Her Mafia Brothers

Fighting

A couple of hours passed and I was still all by myself by the pool, messaging my friends and playing on my phone. The house was silent. Empty. None of my brothers were around. Had they left me here all alone? I hoped not.

I texted Rocco to ask and within about a minute he came out to the outdoor table and sat down, running his hand through his hair.

"You're not alone," he assured me. "We wouldn't do that to you. The only one not here is Logan."

"Are Jack and Alex still in the gym?" I asked. They'd been down there a long time. Instantly, I felt guilty. It was my fault they were down there in the first place, and if they killed each other down there, that would be my fault too.

Rocco nodded. "Yep. Wanna watch them?"

I hesitated. I did, because I needed to know that they were okay, but I didn't because seeing them fighting each other would scare me. But concern for their welfare won out and I nodded.

Rocco pulled out his phone and typed something on it quickly.

"Nick will be here in a moment and he'll bring up the cameras," he said.

Anxiety twisted like a knife in my gut. They'd been down there for so long, was there even going to be anything of them left?

Nick appeared in the doorway holding his laptop and as he set it up on the table beside Rocco my breath caught in my throat. I couldn't watch. But I had to watch. I had to know.

Carefully climbing out of the hammock I went and stood behind my brothers, leaning over them, resting my arms on both their shoulders. Nick enlarged the screen and zoomed in, giving me a close-up view of my brother's bruised, bloody faces. They both still looked angry. Neither of them was backing down.

"They're going to kill each other!" I cried, genuinely frightened. I stuffed my fist into my mouth to stifle my sobs, but Nick obviously heard the fear in my voice because he turned and reached for me, guiding me to sit on his lap, and gently pulled my hand out of my mouth.

"They'll be okay," he told me, but I didn't believe him. I was horrified, watching two grown men fighting over me.

Nick zoomed back out but I could still see them wrestling, both dodging and throwing punches, grabbing at each other. Their shirts were torn. They were bleeding.

"Make them stop," I whispered, trembling. "You have to make them stop."

Nick and Rocco looked at each other.

"Don't look at me," Nick said. "I'm holding Carrie." He tightened his grip on me, just in case I had any ideas about getting up so he could stop my brothers.

"Well I'm not going," Rocco said. "They're not going to listen to me anyway."

"Get Damon," Nick said. "He sent them down there, didn't he? He can get them back up. Tell him Carrie is frightened."

Rocco typed away on his phone and it wasn't long before Damon appeared beside the patio table, looking more pissed off than I've ever seen him. He glared ferociously at the screen, then without saying a word, he stormed off to the gym.

There was no audio on the cameras but Damon must have yelled or something because the second he walked into the gym both Alex and Jack moved away from each other and looked at him. Their stances changed completely from aggressive, fighting mode to defeated, and both of them looked at the floor while Damon stood there in front of them, clearly lecturing them. Then, in unison, they both lifted their heads to meet his terrifyingly stern glare.

He carried on lecturing them for a while and then he approached Jack, inspecting a nasty-looking cut just above his eye that was dripping blood. Damon pulled his own folded handkerchief out of his suit pocket and pressed it to Jack's head, stemming the flow of blood. Jack took over holding the handkerchief then, while Damon inspected a cut on Alex's lip, but neither of them moved from the gym. Apparently, Damon wasn't done berating them.