Lights flood my bedroom as I wake from my slumber of heated visions. I groan in annoyance, trying to force myself back to sleep. Five more minutes. That’s all I’m asking. Five minutes with those two is more than enough. Despite my efforts, it's no use. My body defies me and I’m wide awake staring at my ceiling. Pulling the comforter back, I throw my legs off the side of the bed. After covering myself with a robe and slippers, I make my way down to the kitchen to find my mother hard at work making a breakfast spread. Pancakes stacked in tall towers, mounds of different meat choices, eggs in various styles, a giant fruit salad with a bit of everything mixed in, and all the condiments you could dream of. My mouth salivates at the aroma dancing around me. I offer my mother a polite smile while taking a seat at the table.
“Everything looks great. Thank you.” I tell her while plating some food.
“I’m going to call the others down for breakfast.” She says walking to the intercom system.
Within minutes the family is all entering the kitchen, followed by the guys. I don't even bat an eye at this point.They rarely miss breakfast here. We are all seated, enjoying our meals as a thought from last night crosses my mind.
“So… I think it's time that I start looking for a place of my own.” I inform the table. Better to do it while they are all here, rip the band-aid off if you will. In unison, they offer varying degrees of shocked expressions.
“It’s not that deep. I am twenty-five years old. I need to fly the coop. Not to mention, having the new alliance with Blake, I'm hardly going to be home.”
“You mean you want a place you can drag your newbeauback to?” Ryon questions while wiggling his eyebrows.
“Excuse me?” My father cuts in. Great, I’m internally face-palming. Fucking Ryon and his big mouth. I wonder if it’s big enough to fit my entire foot in it while I kick his teeth out.
“He’s just poking fun. Anyways! Is anything interesting going on?” Changing the subject, or at least I hope.
“Have we made any headway with the Ghost problems?” I suck in a sharp breath at my brother Anthony’s words.
“Nothing. He hasn’t been an issue in months. Maybe he’s moved on?” Lucas says.I hope not.Somewhere deep down, the idea of him disappearing makes me nauseous.
“What was that, honey?” My mother curiously asks. Fuck, I said that out loud. I look around the table before answering.
“I said, I hope so.” Smiling sweetly.
Everyone nods in approval, going back to their meals and mundane discussions. After finishing myfood, I excuse myself. I need to start looking for a place. Anything to distract me from, wellme.
As I lie in bed looking at realtor sites, Lucas knocks on my door before entering. He crosses the room and finds a place next to me on the bed.
“So you are really going to leave?” He asks softly. There’s a tone of hurt laced in his words. Poor guy.
“Lu, I'm moving out of this house. Not out of the country.” I say in hopes of comforting him and lightening the mood.
”It’s just…how will we do family breakfast, and sleep overs, and game nights, and-,” I cut him off before he can spiral.
“We can still do all of those things. Look, see this one?” I point to my computer screen.
“Is that a game room?” He ponders.
“Yep! It even has a movie theater, pool room that features a hot tub and a sauna, and guess what the best part of it all is?” I beckon him with a nudge to the shoulder.
“What?” He asks.
“It has rooms for each of you, for when you stay over.” I beam at him. He pulls me into a big hug that has us in a giggling fit by the end.
“Hey, E? Do you think we could go get cider and watch people fall down at the ice rink, like we used to?” He offers.
“I’d love to.” I jump off the bed and drag him by the arm. We are out the door in record time.
We walk through the park, arm in arm cracking jokes back and forth. Within our circle, Lucas is the quiet one. This is entirely a product of his upbringing. Lucas was born to the wrong people and ended up being in the right place at the right time. His parents were addicts who, for years, neglected and abused him. When he was around seven years old, his parents attempted to sell him to one of our men in exchange for drugs. They were happy to hand over their small child to a strange man who could have just as easily sexually abused him and then killed him. These things happen every day. It’s one of the many reasons I control the streets and eradicate sex traffickers. Lucas was dirty, emaciated, and covered in marks of abuse from head to toe. He has so much built-up rage from those early years, he stuffs it all down. His preteen years were not easy ones. From fights to theft, he was uncontrollable. It wasn’t until Ryon’s parents stepped in and took him under their wings that he learned to control his rage. Lucas has never had a serious partner, that we know of, he feels that he’s too complicated to get involved with someone. That’s the craziest part. Lucas is over six foot tall, covered top to bottom in tattoos and piercings, with that whole pained existence look. Yet, you’d never know how relatively innocent he is. He’s gentle, kind, and soft-spoken. He’s the type of guy to buy someone flowers and cut the head off of a person for looking at them wrong, in the same afternoon.
“Hey Lu, do you ever wonder what life would be like if things turned out differently for us?” I look at him with a soft smile.
“Sometimes. If Sharon and Bob didn’t take me in I’d probably be dead or want to be, though.” I nod in support.
“There’s times where I wish life was different. A world that didn’t have the mafia. A simpler life, ya know?” I say.
“Yeah, we could have all been friends under different circumstances.” He offers while looking down the path ahead of us absentmindedly.
