Her Mafia Brothers

Friends again

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Logan growled, giving me a shove. But he sighed when Rocco glared at him and made a move to get up.

"Sorry," he apologized quickly. "No you don't need to be scared of Nick," Logan said. "Why would you be? Has he ever given you any indication that he would hurt you?"

I smirked. "No. But he's never given me any indication he'll hurt you, either!"

Logan looked at me like I was insane. "Really? You still think he did this on purpose? Look, even when one of them beats me to a pulp in the gym, it's controlled. What happened was an accident. I was fighting him hard-out. Then I suddenly stopped and he didn't notice in time. Neither did Alex, and he was in there supervising, remember? He feels really bad about it. I'll probably be able to wangle a new playstation game out of him." Logan winked at me and I giggled.

"Good. I hope he gives you something. But that still doesn't explain why you stopped fighting. The why is what I want to know."

Logan growled. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Nope!" I agreed cheerily, giving him my sweetest smile.

"I already told you, I felt guilty for the way I treated you. I'd die for you, Carrie. I felt really bad."

I was so touched by Logan's admission that I wrapped my arms around his forearm and leaned in close to him, being careful of his ribs.

"But Damon already punished you," I pointed out. "Why did you still feel bad after that?" It didn't make sense. The more he tried to explain it, the more confused I got.

"Yeah, but even that upset you. I heard your reaction when Damon belted me in front of you. You freaked out completely, and that made me feel worse. If I'd just listened to Damon and gone to his office like he said, you wouldn't have freaked out."

I nodded, remembering. I'd lost it completely when Damon had ripped off his belt. Even though I'd known he wasn't going to come near me with it, I'd still been terrified. I looked at Logan, silently pleading with him to continue.
"And yeah, I got it upstairs too, but Damon's belt isn't that bad."

Really? I was incredulous. His belt had left me bloody and welted for days.

"I still had marks on my body from a belt when I came here," I whispered. "It was bad."

Logan nodded. "I know. But Damon's not like that. He's controlled. Everything he does is controlled, you know that. Damon doesn't leave welts. He would never, ever use all of his strength to punish us. He held me down and made me count out 20 whacks and then he let me go. Then he lectured me for fucking ages."

From his chair, Rocco cleared his throat. Oops. I think we've both forgotten that Rocco was there.

"Sorry," Logan quickly apologized, before carrying on: "It hurt, but your reaction hurt me more. So that's why I stopped fighting Nick. I wanted him to hurt me, so I wouldn't feel the pain of hurting you."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say. I was flabbergasted, really. It was probably the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me, in a very roundabout way.

"Well I'm sorry for my part in it," I told him, squeezing his arm. "And I'm sorry you're hurt. Can we please go back to being friends again now?"

Logan looked at me with raised eyebrows for a moment, then he grinned.

"Sure, little sis. Let's plan some more pranks to play on Rocco."

We both grinned mischievously at Rocco then, but to my surprise all he did was grin back.

"Prepare to be pranked yourself then, babies!"

Beside me, Logan growled, but he didn't verbalize his objection to the word. Instead, he winked at me. We were a team. At least, I thought, hoped we were.

And the challenge was on!