"Besides, the manor in Callander is perfect, and when I renovate it, keeping the exterior historic and the inside technologic and way more modern, it'll be absolutely gorgeous, you'll see. It's my dreamhouse."
"You are as stubborn as Cat was, ugh," mami growled, comparing me to my birth mom, Catriona Arabella MacBhrìghdein again.
It warms my heart though. Her and my birth dad, Lachlan Archie Hamill-Galbraith, died mysteriously when I was 3 years old, which was definitely a badly solved murder, and as I had no other blood-relatives alive, per what they had left written in their will, if anything happened to them my legal guard would go to their best friends, Adèle Chappelle Theriot and Siegfried Von Stier Ackermann.
In fact, it was because they had gained shared guard of me, that they end up becoming a couple and later marrying each other when I turned 5. Before that they were bickering friends, whose best friends got married. So, my birth parents technically set them up to be a couple. They balance each other out perfectly, though.
"As if you weren't stubborn either," papi scoffed and that got him a side-glare from her. "What? We both are, but you've always been more stubborn than me, Elle. Though, yes, Cat and Archie were both stubborn."
His last words made her grin victoriously, "My point exactly." Her eyes turned to me again and she pursed her lips on a thin line, "We are not picking on this for nothing, Lea, we are worried about you. You will be more than an hour far from your best friends once you move to the haunted castle," ugh, she never listens, "and even further away from us."
"You could move to Edinburgh then," I suggested.
"Hell no," papi chuckled. "If we stay in there, even though we both already retired, the MI6 will keep trying to send us in missions, as we'll be closer to them, and we don't have the patience to go through the MI6 missions anymore. We would rather stay here and keep our low-key work with the Interpol."
"I would rather work with the MI6 than with the Interpol, those missions the Interpol sends me to are all full of international conflicts and lots of boring bureaucracy," I played with my fingers. "What the MI6 asks me to do is more on the action, and more UK based. It's better. Though the secret missions as an insider in the US and later here in France were cool. But again, that's not my main work, I love being an architect, it's hard to always hide my identity working for the MI6 and the Interpol."
Secret agents of the MI6, with teamed missions with the Interpol. My parents were too agents of the MI6, and so were mami and papi, uncle Kingsley and aunt Eliza too, my parents died when they had been assigned a dangerous mission together, and the other four all retired when I turned 17, as soon as I was admitted in the MI6. They all had ties with the Interpol as well, but only mami and papi worked directly for the high ranks, as they are situated in Lyon, France, where the headquarters of the Interpol are.
Cassie and Sera, on the other hand, did receive a training similar to mine, but softer, but they did not liked the idea of being agents for the UK government or for the Interpol, or any government at all, and went different ways. Well, at least they know enough to be able to defend themselves, use weapons well, fight with their bodies if needed, and kill if the situation asks for it. They both followed me and studied Architecture as well.
I was a prodigy, so I got an early entrance into MIT as mami had mentioned while scolding me instants ago, and I got four master degrees for Architecture as soon as I got my bachelor's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), that took 4 years. Then my MArch (Master of Architecture) at Harvard for 3 years, a MArch in Urban Design at the University College London for 1 year, a SMArchS (Master of Science in Architecture Studies) in Building Technology at MIT for 2 years, and lastly, my SMArchS in Computation also in MIT that also was 2-years-long.
All while working.
The girls, though, both went to college at 15, to Cornell University, one of the Ivy Leagues with Harvard, and both for Architecture. After they graduated, at the same time as I graduated from my MArch in Harvard, we all went back to London, and while I went for an Urban Design MArch, Cassie went for a Landscape Architecture MArch, Sera went for a MArch in Architectural Design, settling down in London as I went back to the US.
Alternatively, aside from being a secret agent, my birth mom was a Civil Engineer and my dad was an Architect, both specialized in Urbanism. They were both from old money families in the UK, but sole heirs, and as I am their only child, I inherited all of their billionaire fortune and real estates, though I was only able to touch all that when I turned 18 years old. And together with everything, I also got their journals, and that's how I know they were working on a dangerous mission, that might have gotten them killed. I only got my hands on the journals when I turned 21.
I'm currently 27 years old.
"We always knew you would end up going back to the UK, to live there for good, but Scotland? Really?" Mami groaned again. "Please, Lea, if you are to live in there, why not stay in Edinburgh with the girls? While live in that village? It will be dangerous out there."
"Mami," I got up from my chair and kneeled in front of her, holding her hands in mine, "I will probably be the most dangerous habitat in there. Remember? You trained me since I lost my parents. I learned to shot with a gun at the age other kids start in school. I'm a trained agent, spy, and I've killed before. Besides, I'll hire the best cybersecurity company in the UK to take care of the security of the manor. I'll install cameras everywhere, and I'll also install a security system on the limits of the woods surrounding the land I bought. It will be safe."
She pressed her lips together, "And your training?"
If she isn't complaining, it's promising. "I'll make the underground a training facility, how about that?"
"How long will it take?" Papi bit his bottom lip.
I turned my light green eyes to meet the ambers burning in his irises, "It already started two weeks ago, so, three months from today onwards at best, five months at maximum. I'll go there five days a week to watch how everything is going, and control the operation. The girls are doing that for me right now." I'll be leaving tomorrow.
Sigh, "We are not okay with this, Lea," papi stated and I felt a but coming, which gave me hope, especially when he shared a look with mami. "However," his eyes crashed against mine again, "we understand that you are infuriatingly stubborn, and won't change your mind no matter what. At 27 years old and 4 months, you are old enough to know exactly what you are doing, and given how paranoid you can be, I take that you already saw all the results of your actions before you even took them."
"I did," I nodded softly.
"Before you move there," mami tightened her grip on my hands, "tell us when the reformation is over. We'll go to you and inspect that place before you move in, to make sure it's safe. Don't move in there without our inspection, that's the only way will be slightly okay with you in the butthole of Scotland's nowhere."
God, they will never call it what it is, will they? "Okay, I promise."
"Pinky it then," papi narrowed his eyes at me. "We are already used with your shenanigans, Lea, and we knows how tricky your word can be. You have your own morals and you only go through your word when you do a pinky promise, so pinky it up!"