Her Mafia Brothers

Trouble on the Stairs

I woke up sometime in the night absolutely terrified. My heart was pounding and I could barely breathe. I was back there, with them. Fear overwhelmed me. I was on the verge of freaking out completely. I was close to hyperventilating as my panic escalated, and even knowing it wasn't real, and I was safe, wasn't enough to calm my racing heart or rapid breathing.

Shaking, I threw back the covers and got out of bed, padding softly down the hallway to Jack's room. Jack had always been there to protect me when I was little, and I knew he would make me feel safe again now.

He stirred when I opened his door and when I whispered "Jacky!" he bolted upright, switching on the lamp next to his bed. As soon as he saw it was me his aggressive stance softened and he opened his arms to me. I ran to him and he wrapped me up into a hug.

"Bad dream, sweetheart?"

I nodded against his chest. His heart was beating fast too, probably from being interrupted out of sleep.

He lay back down, pulling me down with him, and smoothed the covers out over us both. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled my back tight against his chest. I rested my head on his arm, my cheek nestled against the edge of his t-shirt sleeve where it ended at his bicep.

"You're safe here with me, darling girl. Go back to sleep now."

And I did, safe in the strong arms of my big brother.

Even though I was feeling much better, Damon let me take the next day off school. Or really, I should say he made me take it off, because he didn't give me the choice. He just told me I was staying home today, to give my body the time to recover properly. Especially because I was awake in the night, and my sleep had been disrupted. I didn't mind too much because school is school, but I was missing my friends. The school was pretty strict with no cellphones in class, so I couldn't even message them or anything.

Logan had gone to school, Rocco had gone to college, and my other brothers were all working. Nick was working from home, so was Alex, but Damon and Jack both left at the same time Logan did. I had no idea where they'd gone. I didn't even really know what they did, let alone where they went to do it. I didn't know where Alex and Nick's offices were, either. In the left wing, probably. The one place in the house where I wasn't allowed to go. So I was pretty much by myself. I could contact them via text message, and they came to check on me every so often, but I mostly just spent the day in my room watching Netflix.

But eventually I got bored, and a bit hungry, so I ventured downstairs to see if I could find some food and something else to do.

Now that I was feeling better, the banisters were calling to me, so I balanced carefully at the very top and slid the whole way down, landing with a thud at the bottom of the stairs. Just at that moment the forbidden steel door opened and Nick walked through. He didn't see me sliding, but it was obvious by the expression on his face that he knew how I'd just gotten downstairs.

"Be careful Carrie," he said gently. "I don't want you getting hurt, you've only just gotten better."

I looked up at him, the picture of innocence, and pretended to have no idea what he was talking about.

"I'm always careful," I said.

He grinned at me, his whole face lighting up, before reaching out and ruffling my hair. "So you just walked down the stairs nicely, then? You didn't slide down the banister?"

I just smiled widely at him. We both knew he already knew the answer to that question, so there was no point in me either confirming or denying it. Besides, I wasn't brave enough to blatantly lie to his face.