Mr and Mrs Shaw (rewrite)

Prologue

(A/N: Welcome to the rewrite of Mr and Mrs Shaw. Hope you like it)

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"They say if you want to glimpse the future, just look behind you. I used to think that was bollocks. Now I realise, you can't outrun the past," said Deckard Shaw to his unconscious younger brother, a machine breathing for him as tubes were stuck in his throat, and half his face burned.

Yes, they bickered and were at each other's throats all their lives, but there was never a time that the Shaw brothers were not there for each other. So, to see his baby brother lying half-dead while he was cuffed to a bed, tore at Deckard in a way he could describe; in a way only an older brother, an older sibling could understand. He supposed that he felt responsible for letting Owen end up here. Which is why he was here in the first place. It was no small thing to come and visit his brother in the hospital.

Deckard had been facing the window, basking in the sun as he gazed out at the London skyline. As he turned from the window to now gaze at his brother, his eyes brushed over him and rested on the woman sitting at his beside.

The raven-haired beauty had one of his limp hands clutched in her daintily lethal and perfectly manicured hand. Her other hand gently caressed the burn marks on his cheek, her nails the colour of fresh blood. Purely genuine concern was reflected in her electric blue eyes as she beheld him. And then she looked up to Deckard.

This woman was no ordinary woman. She was Katrina Shaw.

She may not have been a Shaw by blood, but she was one by marriage, and she was as damn close to a Shaw as you could get. She had grown up with them after all. Her relationships with each of the Shaw siblings were all unique onto themselves, but the four them were always getting up to mischief. Nothing had really changed since those days. Even Magalena, 'Queenie' and the legendary mother of the Shaws, still only encouraged the behaviour – minus their squabbles with each other, but that was another story entirely.

Katrina had grown up next door to them, and since she was raised by a single mother who worked multiple jobs in order to support them, the Shaw household was her second home. Until it became her first.

They said she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They said it was an accident – the police. They had knocked on the Shaw's door to find her and tell her that it was an accident when her mother had been shot in the head, point blank, over the watch on her wrist that was barely worth ten quid.

She'd barely been 12 years old when her mother died. And she'd barely been 12 years old when Madalena took her in. Not only would she not stand for seeing Katrina in the foster system, but her children wouldn't allow it to happen either. So she joined them. Their family and their training.

Katrina never completely understood the training that they endured until the day she turned sixteen. The day she hunted her first job. The day she dragged the man who killed her mother back into the same alley she died in. And fuck, had it felt good when she punctured his lung, broke 6 of his ribs, 26 of the 30 bones in his arm, and then slashed his throat so he could choke on his own blood. And she'd felt absolutely nothing as she watched the life leave his eyes and breath leave his chest.

Part of Katrina's heart and soul had darkened the day her mother died and this act she just committed only made her embrace the darkness. And if anything, the Shaws loved her more the day they learned that she'd avenged her mother's death.

Her indifference to death was also extremely lucrative. Not to mention the fact that it also prepared her for the day that Deckard called.

Owen was always her annoying little brother. Hattie was her best friend and the sister that she never had. But Deckard...Katrina could never find the words to describe how she felt about Deckard. They were always friendly sure, but there was always something...more, between the two of them. Lingering glances, brushing of skin more than necessary and the deep-seated conversations they would have. And let's not mention a rather scandalous night in a hot tub that involved a drunken make-out session, roaming hands and Katrina heading back to Deckard's room.