Carefully, watching over my shoulder for my brothers, I led the way to the deadbolted steel door barring the entry to the forbidden wing. Fortunately, my brothers were nowhere to be seen, so I stuck the key into the lock and turned, pushing the heavy door at the same time. Quickly, I summoned my friends inside, then let the door fall shut behind us, trapping us in there.
So far, it looked like a perfectly ordinary house. A carpeted hallway led to an open room at the end, and there were doors off the hallway. A light came on above our heads automatically, lighting the windowless room where we stood. There didn't look to be anything interesting here at all. Why all the secrecy? What did they do in here that was so terrible, that I wasn't allowed to come in?
"I don't like this," Petra whined. "Please let's just go."
Ignoring her, I took a few steps down the hallway, towards the room at the end. But before I'd taken more than half a dozen steps, the steel door flew open and my brother's rough voice ordered us to freeze and put our hands in the air.
I squeaked in fright, turning to face the voice, holding my hands up just like he'd said, only to see Damon and Alex with guns leveled on us.
Petra looked like she was about to wet herself, and my other friends looked as terrified as I was.
As soon as Damon and Alex saw it was us, they holstered their weapons, but their anger didn't dissipate any.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Alex demanded, his voice loud, scary. "You know better than to come in here. What the hell were you thinking, bringing your friends into the business wing - the one place in the house you know you're not allowed to go?"
"Is there anybody else in here with you?" Damon asked, his voice low, but terrifying.
I shook my head frantically. "No, just us."
Damon pointed to the door. "Get out. All of you. Upstairs to your room. Now!"
Damon looked, and sounded, far scarier than I'd ever seen him. If it was actually possible to die of fright, the five of us would surely be dead. We would have withered up on the spot. As it was, we were too scared to move and stood there, frozen, trembling in fear.
"Move!" Damon ordered. He sounded so scary that we dared not disobey, but we still couldn't make our feet move.
Alex stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was in trouble. So. Much. Trouble.
He propelled me forward with his grip on my shoulder. He marched me upstairs quickly, with my friends scurrying along behind.
I could hear one of them sniffling; terrified out of her skin, no doubt. My brothers were scary at the best of times, and these most definitely were not the best of times. These were absolutely petrifying times, and I had no idea what my brothers were going to do.
Once inside the safety of my bedroom, Alex made us all stand against the wall as he and Damon stood in front of us, their arms crossed in a powerful, intimidating stance, and lectured us harshly. I tuned most of it out, but I couldn't entirely ignore the angry tone they were both scolding us with.
Obviously aware that I wasn't really listening, Damon came to stand directly in front of me and lifted my face up to meet his, with one finger under my chin.
"There's stuff in that wing that could put your lives in danger," he told me sternly. "Now you can say goodbye to your friends, Alex and Paul will take them home. You're going to be punished."
I gulped and tears filled my eyes as Frankie hugged me goodbye. One after the other, I said goodbye to my friends. This night had started off so well. We'd been having so much fun, and my friends were all meant to be staying over. And now.... What had I done?
Both of my brothers accompanied my friends downstairs, leaving me all alone in my bedroom, lost in my thoughts. I felt so stupid. Why had I snuck in there? Why had I taken my friends in there? My brothers were in the Mafia. No doubt they had something dodgy hidden in there.... How could I have been so stupid?
After just a few minutes, Damon came back into my bedroom and he was holding a big wooden spoon. It looked to be the very same one he'd set fire to mine and Logan's butts with, not very long ago. The evil spoon that had stung and burned and throbbed like torture.
I watched, my heart in my mouth, as he put my desk chair into the middle of the room and sat down on it, beckoning me to him.
Slowly, I forced one foot in front of the other, making myself walk over to him. As soon as I was close enough, he held my shoulders and moved me to stand between his knees.
"I'm very disappointed in you Carrie," he told me sternly. "You know you're not allowed in the left wing, and you know why."
"No I don't!" I objected. "I don't know why! Nobody has told me! That's why I wanted to see!"
Damon pressed his finger to my lips. "Shush," he scolded. "Don't interrupt. You know we're in the Mafia, and you know the left wing is our business headquarters. We do all sorts of business deals, and firearms deals, in there, many of them dangerous, with very dangerous men. And we want to shelter you from all that. That's why you're not allowed in there."
He lectured me for quite a while, but I tuned him out like he normally did, and looked at the top button on his shirt as he droned on and on.
"Do you understand?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yes," I said, but to be honest, I didn't have a clue. Damon obviously knew I was lying because he sighed, and reached for me, tugging me down over his left thigh and locking his leg over mine, holding me in place over his knee.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?"
I shook my head frantically, silently begging him not to, but it was obviously a rhetorical question, because he didn't change his mind. Instead, he brought his heavy hand down hard, right across the fullest part of my butt. I shrieked, but it didn't dissuade him. Instead, he spanked me again and again and again.
The smacks fell relentlessly, all over my bottom in a random pattern, and Damon very quickly brought me to tears. I was sobbing hard, gripping his jeans leg so tightly I was sure the fabric would rip, when Damon stopped spanking me for a moment, and picked up the spoon. He rested it on my bottom. I was expecting him to pull my pants down, but he didn't. But nor did he need to: the fire dancing across my butt wouldn't have been any hotter if he'd spanked me bare. My jeans weren't much protection, really.
"You are not ever to go into the left wing again, Carrie," he told me sternly, before bringing that wicked spoon down hard on my left butt cheek. I screamed, and he repeated the smack on the other side.
He spanked me much harder than he'd done the last time he'd used the spoon on me in the kitchen, in front of Logan. Back then, they'd barely been much more than taps, yet they'd still stung beyond belief. Now, with him wielding the spoon with force, it felt like he was cutting me in half. I wriggled and squirmed frantically, desperately trying to get away from the fiery burn that raged across my butt, but he held me fast and spanked me over and over again with that evil, horrible wooden spoon.
I was crying so hard I couldn't even breathe. I couldn't see through my tears. All I could think about was the stinging pain.
Eventually, after what I'm sure was dozens of smacks, Damon finally set the spoon down and rubbed my back comfortingly instead.
"Come on Carrie-girl," he whispered softly. "It's all over now. You're okay. Up you get."
But I made no move to sit up, and he didn't move to help me. Instead, he let me lay there across his thigh, my burning butt throbbing and pulsing in time with my heartbeat, until my ragged sobs eased.
When I was semi-calm, he lifted me up and cradled me against his chest, hugging me close. Standing up, he carried me into my bathroom, before setting me down gently on the counter, and wetting a wash cloth with warm water to wash my face. He wiped away all my snot and tears, before planting a gentle kiss on my forehead.
"I don't ever want to have to do that again, Carrie." He shook his head, sounding sad. "Please stay out of the left wing. I don't want to have to spank you that hard ever again."
He lifted me down off the vanity and led me back into my bedroom, pulling back the covers for me to hop into bed.
"The party is over for you, my girl."
I was too drained to argue. Besides, my butt hurt so badly that all I wanted to do was sleep, anyway. I doubted I would even be able to walk properly at this point in time.
"Logan told me you only used half your strength when you spank me," I grumbled. "But that hurt! You spanked me hard!"
Damon nodded somberly. "I used more than half my strength then," he agreed. "That was probably closer to three-quarters. I need for you to not go in there again. Okay?"
"Okay," I agreed, still sniffling. "How did you know?"
"Silent alarms." Damon smirked. "You have no secrets from me, Carrie. I run a Mafia. I don't allow secrets. It's best you learn that quickly."
I snuggled down under the covers and Damon sat beside me, on the edge of my bed, and rested his hand on my shoulder. With his other hand he stroked my hair, soothing me, lulling me to sleep.
It wasn't long before I felt my eyelids drooping, and felt myself drifting off into sleep.
Damon stood up, before leaning down to press a tender kiss to my cheek.
"Sleep well, Carrie-girl," he whispered, before leaving my room, shutting my door tightly behind him.