Her Mafia Brothers

Shoplifting

Rocco didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. His display of dominant power scared the crap out of half of the student body, and left the other half standing there in awe and respect. It was clear the statement Rocco was making: don't mess with my sister. And as the crowd parted on either side of me as I walked up the steps and into the school building, it was clear that the message had gotten through. Nobody said a word as I scanned the crowd for my friends; even Blondie and her minions left me alone.

It was weird, being at school without Logan. Even though I didn't see him during school hours, it was comforting just knowing he was there, nearby in case I needed him. It gave me a sense of security knowing that Logan could be by my side in five minutes, no matter where I was in the school. But today, I was all alone. Well I had my friends, so I wasn't completely alone, but I didn't have my brother, and I missed him.

Frankie, Petra, Kate and Lily couldn't stop gushing about Rocco dropping me off on his bike. Well, Kate, mostly. Lily and Petra kept telling her to shut up and stop embarrassing me and Frankie was busy sketching. After just a few minutes of her pencil moving quickly across the paper, she ripped the sheet out of her exercise book and handed the picture to me - a caricature of me and Rocco and she even gave the bike eyelashes! It was cute. Quickly, I took a pic of it on my phone and sent it to Logan before remembering he wasn't speaking to me anymore, and mentally kicking myself. So I sent it to Rocco too, and pretended sending it to Logan had been a mistake.

Ooops sorry, wrong brother, I typed out, then regretted sending that, too. Why couldn't I just leave him alone? I already felt bad that he was at home in bed, in pain, with broken ribs. And now, at school, I couldn't stop myself from bugging him, too.

Rocco sent back a smiley face, but Logan didn't respond.

Logan didn't respond to my text all day long and for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about it. What was he doing? Did he still hate me? Logan's silence bothered me far more than it probably should have. Although it killed me to admit it, I missed my brother.

"Let's get out of here," I said, as we met in the cafeteria for lunch.

Lily looked at me with wide eyes. "You mean leave school?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I need to get away."

"But we'll get in trouble!" Lily protested.

Frankie snorted. "Since when have you been such a goodie-two-shoes?"

Lily blushed bright red and it made me wonder what, exactly, had she done before I'd come to this school? As far as I knew, Lily hadn't ever broken a single rule in her life. She always did the right thing. She was kind and quiet and shy.

"I vote we go," Kate said.

"Me too," Petra added.

"I'm in!" Frankie yelled a bit too enthusiastically. "Lily?" Frankie raised her eyebrows in question. "You coming with us or you a chicken?"

Lily hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "I'll come."

We managed to get out of the school and all the way to the mall without being seen, and once we were inside, we started to relax a bit. There's no way we would get caught here - students in school uniform at lunchtime were a dime a dozen here. Once class started we'd stand out a bit, but we could figure that out later. For now, we just walked around and enjoyed ourselves.

It was great, not having a bodyguard. I felt so free, so unrestricted! I'd forgotten how good it was to be able to wander around unfettered, doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Not that my brothers really curtailed my freedom, but having a bodyguard tagging along after me cramped my style a bit. But now..... It was just us!