostitute,” Ryder said with a frown. “I’m not proud of it but I won’t lie to you if you don’t lie to me.” Something flickered in Axel’s eyes for a moment but it passed too fast for me to figure out exactly what it was. He did seem to have a bit more respect for Ryder at least.

“Im going to say this once,” Jax said as his eyes locked on Axel. “We have all faced so much worse than a 15 year old punk so you better go ahead and drop that attitude right now. You aren’t going to do anything but look like an asshole and we’re not going to deal with it.”

“Fine. Whatever. Can we just sign the damn papers already?”

“Watch your mouth,” I warned with a sigh before pulling the papers closer to me and signing before giving it back to them.

“He was cursing too,” Axel scoffed.

“He’s an adult, you’re 15. You don’t need to be saying shit like that.” I knew he wasn’t going to stop but at least he signed the paper without a fight. “Okay well, I don’t really know what to do from here,” I said honestly. “I don’t have beds for you yet, I guess that’s the next thing we need to do. What all do you have in those bags you bought?”

“Clothes, deodorant, Weylyn bought some books. That’s it.”

Jax nodded to himself before pulling out a scrape piece of paper out of a notebook on the table and passed it to Weylyn.

“Write down everything you need, soap, toothbrushes, socks, shoes, anything essential that you need. We can get luxury things later but for today, bed frames, mattresses, phones, and essentials will be enough.”

“We’re getting phones,” Weylyn asked, his eyes going wide with excitement. 

“Did you not have phones before,” Liam asked with a frown.

“It’s hard to have phones when you’re at risk of the power getting turned off every month,” Axel said with an eye roll. 

“Yes, you’ll have phones,” I confirmed. “The four of us don’t stick to normal schedules. Some days Ryder and I don’t come home until 9pm, some times Liam is at the office all day other times he stays here doing online sessions, Jax makes his own schedule depending on how many tattoos he wants to do on any given day other times he stays all day for walk ins. You need to be able to get a hold to all of us depending on who is able to help you.”

“Hear that Weylyn,” Axel teases as he bumps shoulders with his twin, making the younger of the two smudge his writing, “We’re rich now. We’re getting beds and phones. That’s fucking crazy.”

“You had beds at home,” I said with an eye roll of my own as I looked over Weylyn’s shoulder to see how his list was coming along but as the words came out of my mouth he tensed. “Please tell me you still had beds.”

“Lily sold them before she left,” Axel said with a glare. “Said we out grew them and she was going to sell them and get new ones. I guess she spent the money only on her new apartment cause we never saw her or beds after that.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

“Shit,” Axel said as he thought back. “Had to be two years ago now? We’ve been sleeping on the couch or in mom’s bed when she worked nights.”

Lily had always been a brat. She was always so selfish and self centered but I thought she would step up for them and do better by them without me. If I had known that’s how she would act I would have come back for them the second I got out of camp.

“Well that’s not happening anymore. I guess we’ll divide and concur. Jax and Liam if you could go get some basic bed frames and mattresses that would be great. Ryder on phones, and I’ll take them to the store. Go ahead and knock all of this out for the day and just relax for the night after that. Everyone good with that?”

No objected and before long the three of us were in my car.