I Am Keeley

Chapter 11: Nice N' Easy

Nick's POV

I sat on the couch staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows to the black November night sky. Keeley was consuming all of my thoughts.

When I went to brush my hand over her neck, she- she fucking flinched. My baby sister, the one person I would give absolutely anything and everything for, thought I was going to hit her. Did she not trust me? Did she think I would actually lay a hand on her?

And her neck, God her neck looked like she was killed and brought back to life with the dark purple bruises that painted her skin. I would love to kill the fucker that did that to her, to my Keeley.

I'd never seen that much pain in her amber eyes before. She was suffering on the inside and I can't do a damn thing about it because she refuses to let anyone in. She was going to cry. Not once in my life have I seen her cry. Not one time, and when she came home tonight, it looked like that was all she wanted to do.

I let out a low groan as I raised myself off of the couch and tugged at the ends of my hair. I was beyond frustrated with how tonight had played out.

"Luca went up there to check on her," I hear Stefano's voice speak lowly from behind me. I shove my hands into my pockets before turning around to see the rest of the guys milling about.

"Finn," I heard my father's voice grunt from beside the fireplace, "I want you and Callan to head over to the big house and look into what happened to Keeley. Hell knows she's not going to say anything, so I want you looking into everything. I don't care how minuscule it is, if something happened, I need to know. Got it?"

They nodded their heads as the rest of us gathered on the couch. We waited till the door shut before anyone talked again.

"I think I'm going to go kill somebody now, yeah?" Giovanni stated as he began to stand up, but Stefano grabbed his arm and yanked him back down beside him.

"Keeley needs us right now and nobody is leaving unless I say so, understood?" my father grumbled. Everyone mumbled their own version of a "yes" as we turned to him.

"Is she going to be okay?" I look at Sam and I can see how his eyes are glassy with unshed tears. He may be the jokester of the house, but he takes these sort of things harder than the rest of us.

Donnie rubbed a hand on his back as Stefano's gruff Italian voice spoke up.

"Keeley is tougher than any of us, and that's just the damn truth. She's been given shit her whole life, yet every time, she molds it into a stepping stone and comes out stronger than she was before. None of us are used to seeing her so open with her emotions, but she trusted us with them tonight. She let us see that side of her because she allowed us to. Nothing we can do can make her tell us what happened because, at the end of the day, it's ultimately up to her. She'll be okay, Sam. It's just that even Keeley needs to cry sometimes."

None of us spoke as we were all hit with the impact of Stefano's words. No doubt he's 100% right. It's just that the truth sometimes sucks.

"What if-" Matteo spoke quietly after clearing his throat, "what if we did like a-a family thing tomorrow? She's in no shape to go to school, and maybe she just needs us to be here."

His eyes darted between all of us in anticipation of what we were going to say.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked. I saw his shoulders relax and a small sigh of relief escape his mouth.

"What if we did like a team thing? So we broke off into teams and then did a bunch of challenges and stuff? I don't know, it's probably a stupid idea-"