Jax's POV
A few weeks later.
We were well into October now. It was Wednesday the 14th October. Not much had happened. We hadn't heard anything from the Russians since the night they killed Lara's family.
We had stolen from their shipments and killed a few of their men on their way back from Brazil. Yet they hadn't retaliated yet.
I had woke up to my alarm at 6am to see Lara sat in a ball in the corner of our room fast asleep. She had done this most nights since her family were killed. She hardly got any sleep anymore that was clearly evident on her face when she didn't wear makeup.
I climbed out of bed and walked to where Lara was fast asleep. I picked her up gently and put her back on the bed. I placed the comforter over her before heading into the closet and getting into my gym clothes.
Once my gym clothes were on I checked on Alannah quickly and headed to the gym.
"Good morning Jax, did you sleep well?" Gio asks throwing a bottle of water at me.
"Fuck off." I say making the boys laugh.
"So clearly not." Matteo says whilst I roll my eyes and head over to the treadmill first.
Each of us are stressed and tense. We have a lot to lose this time. Mainly our other half's. Mine is Lara and Alannah. Then Gio and Matteo's is Amara.
"What crawled up your ass and died?" Gio says as the three boys get on treadmills beside me.
"Nothing." I say rolling my eyes making Matteo and Gio look at each other but thankfully Rocco didn't look bothered.
"Definitely Lara related." They say in sync and I scoff and pick up the pace.
After a good 45 minutes of the treadmill and then working out we had a break for five.
"So what happened with you and Lara?" Gio asks sitting beside me on a bench as I take a sip of my bottle of water.
"Nothing happened with me and Lara." I say and he looks at me sternly.
"I'm serious, she's just. Ugh its complicated." I say and he just furrows his eyebrows.
"Tell us." Matteo says and I roll my eyes standing up.
"No." I say walking over to the weights. It's not really their place.
"Come on Jax, there's nothing going on plus we won't tell anyone." Matteo pleads and I roll my eyes.
"No, now shut you you sound like a girl." I say and he rolls his eyes.
"Jax come on we're her friends too. We want to know what's wrong with her plus maybe we can help." Gio says and I sigh.
"She's different. She doesn't sleep anymore. When I wake up in the morning she's in the most weirdest of places. I've caught her asleep on the balcony, in corners of my room, against the foot of the bed, on the floor. It just doesn't make sense to me. Any time I try to get her to talk we end up having sex instead and its just not her. If she isn't with Alannah she's working on that god damm laptop and it's like I don't know who she is anymore." I say sighing.
"She's grieving Jax, what do you expect? She's finding a way to get over them and she's just filling herself up with things to do so she doesn't have to think about it. Plus she said it herself, she loved him and they were family to her. She hasn't had a family in so long and then Dmitri literally made her watch him kill them. She's angry Jax just talk to her." Gio says and I roll my eyes.
"She won't talk to me, anytime I try to talk about them she shuts it down straight away. She asks me to give her a distraction and when I say no she rolls over and pretends to be annoyed and go to sleep till I give in." I say making them laugh.
"She has you proper wrapped around her finger bro." Matteo says making me roll my eyes.
"Well be stern with her." Gio says and I scoff.
"Tried that. Ever since she agreed to take over from both Marco and her father she just doesn't care. She has like this badass energy and don't get me wrong its sexy but I don't know what to do." I say and begin to lift some weights.
"Put her in her place." Rocco says making us all turn to look at him.
We had no clue he was even listening whilst punching the punching bag.
"Look she's hot don't get me wrong, I can see why you like her she is very sweet. But, you out rank her and her mafia so fucking put her in her place." He says and my eyes widen.
"Are you joking? That is why you don't have a girlfriend. I don't want to make her cry jesus." I say looking from him back to Gio and Matteo.
"Look she can't bottle it up. She'll let it out eventually, you just have to be ready for that." Gio says making me sigh and continue on our gym session.
Once I was finished I headed back to my room Lara was still fast to sleep.
After my shower I come out of the bathroom to see Lara sat on her work phone texting by the looks of it. She looked up at me, smiled softly and then said, "Good morning".
I said a quick, "Morning" back before heading into my closet and pulling on a plain black suit.
I come out of my closet to see Lara wasn't on the bed anymore. I looked around till I heard the faint sound of the shower. The bed was now made neatly.
I head into Alannah's room just as she was waking up.
"Dad." She squeals sitting up and throwing her arms around me.
"Hello." I say picking her up.
We talked about Alannah's dream for a while till Lara was ready and we headed downstairs for breakfast.
At the table Alannah and Lara kept whispering back and forth each other and giggling. It was nice to hear them both laughing, especially since now Alannah was over the death of their family.
The boys were looking between themselves, well Gio and Matteo were. After our talk this morning, they were definitely expecting to not see her laughing. Now atleast they'll understand what I mean.
After breakfast I kiss both the girls foreheads before saying goodbye and heading into my home office.
At about 3pm I went to check on Lara and Alannah except I couldn't find them. I walk through the foyer again walking into our butler.
"Ah Alfred, have you seen Lara and Alannah?" I ask and he smiles.
"Both Fernandez girls are in the garden." He says smiling.
"Thank you" I say walking away.
I watch by the doors watching Lara and Alannah run around after each other and laughing.
"She's so different now." Amara says coming to my side.
"Which one?" I ask looking out at them both.
"Well they were both different, more distant. Now that isn't the problem as Alannah has stopped grieving." She says and I nod.
"Lara. She's so different now. She's not as distant but definitely different." She says making me sigh.
"She won't talk to me about it." I say and she puts her head on my shoulder.
"I'm worried for her Jax." Amara says as we watch Lara spin Alannah around.
"Me too." I say and she sighs.
"Gio told me about what you guys spoke about this morning." She says making me roll my eyes.
"Course he did." I say making her scoff.
"If you ever need me to talk to her or if you want to talk to me you can Jax." She says standing infront of me slightly and looking up at me.
This reminded me of when she was younger.
She was always shorter then us boys and she would always look up at us with concern or worry when we got back from learning how to shoot for the first time.
There wasn't that many girls in our family which our family were obviously grateful for as it meant more people to help out with the mafia.
My grandpa had three boys and a girl. How it worked was the older you were the better your rule was. The only reason it was like this was because my grandma kicked off because it wasn't fair. So my dad being the oldest had rights to anywhere he wanted he could choose wherever.
Being the 2nd biggest Mafia for many many years we owned quite a few states. Dad chose to live in New York and occupy most of the east side of the states.
One of our uncles live in Chicago occupying over there. He also occupies Michigan and Wisconsin. That's Rocco's fathers.
Matteo and Amara's father was the youngest boy and after the death of Sofia who died at the age of 8 all the attention went to their father.
Grandma did not want their father getting involved so Grandpa split the states between my father and uncle.
That's actually why Matteo is here. Dad felt bad that his brother didn't get to do much mafia work. Matteo was about to become head of security in Italy but dad offered for him to come here which he agreed to obviously.
Amara doesn't have the best family life. She would get left out a lot. Her and Rocco were quite close growing up actually.
Amara and her parents don't get along. Matteo and her are so close and he begged us to let her come with.
"Thank you Amara and if you need anything, you know where to find me." I say and she nods before I head back fo the office.
After a long day in the office I head up to my room. I check on Alannah quickly to see her still fast asleep. I smile and then head into my room.
Lara was sat on her phone and on her laptop at the same time. I come to her side and kiss her temple. She smiles at me before continuing to speak Portuguese on the phone.
She joined me in the closet where we got out of our clothes. I head to the bathroom whilst Lara gets into her pyjamas.
Once we were ready for bed we climbed into bed. Lara was sat against the headboard and brought her laptop onto her lap.
I lied down and put my head on her thighs that weren't covered by her laptop.
"Did you have a good day at work?" She asks making me scoff.
"It was alright, what about you?" I ask glancing up at her.
"Its calmed down in Brazil now." She says and moves one of her hands to play with my hair.
"Have you started recruiting yet?" I ask remember the decrease in men they had now.
"Nope. I spoke to Marco and told him I wanted it after this silly war. I don't want people joining to die straight away, its honestly just heartbreaking. We brought in a few of our men from around the borders though. So countries like Venezuela, Peru and Colombia. They offered and well with everything going on it would be stupid to say no." She says making me smile. She then yawns which makes the smile drop from my face.
"Maybe you should get some sleep. You've been working hard recently and you're clearly tired." I say and she shakes her head for no.
"I'm not really tired though." She says making me sigh. I'm not stupid, she's exhausted.
"You haven't slept properly in ages Lara, please just come and cuddle with me whilst we fall to sleep." I say and she sighs.
"Jax I'm busy." She says making me roll my eyes. I didn't want to argue with her so I rolled over and lied there.
All the lights went out and a bang slowly followed. I got out of bed and grabbed my phone straight away.
It's happening.
Yet again, I'm not stupid I knew this would happen.
"What's going on Jax?" Lara asks and I quickly pull out my laptop to check the cameras whilst ringing Gio. But as suspected it was the Russians, they were here now.
I rushed into my closet and got dressed back into my suit. I come out of my closet and grab my guns from my draw and my everyday gun from the nightstand.
"Jax what on earth is going on?" Lara asks and I sigh.
"The russians are here. Stay here. I love you." I say kissing her forehead and heading back to the door.
I open the door and Gio was stood there with Amara. Amara kisses him one more times before we left them in there.
"Stay here. Get Alannah and stay in there actually. " I tell her and we head to diffuse the situation.