Unleashed

I’d taken a shower before seeing anyone. Jimmy had to half-carry me to Brian’s bathroom, while Brian took Tristan and Lyndsey to my old room. I assumed Lyndsey was doing the same thing I was, cleaning away the soot and ashes and blood and trying to pull herself together. Tristan, my sweet boy, was sleeping once again like nothing was wrong, feeling safe and secure in his Uncle Brian’s arms.

After a while of standing under the hot spray, the water finally began to run clean as it cascaded down my body. No more rusted tint of blood, or glooming clouds of ash floating in the water, just cleanliness and purity.

If only a shower could wash away the past two days like it did the remnants of it left on my body.

I grabbed the soft linen robe that someone had left in the bathroom for me and wrapped it tightly around myself. Luckily it was about four in the morning, and I was unlikely to encounter anyone on my way to my old bedroom where clothing waited for me. The long car ride here had done nothing to ease the ache in my muscles in the exhaustion in my mind. All I wanted was to curl up in a bed, any bed at this point, and hibernate for a good three days. But there were things to be handled first.

My bedroom was just down the hall from Brian’s. Growing up we had been inseparable. He and I were four years apart in age, just enough to keep him from hating me because of jealousy, and enough for me to idolize him and make him my protector without any choice for him. I’d always been quite mentally mature and developed for my age, and rather intelligent. Brian had always been a little bit on the immature side, as most boys were. He and I just always seemed to be on the same level. He was my best friend, and my confidante.

Our parents hadn’t even tried to keep us apart; it wouldn’t have done any good. I remember when he moved to a room farther away from the nursery that I stayed in until I was four years old. More often than not when morning came I would be found in Brian’s room, curled up in bed with him, a book haphazardly tossed off the side of his bed when he and I had become too tired to read anymore.

I silently crept to my room and slipped through the door, finding my roommate staring open mouthed at my closet, reaching out as if she wanted to touch it but was too timid to actually do it. Her hair was still sopping wet from the shower, and she had only a towel around her. She must have walked by the closet and gotten distracted.

“You know, they make clothes to wear them, not stare at them,” I chuckled, grabbing a hand towel from the en suite bathroom and handing it to her. “For your hair,” I told her, motioning to the small puddle forming on the floor. She never even looked away from the closet. “Uh, Lynds?” I asked, moving closer to her and trying to get her attention. She still hadn’t said a word. Oh good Lord.

I rolled my eyes as I wrapped the towel around her head and shook her hair in it. She would just let it drip all over the floor, then she’d probably fall because she stepped on the puddle.

“This… all of this… is yours?” she asked quietly, still not taking her eyes away from the walk-in closet. “It’s all... yours?”

"Well... yes,” I said slowly, unsure of where she was going with this. “It was anyway, before I left. Looks like my mom has put some new things in there though,” I continued thoughtfully. “Brian and Dad must have told her I was coming home."

"But it's here. It's all yours and it's HERE. Why?" she questioned, suddenly turning to look at me. Ah, the spell must have been broken finally.

"I couldn't really take it all with me,” I shrugged. “A paralegal with Chanel and Prada usually doesn't seem very believable."

"Believable?” she scoffed. “Who are you kidding? You'd impress like...everyone. More importantly, you could share."

She huffed then, seeming honestly disappointed. I couldn’t blame her, Lyndsey always had impeccable fashion taste, but we’d both been on a restricted budget. Decent house and decent cars came before expensive clothing. Some of the clothing in there probably came from brands she’d only seen in magazines.

"I honestly didn't think about it at the time. I was pregnant when I left, so I knew that none of this would fit me within a couple of weeks. So I just... left it."

“Yeah, I can see what..." suddenly she gasped and charged into the closet, nearly dropping her towel in the process. "LOUBOUTINS! You have Christian fucking Louboutins and they...TAYLOR! These haven't even been worn!" The sound she made almost sounded like she was choking. “Half of this shit still has the tags on it! My God Taylor… it’s… why would you leave this?”

“I-“

“Who the hell ARE you?!” she finally huffed, throwing her hands in the air and storming out of the closet and into the room. I sighed and let her go. She needed a few moments to freak out to herself, things were only going to get stranger from here. “You just… you come home one day talking about someone following you. Never a mention of anything out of the ordinary before, not in all the time I’ve known you. Then our damn house gets blown up! And you just steal a car, like it’s fucking nothing!”

I smiled a bit to myself and began digging around in my closet to find her something suitable to wear, while pulling out some things for myself as well. Nothing fancy, we would probably just be in meetings today, telling everyone exactly what had happened, getting Lyndsey settled in, and formulating a plan for exactly what we were going to do.

“We drive out to the middle of freaking nowhere! And poof, suddenly a crime lord is at our raunchy hotel door.”

“He is not a crime lord,” I piped up, sticking my head out of the closet. “He really isn’t a bad guy Lyndsey, you liked him well enough before.”

“That’s before I knew he ran a gang or mafia or mob or whatever the hell you guys call this shit.”

“Family,” I sighed, pulling out both of our outfits and laying them on the bed. “We call it family, we take care of each other, and the community. Besides… Brian doesn’t run it, not yet anyway. My dad does.”

“How can you be so casual about all of this? You realize this is madness, right? Like, bad movie script madness.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I chuckled, pulling on my outfit as quickly as possible. The sooner we took care of these first discussions, the sooner I could sleep in a real bed.

“Oh that sounds so promising,” she grumbled, pulling on the jeans that I had given her and scowling when she realized they were too long for her. “Why do you have to have such long legs. I mea- Holy crap! Is that cashmere?!”

I grinned, knowing that would get her to quit complaining for a few minutes. “Ralph Lauren Black Label. Never worn,” I winked, pulling on my cardigan and going back into my closet to find some shoes for us. The floors in here got so cold sometimes, and slippers were just not professional. I didn’t want her to look silly in case one of the soldiers or underbosses came in. They’d eat her alive. No, she needed to look like she belonged.

“And it’s for me? I get to wear it?”

I smiled to myself when I heard the absolute glee in her voice while I grabbed myself a pair of black and white Chanel flats. I was about to grab a pair of flats for Lyndsey as well, when two black suede pumps caught my eye. Sure, it was a little early to be wearing heels, but I think Lyndsey could deal with that for the precious red soled shoes.

“Here you go,” I said brusquely, passing her the Louboutin pumps and pulling on my own shoes. Her mouth dropped open once again, but she gathered her senses quickly.

“Oh I could just freaking KISS you right now,” she giggled, nearly falling over herself to put the shoes on.

“Don’t give Jimmy anymore ideas,” I mumbled. “Now hurry up, my parents are waiting on us.”

Fifteen minutes later Lyndsey was proudly following behind me in her heels, strutting for all she was worth. I can’t really blame her. Those shoes cost about as much as almost an entire year of car payments for her. Her hair had been left down to dry on its own while I had clipped mine up. My shoulders were knotted with anxiety, but I pushed thoughts of the stiffness to the back of my mind. I’m sure my mother would whisk Lyndsey and I away to a spa day to help us relax after our “awful experience”.

“It sure is quiet here,” Lyndsey whispered to me. “Not how I pictured the operating center of a mafia to be.”

I’d begun to ignore her insistence on calling the family a mafia. It would do no good to explain to her that we were not a “mafia” nor was a mafia really a type of organized crime group, just a general term used by society. But she wouldn’t care, she thought we were a mafia, she could think that. It didn’t do any harm.

“It’s not even five in the morning yet,” I reminded her, turning the corner and coming to what the family often used as a conference and presentation room.

“Well that makes more sense,” she mumbled to herself as we walked into the room. Across the room, sitting in the chair at the end of a long conference table, was my father. Tears sprung to my eyes when I saw him. It had been four years. Four very long, very lost years.

My mother was sitting next to him. She’d never had the cool composure or the patience that my father had. She leapt up from her seat, practically running to me to wrap her arms around me.

“Oh baby, you’re home,” she cried, her tears dampening the shoulder of my cardigan. “You finally came home.”

I hugged my mother close to me, being hit with a pain in my chest as I realized just how much I had missed her. How had I gone on so long without her?

“I was so scared for you when your father told me. I’ve missed you so much,” she rambled, refusing to let go of me, even as my father came over to us. “I love you so much sweetheart, so very much.”

“I love you too Mom,” I croaked out, feeling my throat tighten as I was swept into my emotions.

My father, ever the stoic man, hugged my mother and I both to him and said simply, “Welcome home, Taylor.”

Notes

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