ALEXANDER'S POV
"You did realise she was lying, didn't you?"
I asked as I took in my father's stoic face, who had been sitting in the chair in front of me looking deep in thoughts, ever since we came back from closing a deal.
Today has been really a busy day, but running a powerful Mafia and a multibillion-dollar corporation doesn't really leave much leisure time to throw around.
It's finally now that I have got a chance to take a break. Dad, Elijah and Matthew were also sitting in my office.
While Dad was busy glaring in front of him with a finger over his lips, my two younger brothers were busy being a bunch of dumb kids.
Matthew was throwing paper balls at Elijah, who was responding with a flurry of colourful words as he made a failed attempt to read a copy of the contact papers of the deal we were about to sign.
And people are terrified of these idiots—
Right when I stated the predicament that I've been in the whole damn day, everyone's attention was drawn to me, and the mood quickly turned serious.
"I had a hunch." Elijah muttered and Matthew gave a firm nod of agreement.
"She's a compulsive liar." Dad muttered out as a look of understanding fell over me.
"What exactly do you mean?" Elijah asked as Dad gave me a nod to explain.
"She lied straight through her teeth, if you haven't noticed, her usual demeanour screams nervousness at the same time she has a bubble of vigilance surrounding her, her tone is always very guarded and eyes are always cautious of her surroundings. But when she lied, her face went completely blank, her eyes held no emotions, no alertness in her tone, it was all confidence, if you ask me, she was far too confident for someone who uses sarcasm to hide how uneasy she feels. It was as if lying was her natural defence, something she had grown accustomed to over years, and the way she lied, a person who hasn't had a degree in psychology like myself, or someone who hasn't been studying people their entire life like dad, would believe her right away." I finished and now both my brothers look deep in thoughts as if revisiting the incident of the morning to re-judge Bella's actions.
"That makes sense, but what I fail to understand is why she is so withdrawn and extremely guarded." Elijah muttered, and the room fell into complete silence once more.
"Let's just hope we can warm her heart over the next two months." Dad said, causing me to sigh.
I still can't believe that Arabella flat out refused to come home with Dad.
She's definitely my sister—
I honestly wouldn't go along with a person I'd never knew before,
And I'm desperately hoping that it was the same reason for her.
The four of us had decided not to tell the younger ones about this incident because they were so excited to have their baby sister home and this information would have broken their hearts in the same way as it has broken ours.
"I'm hoping the trip to the mall will be the start of her warming up to us. It better goes well, and the guys hopefully manage to break her ice even just a little." Elijah spoke up, his voice trailing off at the end as he rubbed a hand over his face.
"I suppose so, but why did she ask if she was allowed to eat? That's been bugging me all day." I said looking at Dad, whose expressions immediately turned cold, making him look sinister.
"If even 1% of what my thoughts are telling me is correct, I'm going to lose my shit." Dad muttered out vehemently, his expressions becoming more dangerous.
I hoped nothing bad had happened, but a nagging feeling in my gut was messing with my nerves and causing a dull ache in my head.
"Not that my opinion will change your decision, but I believe we should conduct our investigation, there's clearly something she is hiding, and based on her behaviour, I don't have a good feeling about it." Elijah spoke up, staring at Dad in nervous apprehension.
"I agree with him." Matthew said from the other side of the room, and my gaze shifted to his tense stature.
Sometimes I forget that he could talk—
"No, this is the first thing my girl has asked of me and there's no way I'm going to betray her trust. And if that means I have to wait, then I will wait for however long it takes, I'll work for it but I am not going to do anything that's going to break her trust in me before it's even built and don't forget I gave her my word." Dad countered, his tone on edge, leaving no room for debate.
I for once agree with my brothers, but I can also see the sentiments behind my father's decision—
"But you don't—"
Elijah asserted, ready to justify his disagreement, but was cut off by the incessant ringing of his phone as he took a look at the caller and quickly put it on speaker.
"What up Max?" Elijah asked and we all shared a look, sitting upright just as we heard the sound of Max's heavy breathing voice and frantic noises from the phone.
"Arabella ran away, we are all looking for her, but we need more backup asap." Max's panic-stricken voice reached our ears and all of us almost instantly jumped to our feet.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked while quickly shooting a text to one of our men, to dispatch a search team to look for Arabella throughout the mall and around.
The next few minutes Max explained everything to us as quickly as he could, from how they found one of our moles in the mall pestering around them, to how a couple kids assaulted Arabella in the food court, and how she ran away.
My entire body immediately tensed when he told me that my sister was getting bullied in a goddamn open space and those idiots of my brothers failed to protect her while they were in the same mall as her.
All the brothers were searching around for her, and one of our guards had already checked the mall cameras, which showed Arabella running out of the building. They were now hacking into the street cameras to check her location.
"Why the fuck did you leave her alone." Matthew exclaimed angrily as we all glared down at the phone.
"Kyson was with her, but we quickly alerted him just in case there were more people, and while he got out of court to take the call, he was held hostage by one of the mole's friends, who was holding a gun on Kyson. That fucker took him to a deserted place and Kyson was busy fighting him off. And by the time we got to him, the whole thing had already happened at the court." Max replied, worry etched in his voice.
"How's he?" Dad inquired, his expressions now clouded with worry.
"Pissed at himself." Max responded, sounding out of breath as he was still running around, looking for our sister.
"What about that fucker and those shits?" Elijah asked, but we already sort of knew the answer.
There's no way they would have gotten away with this.
Max may be the nicest of us all, but no one fucks with his family and that too on his watch,
he'd fuck them up—
"Already dealt with it, but you need to see the video because even though we couldn't hear what was said, one of the fuckers had his hand under Ara's shirt, but instead of doing anything, she seemed frozen, almost terrified of something that guy said. I'll send you the video and after watching that, all of you need to go look out for her. She looked really scared." He told us, his voice breaking at the end as if he was in pain himself.
Something else also happened–
"What is it?" Dad was quick to question the anguish behind Max's voice.
"She hates us dad; she kept screaming not to touch her, looking in a distance like she wasn't even in reality, as if she was replaying a memory, like she had-d been...., I could see the signs dad, they aren't good. Something really terrible had happened to her. She didn't just have a panic attack, it was like she was living in whatever moment she was imagining, and it was bone-chillingly terrifying." Max finished as his voice quavered when he told us.
Boy, I hope he is wrong–
"You all better find my daughter soon because I am not losing her when I just found her." Dad spoke in a dangerously low voice, which held nothing but authority.
His eyes had now turned cold, rage brewing within them and trust me when I say, we had better find our sister before he completely loses his cool, because nobody would want to mess with him when he looked ready to kill.
After the call ended, Elijah's phone pinged, indicating a message and as soon as we opened it, the camera footage started playing, giving us a clear view of what transpired at the mall.
By the end, we were all seething in pure resentment, my body was trembling with rage and for the first time, I wasn't going to hold myself back from killing that kid.
But the rage slowly started to mix with panic, when we saw the look of terror on Arabella's face when one of the guys whispered something to her.
Her face became extremely pale, losing every colour and emotion that previously decorated it. Not even a trace of rage or panic stayed on her face, as it went completely blank.
After watching the entire video we were all left shaken, the tension has clearly filled the air which was mixed with anger radiating off of the four of us.
"Call Benjamin, and ask him to look up for anything he could on Arabella's life back in Arizona." Dad said looking right at me, a savage glint in his eyes making him look completely ruthless.
He's going to regret it later–
And with that he turned around, and took menacing steps out of my office, Matthew trailing behind him, looking just as vicious as dad.
Elijah and I exchanged a look and sighed, knowing fully well that if we didn't find Arabella soon, this wouldn't end well.
💋 R E S I L I E N C E 💋
It's been hours since I've been out looking for Arabella, the footage that we obtained from street cameras showed her entering a street that had no camera's after.
All of us and about hundreds of our men are in search of the Mafia Princess, who seemed to have vanished from the face of earth.
The distress among my brothers wasn't unknown to me, Mason and Kyson have been running on their feet around the streets, irrespective of any danger that could lurk around.
We have sent Noah home, just in case Arabella got there, which was highly unlikely given that she had no idea of the address and our place is fairly secured from the outside world.
He did, however, object, but we can't risk the chance of any more disappearances.
I knew the other guys were capable of handling themselves, but Noah was still a kid in training.
He hadn't stopped calling us every other minute for updates on Arabella. I knew he was worried, but this was getting annoying and I was seconds away from going back home and smacking the crap out of him.
And Dad is a bigger mess than any of us but that only fuels his rage.
He was on the verge of calling a statewide search throughout New York, and I had to intervene to impede his actions because that will only spread the news of Arabella to everyone, and our rivals won't hold back to strike.
"Any news?" I inquired for the umpteenth time to my team and the rest of my brothers through the bluetooth device in my ear.
"No, where are you anyways?" Elijah asked and I sighed as I looked around a neighborhood I'd never been to before.
The dread I was feeling wasn't something I was used to, I had gone through it once before, and I wasn't prepared to go through it again.
I can't lose my sister–
"No Ide– wait!, Arabella!!" I said looking at two figures that were sitting on the pavement on the side of the road.
"Where is she?"
"Did you track her down?"
"I'm coming–"
"Why the fuck did you shut up?"
"What the hell is going on–"
"Fucking finally–"
"Shut up, I found her, and I'll see you all at home." I said and quickly disconnected the call, disrupting the protest that almost began.
I found her.
I quickly parked the car near them, as I ran outside towards my baby sister who was still sitting on the road, gaping at me.
Another figure that happened to be a fucking boy, stood protectively in front of my sister causing me to glare at him which he seems to reciprocate.
He's lucky that my priority at the time was my sister, or I would have gouged his eyes right out.
"Princess–" I breathed out a sigh of relief and that caused her to snap out of her stunned state.
I won't lie that I was surprised when she quickly got up running towards me as she jumped up to wrap her arms around my neck, and I didn't hesitate to bring her in a protective embrace as we stood there holding on to each other.
I was so relieved to have found her because I was terrified that my sister was out there in the middle of the streets, all by herself.
If this continues, she is going to make my hair turn white much sooner than I would have expected.
"Alexander–" She cried out my name and I felt her arms tighten around my neck as if she was scared to let go.
Me too baby sis–
"You scared us princess, we were all so worried. Don't you dare do that again." I chastised but it was nothing compared to the lecture she was about to receive from the rest of the brothers, once we got home.
"You don't understand, I was so scared Alexander, I just- I thought-t." She stuttered out but the words got muffled as her voice broke into silent cries.
This was the first time she didn't hold herself back from expressing her real emotions–
My baby sister looked so much in pain–
And it broke my heart that I couldn't do anything to take it away.
She looked so fragile, so broken, and with each sob that escaped her lips, my heart broke even more.
"Shh, princess, let's get you back home." I said, as I drew her closer, wanting to take away the pain she was feeling.
My arms, however, quickly fell limp to my sides as I concernedly looked at my sister, who had just let out a hiss of pain.
She's hurt–
My eyes searched for any sign of injury, but instead she turned around as she returned her gaze back to the pavement, most likely in search of that dude.
"Who was he?" I asked, trying to mask my distaste as I mentioned about a guy.
"I don't know, but he helped me, he was actually walking with me while we searched for any sign of home. I didn't even get a chance to thank him." Arabella said looking sad, and I looked around in search for the guy, but there wasn't any sign of him.
My earlier anger was now replaced by gratitude, but there was still a part of me that didn't like a guy being near my sister.
"It's okay princess, people come into our lives exactly when they are meant to, and sometimes it's just for a short time, and once their purpose is completed, they leave, he came into you life at the right time, he helped you and left, and you can always remain grateful for that even if you never got the chance to express your gratitude." I said, trying to console her, and hearing me talk, her eyes stared at me with full concentration.
I guess it worked because she gave one last glance to where she and that guy were sitting, before turning back to me and nodding her head.
Now that she'd calmed down, I led her to the passenger seat, and opened the door for her as she sat cautiously, as if she was trying not to hurt herself, even more.
Once we get home, I'm going to have Max check her for any injuries
Her red puffy eyes were filled with regret and guilt as she tried to avert his gaze from me. And I knew then that she realised how bad her decision of running away was.
I mean she is just a 15-year-old girl, who had her life turned upside down in a matter of two days and at this point it was justifiable for her to be vulnerable and scared.
And she didn't hide those emotions from me at all
Her tears had dried up by now, but her breathing was still laboured, and occasionally let out a hiccup.
Making sure that she was comfortable, I made my way to the driver's seat.
I started the car, and we drove home in complete silence, a gut feeling telling me that the storm had not yet passed.
And I was dreading the ride back home—
Arabella was staring out of the window, her face completely blank but her body was extremely tense, which told me everything I needed to know about the mess she was dealing with inside her head.
The closer we got to the house, the more dread I felt and the more my mind told me to turn around.
But I still continued driving down the road that leads to our house.
Unbeknownst to me,
my instincts were correct—
Oh, how I wish, I had turned around.
✏️Word Count: 3036
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