Alexander's POV:

I plopped down on the couch with sigh. I'm so tired.

"What are you doing? We have cleaning to do." Char said, standing in front of me.

"Char, I'm tired. Please let me take a break." I said.

"Okay fine. You have five minutes." She said.

Since when did she become the boss?

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of the couch. These five minutes are like heaven.

But all good things are supposed to come to end. Char started shouting at me that my five minutes are over and that I should get cleaning.

Seriously, who made her the boss?

For the next hour or so, we were cleaning and scrubbing the whole place. At the end, my arms started to ache.

After cleaning, we all, excluding Char, fell on the floor exhausted. Like literally, we were laying on the floor.

How Charlotte is not tired is beyond me.

"What happened to you all?" She asked looking at all of us.

At the question Mark scowled at her and asked, "What do you even eat?"

She shrugged. "Food."

"Unhealthy food at that." Lexi added standing up and going to our room probably to lay in bed.

It was true. Char was probably the only one in our little group who could eat the most food. So whenever we didn't feel like eating, she was the who ate our food.

Char rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I need to go home. My parents have been calling me nonstop." She said and went out the door after taking her belongings.

Chris sighed. "I guess I have to go with her because I drove her here." He picked up his belongings and left.

So now, only Felix, Luke, Mark, Sam and I were left in the living room.

"I don't think I can move from my spot." Luke said.

"Me neither." Felix added.

"No one can." I said.

"Yeah. Quite a friend you have. Completely energetic." Mark told me.

"I know. Char and Lex have been together since junior year started." I said.

"That's nice to hear." He said.

A beat of silence passed between us. Then Felix said, "Anyways, I'm taking some rest."

Not even a second later, we heard his snores indicating that he fell asleep. We all followed soon after.

||◻️||◻️||

A loud noise made us all wake up.

"What the hell?" I mumbled rubbing my eyes as I sat up.

"What just happened?" Mark asked.

His question was soon answered when Philip, Sophie, Lindsey and Harris came running inside and locked the door behind them.

"Dad? What's going on?" Luke asked all of us standing up.

"Shh! Don't make a sound. I'll explain later." Philip said in a hurry as he turned off all the lights in the room.

"Where's Alexis?" Philip asked.

"She's sleeping in the room. Why?" I asked.

"Go wake her up." He told me ignoring my question.

Just then Lexi came out of the room. "What the hell happened?" She asked and looked at all of us.

I shrugged.

"I'll explain later. Right now we need to be quiet." Philip said. He looked out of the window and pulled the curtains over it.

"What is going on?" I asked frustrated.

Just then a taunting voice shouted, "PHILIP JONES! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Philip looked back at us and put his finger up to his lips, motioning us to be quiet.

He ushered all of us downstairs towards the basement. He opened the door and we all got in the tight space.

Philip closed the door and turned around breathing heavily.

He was about to say something when suddenly, we heard the front door burst open and footsteps moving around.

"Philip! I saw you out the window. Where are you?!" A man's voice asked.

"Can't you tell us a little gist of what is happening?" Lexi whispered angrily to Philip.

"Not now." Philip whispered back.

After a beat of silence, I felt a hand on mine. I looked down at the hand then up at Lexi.

"What?" I asked.

"You know what." She answered.

Of course I know. She wants us to go and deal with the person out there.

"We don't know how many are there." I said.

"There is only one pair of foot steps. Not multiple. He's about to get here. We need to hurry." She told me.

I listen closely and surely enough, it was only one person.

"What are you both talking about?" Harris asked from behind us.

I looked at Lexi and back at him with a smirk. "You'll see."

"Just call the cops for us will you?" Lexi added.

We both walked to the door and opened it seeing a man, who was probably in his late twenties, at the top of the stairs.

At the sound of the opening door, he looked in our direction and stormed down the stairs.

"Where is Philip Jones?!" He asked.

Lexi and I reached him half way and Lexi put her hand on his chest to stop him from going any further.

"Easy there. First you gotta tell us why you want him." She said.

"Who the hell are you?!" He asked her.

"No one you should know about. Now tell us why you want him." I said.

"Where is he?!" He demanded getting impatient.

"We'll tell you. But first you have to tell us why you want him." Lexi said.

The man became angry and said, "I'll give you a last chance. Tell me where he is or I'll have to force it out of you."

"We'll give you one last chance as well. Tell us why you want him then we might give him to you." I said.

That was the last straw for him. He raised his fist in an attempt to punch me.

But of course, I was two steps ahead of him. I knew it was coming and blocked his punch.

Before he could counter my move, I twisted his hand and knocked his feet from under him.

The man lost his balance and fell on the steps.

In the blink of an eye, he stood up. I went behind him and pulled him into a lock. Lexi punched his face and his face turned to the side.

She did it again and this time, I heard a crunch. No doubt she broke his nose. That's her favorite for some reason.

He went limp and I let him fall down again.

"Damn this guy's heavy." I commented.

"You guys can come out now. He's knocked out." Lexi said to the people in the basement.

One by one all of them came out. Philip was the last one to come out.

"That was so badass." Luke said.

"Thanks." I said.

"Where did you learn how to fight?" Harris asked.

"We were trained by a former FBI agent." Lexi said.

"Who-" Lexi cut Felix off.

"No time for questions. Right now we have more better things to do." She said.

She looked at Philip and said, "We need an explanation."

||◻️||◻️||

Minutes later we found ourselves in the living room of the main house. All of us were sitting on the couches while Philip was pacing back and forth.

He occasionally stopped to open his mouth to say something but then he thinks it over, shakes his head and continues pacing.

"Is your brain inside your feet instead of your head that your pacing would start it up?" Lexi asked, clearly annoyed.

Philip stopped just to say, "Shut up." then continue pacing.

"You've been pacing back and forth for the last fifteen minutes. Tell us who that man was already." I snapped.

"I don't know how to put it alright? I just don't know." He said and sighed sitting on the couch.

"Try it." Felix said.

Philip looked at him then at us then back at him before sighing.

"Okay. Before anything, just know it's not as bad as it sounds."

Oh this is so gonna be as bad as it sounds.

Philip sighed again. "So, a couple years ago, my company was bankrupt. I don't know how it happened but it did. I had to turn to other companies for their support but they all had some conditions that mostly included their daughters marrying one of my sons."

"What? You didn't tell us about it. When did this happen? Did you agree to any of them?" Luke asked panicked.

"No. I..." Philip sighed. "I couldn't do that to you so I said 'no' to all of them. No one gave me enough support without conditions that I could not agree to. So I had no other choice but to turn to the dark side." He said.

"Elaborate." Lexi said.

Philip sighed but before he could say anything else Lexi cut in, "And stop sighing. It's getting annoying."

Philip looked at her for a minute before he continued his story. "Well I took a loan from a gang. A dangerous one at that. And put my company back on top. But the problem was I couldn't really give them their money back in time. So now, they have been threatening me that they would harm you all."

"What gang?" Felix asked.

"The call themselves the Deadly Squad." He answered.

Rings a bell.

We waited for him to continue to complete his story but he didn't say anything.

So I did him the favor. "That's why you pushed us and our mom away."

Philip stopped himself from sighing and nodded.

"Yes." He confirmed.

That was enough for Lexi to flare up.