Broken Record.

Des and I sat in an overly sized living room. It looked like a scene from a movie, when the hero walks in to find the villain sat in a chair in front of a fire. Well it was sort of like this, apart from the fact that instead of holding a cat or a gun in a chair at a desk he was sitting on a massive armchair holding a cup of tea, he offered me one and told me he added an extra sugar because it helps with shock, yeah. I had just sipped on my tea sitting on a two piece sofa when my dad walked in, Des looked up and smiled at him, the way you see people smile at a brother. I knew then that this has been going on for a while, whatever it was. I sat on the couch listening to apologies leave the two mens mouths profusely. I giggled at one point which left them feeling obviously confused, if you walked into a room and saw this you would laugh too. Here we have two huge guys with tattoos and scary features apologising to someone who's touching the age of 16. One sentence my dad used caused me to snap back to attention.
"Rina, once you're in you can't get back out, you will never forget any of this and don't say you might because I can guarantee you will never let me live this down. So... like we said, I hope you forgive us and please try to remember I'm still the same man I have always been, I'm still your dad" He looked down shame filling his features and offered me a sad smile.
"Considering that I am the one that opened you're dad's eye to this side of life and my boys seem to be... fascinated by you, maybe I should explain. It was a family thing, my dad passed it onto me, I will pass it onto Harry and so on and so forth, it must have started in the 1920s but I don't fancy boring you with details or history, I know you only want to know the now. We are a gang as put formally, that's what we are. But to us we are a family, 'Arry and Lou practically grew up as brothers and the other boys found their ways to us somewhere along the line, it's not like gangsters as people think we just do business and make sure things go our way. We ended up here because when we lived in London, you as well, a Mexican cartel came into our radar, they almost killed Zayn and your dad one night when they were picking up the...shipment. The Mexicans were supposed to have given us the package and left it at that but they bugged the boxes as Zayn found out and then packed one package with a fair amount of C4, you can only imagine how lucky they were to survive thanks to your dad, but we had to keep you and your family in the dark and safe ultimately. We know people who have killed innocent people just for fun, so we kept lying, you might of remembered when you were about ten or eleven and your dad had a business trip, it was delayed because he 'had some issues and needed them taken care of in the office' really he was just recovering. I sent Harry that day to give you the letter the 'post man' gave him, he remembered you, he was always asking if you were okay..." the air quotes signalled to me just where they had all lied and I wanted to be angry, but really the reasons for keeping us out of it were valid, heck I didn't even know about it and trouble had already found me. That made me ask the first question in mind.
"sorry um how long has this-i gesture with my hand- been going on? With dad" I ask shakily
"longer then you and Harry have been alive, the boys knew you were coming to the school." He stated brushing me off. I noticed how calm he was.
"okay... why does Joe know this?" I ask my dad, he looked down again and when he looks up he had tears in his eyes.
"I didn't know I swear Rina. I expected him to be the normal boy he was but we found out that in reality he isn't at all who he says he is, he belongs to another gang and wanted to be with you to strengthen both gangs with... marriage. We only found out the week he left. Harry almost killed him..." He trailed off as I stopped breathing. Everything went a bit fuzzy as the two continued talking but I had had enough answers my mental list in the car vanishing from my brain. I was having a panic attack.

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