Mafia // Ryan Blaney

five // the truth

"What are you guys?"

As soon as I asked, they all froze. Literally. None of them moved. They all just looked at each other, and they all had the same look of terror in their eyes. As if they weren't sure they should tell me or not. We sat in silence for a few more minutes before I decided to say something.

"Do you plan on answering my question or are you just going to sit there and stare at each other some more? What the fuck was that that I witnessed today? Who were those people? Why were they trying to kill you? And what the fuck are you guys?"

"Keep your voice down, would you?" Ryan snarled, shutting the door to his room, probably because he didn't want anyone to overhear the conversation we were about to have. "I don't want my mom to hear us talking about this. She doesn't like to hear it."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Tell anyone what we're about to tell you, and I'll kill you. Understand?" Ryan replied, ignoring my question. Again. I rolled my eyes and nodded. "We're mafia, Kacey."

"Technically, we're ex-mafia, but still," Erik chimed in.

Wait. What the fuck does that even mean? These high schoolers used to be in a mafia? How does that make any sense?

"Please say something," Chase said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"What the fuck do you want me to say? I don't even know what to say right now."

"Do you have any questions for us?" Bubba asked.

"A million."

"Do you want us to start from the beginning?" Chase asked. I nodded.

"We all joined at different times. Ryan joined when he was 12 if I remember correctly. His parents had started going through the divorce process and he was lost. One day, a man approached him, and Ryan being the dumbass kid he is, he joined. Bubba joined when he was 15. He was going through a lot – his older brother was murdered a year earlier. He was out for revenge. Chase was 13. He was getting in trouble in school and with the police all the time. His parents kicked him out, and they didn't want it to affect his dad's career in NASCAR. Pop got him a place of his own, and he didn't have to pay bills. It was all covered. William was 15 too. His girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend at the time, and he didn't have anyone. He was in foster care since his parents died when he was still in diapers, and none of his other family wanted him. I was 14. I had been in trouble frequently as a kid. I was constantly getting into fights whether it was at school or somewhere in town. When Pop confronted me, he said I had the natural instinct to kill. I was sold right then and there.

"That's how the five of us met. We quickly became friends, and every mission that was assigned to one of us, was basically assigned to all of us. We all went and did what we had to do. But it started getting out of control really fast. Last year, we made the decision to get out once and for all. But the thing is, you don't just leave the mafia. If you leave, you die. It's as simple as that.

"That's what happened today. Those guys you saw? They're the reason we left. The Dillon Brothers, Austin and Ty. They're Pop's grandkids. He assigned them to find us and kill us. That's all they've been doing for the last year. We're trying to get them before they get us.

"And now that they've seen you, you have a target on your head too. They won't hesitate to find you and kill you if they get the chance. You need to go somewhere far away – somewhere they'll never be able to find you. You were never supposed to get dragged into this. Hell, no one was supposed to even know about us. You just showed up at the wrong time, and now here we are." I took everything Erik just said in for a minute.

Trying to wrap my head around this, and I think I'm more confused than I was when I got here. These five teenagers are ex-mafia, and there are guys from this mafia that are basically hunting them down to kill them. All because they left? And now I'm involved all because I wouldn't listen and didn't want to stay in the fucking car. Fuck this.

I thought for a while about what to say in response to what I had just heard. It was at least ten to fifteen minutes before I figured out what I was going to do.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Kacey, did you not just hear me? They know you're with us. They'll find out every single thing about you, and they'll stalk you, hunt you down even. And when they do, they won't hesitate to kill you on the spot. That's what they do. And we don't want that to happen. We won't let that fucking happen!" Erik shouted. You could tell he was mad. And based on the facial expressions of the other four, they weren't too happy either.

"Erik, relax. We have two options here. The first is Kacey goes into hiding so we can keep her safe. Which based on her answer, she doesn't want this to affect her that badly. The other option is she stays as close to us as possible. That way we can keep an eye on her. What do you guys think?" William asked.

"She's in. She's either at one of our houses or we're at hers. She doesn't leave our sight. Not in school, not out of school. Never," Ryan said. That surprised me to be honest. He hadn't said anything the entire time we've been here, and I honestly wasn't expecting him to say that. "And Kacey, if you say a single word about this to anyone, again, you're dead. And it won't be at the hands of Austin and Ty."