8

After a fast drive through the night we finally arrived at my house, where John was already standing on the doorstep and gave me a warning look. I waited for Jake to dismount and then did the same, taking off my helmet and ruffling my hair.

"You're not supposed to drive drunk," John reminded me of my promise, but I immediately tried to calm him down.

"I haven't had much to drink and what I drank was hours ago. Don't worry," I told him calmly, lighting a cigarette as I did so.

Jake sat down on a front step while John looked at me questioningly.

"Are you sure you want to take that in?" he whispered so Jake couldn't hear us.

"Yes, nobody notices."

I flicked the cigarette away after a short time, walked past Jake to the front door and unlocked it as quietly as I could while Jake found his way back to his feet and followed me with quiet steps.

The whole basement was pitch black, which played into our hands for our action, so we ran in and quietly closed the door behind us. I wanted to run straight up to my room, but when my eyes fell to the side, I rolled my eyes in stress as Jake seemed to be raiding the fridge, lost in thought.

"Jake!" I hissed under my breath and watched him stunned as he bit into one of Odran's muffins and seemed to enjoy it.

"Shit man! Is he cool! Where do you buy those things?!"

"These are from Keeva, you idiot! Come on! If-"

I heard a door open upstairs in the hall and immediately ran to Jake behind the kitchen island to hold him down on his shoulders while my heart rate slowly increased with stress.

"Fuck, was-"

"Shut up!" I interrupted him in a whisper and while Jake sat on the floor beneath me and ate his muffin, I looked panicked towards the stairs, where just then Rian came down and gave me a cold look.

"Well," I said, grinning, trying to look normal, but his look showed me only too well that he noticed something was wrong.

"What's going on here?" he wanted to know and come closer, but I immediately opened my eyes in panic and raised my hand.

"Stop!"

There was no way I wanted him to get around the island and catch Jake, otherwise we'd probably end up face down in the street like Irina's ex.

"Senan, I don't want your-"

"Ohhhhhh, Baaaaaby," I just moaned with my eyes closed and clutched the kitchen counter, only to look back at Rian who was staring at me in confusion.

"What are you looking at? Do you want to join?"

I hope he took it from me that there was a woman kneeling on the floor in front of me, otherwise I would really have a problem right away.

Rian seemed frozen for a moment, but after shaking his head, luckily for us, he disappeared back upstairs. Thank god he didn't want to take the risk of watching some chick suck my cock.

When I looked back down at Jake and I breathed a sigh of relief, he stood up and laughed, so I joined in his quiet laugh.

"Imagine if he had looked anyway. Then you would not only be the black sheep of the family, but also the fag."

Jake gave me a silly grin and looked hilarious with all that white icing on his lips.

"That would definitely have been a picture that would have followed Rian forever," I added, amused, and after we'd had a little water to drink, we tiptoed upstairs to my room at last without getting caught to reach."

-

The next morning hit me with a bang. The effects of the little alcohol were no longer felt at all and when I opened my eyes and heard Jake's soft snoring, whole memories from the previous night flooded my mind.

I saw Irina, and her villa, but also the dead on the street who haunted me, although I hadn't bothered at all at the moment of the crime.

With these devastating thoughts, I got out of bed, tucked in Jake who was lying on the couch, and then quickly made my way to the bathroom. There in the closet there was everything my heart desired.

Painkillers, sleeping pills and also tranquilizers. Rian had forbidden that shit, but Odran hid them in his toiletry bag and I quickly grabbed two of the calming pills to wash them down with a look at my reflection and water.

My dark brown eyes looked back at me exhaustedly while the tattoos on my neck looked really good in the glare of the light here.

"Senan?" Odran suddenly knocked loudly on the door and I winced before I quickly brushed my teeth and then opened the door for him.

"Ja?"

"Were you at the fridge last night?"

He was staring at me like I'd cheated him out of a million bucks when all he cared about was his fucking muffin. But since I really wasn't at the fridge, I shook my head no and turned past him and out of the bathroom.

I didn't get far when he grabbed my arm and nodded towards the stairs next to us.

"We need to talk," he explained calmly, and I raised an eyebrow in irritation and started nervously fiddling with my lip piercing.

"Is it you and me, or someone else I should know about?"

Without giving me an answer, he went down the stairs and since resistance was useless and I didn't feel like they would come straight into my room and discover Jake, I just followed him.

When I got downstairs, everyone was sitting at the table and giving me all sorts of looks.

Keeva smiled mildly, Rian seemed kind of disappointed and Cathan, a proud grandpa, had Esme on her lap and didn't seem to bother to even look at me.

"What's going on?" I wanted to know immediately and it was Odran who suddenly gave me his cell phone.

I pressed play on a video and all I saw was me and the unknown Russian, who I then shot in the head. Then the video was over and I was amazed that nothing of what had happened before could be seen. Not even Irina or Padraig could be seen in the pictures, just me.

"You start another war with the Russians and be-"

"That's not true!" I interrupted Odran immediately and wanted to add how it really was, but then Rian got up and banged the table so loudly that Esme immediately started to cry.

"Rian!" Keeva admonished him and got up as well, but Rian turned to her and didn't give her a chance to finish speaking either.

"Take Esme and go upstairs!", he instructed her coldly and after she ran past him disappointed to Cathan and carefully took her daughter in her arms, she quickly disappeared past me upstairs.

"You're just screwing things up, Senan. I can't take your 'I'm like this because I'm a victim of my past' attitude anymore," Rian then let me know and I desperately sought my father's eyes, but he still didn't take it for needed to keep looking at me.

"The guy abused a woman," I blurted out, but Rian held up his hand. A sign that he didn't want to hear anything more.

"Odran is now driving you to therapy. We got the place because, unlike you, I have achieved something in life. You will go there for an hour every day, otherwise I will not tolerate you here any longer. You put my family in danger and Odran is now the one who has to see if the Russians are plotting something against us while you're getting sucked off by a whore here and don't give a shit."

I could feel the anger at his words, the desperation in my mind, and the disappointment in my heart, but if I had learned one thing, it was that my brothers never really wanted to listen to me anyway.

So off to therapy...