-Dominic-
"Alright," Nick stood up and we all turned our eyes on him. His own eyes were dark and tired. Nick hadn't been sleeping well for the past couple of days, Zack told me that when he was last over at my house for a tutoring session. Said that he'd wake up in the middle of the night and see Nick working at a desk continuously and unaware of the time. Not to mention the time zone differences between us and the other sections of the gang. I can imagine it's been really hard for him.
However, it's time for things to start taking shape, after this, he can depend on us a bit more and we'll be able to help him. Hopefully then he'll be able to rest a bit better.
"What make's this fight different from our other one's with other gangs is that this is my own gang. They know everything about us, our facilities, our capabilities, but we also know theirs. I know we don't have numbers on our side, but fuck it! We're strong and if we're not strong enough then we're going to have to force ourselves to be! We agreed we were going to fight them so we have to forget that they are our family. They're our enemy, understood?"
We all nodded silently. I could tell this wasn't easy for the other guys. They had bonded with each of these members, they had bonds that I didn't. This may have been easy for me to accept but even Nick wasn't happy with the conditions and I'm not sure how he'll be affected after this either.
Whatever the case, Nick was prepared to be in charge. He had multiple plans that he ran us through, situations, cases, risks, opportunities, expecting us to memorise and train through each in the coming week whilst our equipment arrived. One of the scenarios that were pointing out to me the most was when he said that if they were targeting him, they'd turn to me first. Out of all of them, this seemed the most likely.
Everyone in the gang had known about me, I was the leader's sister, probably his biggest weakness, but what wasn't shared around was how strong I was. The only people who knew in detail of my strength was London because of the fight with The Men of Meyhem and fortunately, they were on our side.
This went on for a while, three hours went by, possibly four with conversations from Ottawa and Sydney in between. It wasn't until we were starting to wrap up for the day and planned to get something to eat when there was angry thumping at the door.
We all made eye contact with one another quickly and reached out for the weapons we had on hand. We hadn't expected attacks to come this early, even for them, this would be too risky but the thumping only got louder until-
Crash
The door was broken into.
"NICKOLAS!"
I froze at that voice, I turned to the guys who seemed to have a similar reaction to mine because this wasn't one of the gang. It was,
"Arthur?" I asked and stepped forward to see him breathing heavily, eyes dark and looking as if he could kill. He was enraged.
I walked closer to him but as I did, he started walking further into the house as well. I had never in my life seen him as angry as I did now and for some reason, his eyes wouldn't leave Nick's. There was only a split second when he glanced at me and that was when I put a hand on his shoulder, trying to stop him and figure out what was making him so angry but instead, he replied with,
"Dominic, leave the house." He ordered. His voice stern and the most serious I had ever heard it.
"Brother-"
"NOW!" He shouted before storming up to Nickolas. My body reacted when I saw that, when I saw him lifting both of his arms, one to Nick's collar and the other coming back in preparation to swing forward again. My body reacted.
I grabbed ahold of the arm that was coming back and swiftly put him in an arm lock. "Calm the fuck down," I ordered back at him, my tone of voice low now. He looked at me properly this time, realising how serious I was.
It was then when two other individuals ran into the house in a state of panic. It was William and Xavier. They saw I was holding him though and began to sigh in relief. "What's going on?" Nick asked. He and the rest of the guys seemed just as shook with this situation.
"What's going on?'" Arthur mumbled, now facing Nick again, eyes not any calmer than they were a second ago. "WHAT'S GOING ON? FUCK YOU NICKOLAS!" Arthur then started struggling from within my grip and pushing me away from him. Xavier and William came around to help me whilst Blake pulled me away and shielded me behind him.
"YOU BEAT DOMINIC UP AND BULLIED HER? YOU SICK FUCK! AND YOU'RE HAVING HER WORK IN YOUR GANG? RISKING HER LIFE FOR YOU? HOW CAN YOU FUCKING LIVE WITH YOURSELF!? HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO MY SISTER!"
His yells silenced the whole room, the only thing we could hear was his own breaths. He stopped trying to punch Nick now, being held back by William stopped his advance but the words seemed to hit harder. Nick's face was frozen in a state of shock, horror and fear.
The silence only seemed to make him angrier though. "DID YOU EVEN APOLOGISE TO HER? YOU SELFISH PRICK!" He started struggling again, both Xavier and I saw it at the same time but Xavier acted first and, "Sorry Arthur," quickly knocked him out before he could go in and attack again.
Another silence.
"Hiyori?" I directed to William who slowly put Arthur down on the floor.
"She's with my mother,"
"How did he find out?"
William sigh before shaking his head. "I don't know. He suddenly came into the room asking if it was true and for everything we knew. I'm sorry."
I looked back at the gang, most of the guys seemed to have made the same speculation as I had. "The gang," Jason said.
"It's possible," Blake answered him but their voices were low because Nick was still out of it, his eyes glued onto Arthur's. Suddenly he lifted his hand and held his chest, breaths getting louder and faster. He was trembling.
"It may have been the gang that let him know but his reaction was a genuine one, he's not going to just let it slide," Xavier said but Nick's breath only got more unsteady.
He was having a panic attack.
"Nick," I quickly walked to him and stood in front of him, blocking his view of Arthur. I forced him to look up at me and his eyes held tears.
In between his hard breaths, he said, "I'm sorry,"
"Nick, it's okay, breathe with me, it's going to be okay,"
"I'm s-so sorry," He started to break down.
I turned to everyone else, "step out, I need to help him," most of them heeded my words, quickly leaving the apartment building. Zack seemed hesitant but when he saw me supporting him he followed the rest, trusting me despite worrying, his eyes telling me to do the best I can.
This wasn't the time for this. I should have stopped everything quicker. I should have dealt with the situation better. I should have helped him more.
"I'm sorry," He kept repeating and I kept telling him that it was okay but he continued anyway. After a while I got him to breathe normally again to my relief. His eyes were drooping at this point so I walked him to his room and laid him down which made him go to sleep almost instantly.
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. This wasn't my fight but I was the cause and that made me feel different than I usually do. It's usually me in the ring but like my life, right now, I've been pulled away and am now instead just orchestrating the event. How could one fix something like that?
Regardless, one thing was certain: our internal war had begun.