Page 143 of Meant for Mayhem

The TV was turned to the afternoon football game, so conversation switched to sports—fantasy football standings, the Mayhem’s roster this year, and, of course, the expansion draft.

As much as I didn’t want to leave Denver, I wasn’t as worried about it now that I knew Shannon was all in. Everything seemed less scary with her at my side.

“Hey,” Jace said when he came up the basement steps a little while later. “Has anyone seen Mason? He promised he’d play air hockey with me, and I’m sick of losing to Molly.”

I looked toward the kitchen, then the foyer.

No Mason.

No Tate either.

“Did they ever come back inside?” I asked.

Beckett spun around to look at the women. “Have any of you seen Mason or Tate?”

“No,” Shannon said, brows pulled together. She lifted Leena off her lap and headed for the front door. “Are they still outside? I swear, something weird was⁠—”

Her words cut off when she opened the front door.

Instead of Mason and Tate, two men stood outside on the porch.

“Not going to invite us in, sis?”

33

Every good feeling I’d felt all day disappeared so fast, it left me dizzy.

My twin brothers stood on the porch, their faces red from the cold. For one disorienting second, I was ten years old again, sitting in the living room on Christmas morning, clutching handmade gifts for Cash and Colton, hoping they’d remembered me too.

Mikko’s hand settled against my lower back, and the small touch was enough to pull me back to the present.

Colton peered over my shoulder at the crowded house. “Are you going to leave us out here in the cold?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows shot up, surprised by my words. But over my dead body was I letting them inside when Leena and everyone I loved was in there.

I stepped outside instead, forcing them back as I pulled the door closed behind me. Mikko followed before it shut, taking his place at my side.

Cash scoffed. “Seriously? It’s like that now?”

“You weren’t invited.”

“It’s Christmas,” Colton said like that explained why they’d hunted me down at someone else’s house. “We came all the way out here to see you.”

“Spare me. You live fifteen minutes away.”

“That’s more effort than you put in,” Cash spat. “So maybe save the sarcasm.”

Mikko’s hand slid into mine, warm and steady despite the cold biting through my sweater. Neither of my brothers missed the movement.

Colton looked him over, his mouth twisting. “Are you going to introduce us to your husband?”

“Nope.”

“Shannon,” Cash snapped. “Stop being a bitch for five seconds. We’re family.”

I almost laughed. Maybe at one point I believed that this broken fragment of a relationship was what it meant to be a family. That blood and history tied us together. But every single person behind this door had shown me what it meant to be loved and accepted for being me, no strings attached.