Chapter 197

I rang the doorbell and waited for a few minutes for Dom to answer it and let me in.
I had the urge to look around to check if anyone was watching me while I was waiting but I didn't want to tip off the people watching if there were any. I didn't want to give them further reason to suspect that I was hiding something.
Because I was, and they're not supposed to know that.
It was a Saturday afternoon and it was way too shiny than I'd like it to be. The sun was beating down my back and it was starting to get uncomfortable, so I knocked on the door to rush Dom.
"Coming! Hold your bloody horses!" Dom cursed from behind the door as the door jiggled and swung open. Dom stepped aside once he saw it was me and let me in. "You're here."
"Have you figured out how we can use it?" He asked me as we walked towards the drawer where the file that had all the evidence we had gathered for the past year was stored.
"I've got an idea of what to do with it." I muttered as I pulled the drawer open and took out the third from the bottom file on the pile.
Dom looked at me, silently encouraging me to elaborate on what I just said.
"My dad introduced me to his high school friend over dinner yesterday, he's a General. I'm thinking we can ask him for some help. Being a General, he must have some pretty decent connections that can put these evidence into good use." I shared my idea with him. I laid wide awake last night, trying to figure out what was bothering me so much about what's happening in the gang when the idea hit me.
I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it earlier but better late than never, right?
I closed the file and looked at Dom. "I'll take the file and arrange a time to meet him and give it to him myself."
Dom nodded, looking at the file before looking up at me. "Be careful," he said.
I gave him a smile, letting my hand pat his shoulder. "Not long now. It'll all be over soon."
"About time," he said it with a semi-joking tone. But I knew that he meant it in a serious way. And he was right, it was about time we bring an end to this mess. We've been trapped for far too long, keeping our head down, running when we're told to run and fetching when we're told to fetch. It's about time we break free.
My phone dinged with a new message and I fished it out of my pocket to see who it was from.
I looked up at Dom, "It's Casey. She wants me to pick her up from her friend's place. I need to get going."
Dom nodded, walking me out of the house. I walked over to my car and opened the door to the driver's seat. I gave Dom one last wave before lowering myself into the car and starting the engine.
I stored the evidence file in the car's dashboard for safe-keeping. I fastened my seatbelt and shifted gears, pulling it out of park and drove away, following the directions given by the car's GPS to get to the address Casey had given me.
Casey was already waiting for me outside, by the gate. I frowned as she approached the slowing car.
When the car rolled to a stop, she opened the door and got in the passenger seat, wordlessly fastening her seatbelt with a click and crossing her arms over her chest haughtily.
I drove away from the house, occasionally giving her brief glances to make sure she wasn't going to explode anytime soon. Her face was turning red and if it was possible, steam would've been exiting her ears by now.
After minutes that felt like hours of silence had passed, I finally couldn't keep my questions to myself anymore and ended up acknowledging the elephant in the car that's suffocating me.
"Okay, what happened?"
That's when Casey seemed to explode. And I mean combust.
She gave the loudest, most frustrated and pained scream I have ever heard from her.
I jumped, not expecting the sudden assault to my ears, causing the car to swerve a bit before straightening the wheel. I cursed loudly, "Shit, Case! Don't do that!"
Right after I said that, she started bursting into tears, shocking me.
What is happening?
Did my sister have a bipolar disorder that I wasn't aware of?
I checked my side mirrors for cars that were behind me before turning on my blinker to pull over.
I stopped the car at the side of the road to fully turn my attention to my little sister that was breaking down beside me.
"I'm," sob "just" sob "so" sob "angry."
She wiped her eyes aggressively, her chest rising and falling rapidly as if she was running a marathon. She was crying so hard and was so overwhelmed that she started getting hiccups along with her sobs.
I reached to the bottom of my car door to get the bottled water I always keep there before offering it to her.
"Are you okay, now?" I asked her once her breathing wasn't as shallow and quick as it was a few minutes ago.
She nodded mutely.
I checked my sideview mirror again and saw a flash of blue and red. Highway patrol. That's my cue to continue driving. I wasn't supposed to pull over here.
I shifter the gear stick again, stepping on the gas. The car lurched forward once again as Casey continued to wipe her tears away as quick as they escape her eyes.
"Are you okay?" I asked her once she's calmed down some more.
She shook her head, her bottom lip slightly jutting out like it always does when she's upset.
"What happened?" I asked again, hoping the question didn't trigger another wave of emotional combustion.
She inhaled deeply through her nose before exhaling slowly through her mouth and she finally started speaking coherently. "There were some girls back in that house we were just from." She started.
I nodded slowly, letting her know I'm listening as I kept my eyes on the road to make sure I don't kill us on the road.
"They were the popular girls from my class. I've never really got together with them, never really clicked I guess." She sniffled, grabbing a tissue and blew her nose before she continued.
"They had invited my friends over for a small girl get together or whatever and my friends dragged me along. I don't know why they were so mean, maybe they felt like I came along uninvited or something, I don't know," she blabbered.
"Case.." I trailed off, reminding her to get back on track.
She sighed, "Right. Anyways, they cornered me and basically told me that I would never fit in. That I was just "accepted" because I'm your sister and that I'd be nothing without you."
I made a face at that, "What?"
There's one thing I know for sure, Casey is the sweetest, kindest girl I've ever known my entire life. I mean the girl takes joy in helping others even if she gets nothing in return. Helping people literally makes this girl happy. She would still be a great person with or without me. I know that she's definitely a better human being that I am.
"Case.." I began to say, but she cut me off with a shake of her head.
"I know what you're gonna say and I know you're right but for some reason I just can't shake it off, Bry. I feel like I need to prove myself. I need to go to that party." She uttered the last sentence more to herself than to me.
I gave her a slide glance and saw the look on her face and immediately knew that there was nothing I could say that would change her mind. My sister can be a stubborn pain in the ass when she chooses to be one. No one can convince her otherwise unless she lets them win.
"What party?" I asked warily, unsure that I actually wanted to know what she was talking about.
"Patrick's party." She answered.
My answer came instantly and it was a strong "No."
I saw her head turn to look at me from my peripheral vision.
"Why not?" I could tell be her tone that she was ready to defy me no matter what I say.
"Just no, Case. I don't want you to be associated in any way with anyone from that group of people." I told her firmly. You might think that I was being harsh or unreasonable but I'm not, honestly. I wasn't the type of brother who was unreasonably protective. Yes, I am very protective of my little sister but I wouldn't go as far as forbidding her to go to parties. She was a teenager and I'm her brother, not her parents. I can simply follow her to said party and watch from a distance to make sure that she's having fun while being safe a.k.a make sure that no one tries to spike her drink and try anything funny with her.
I know I shouldn't say this about my own kind but guys can be disgustingly low sometimes. I can't even trust people of my own gender.
"Tell me why, or I'm going." She insisted.
"Don't you even know who Patrick hangs out with? What kind of people they are?" I threw my hands in the air briefly to emphasize my point before putting them back on the wheel.
Casey rolled her eyes as if I was being unreasonable.
"It's just a party, Bry. There's gonna be lots of other people out there. He can't possibly single me out; he doesn't have a reason to." She reasoned with me.
I tightened my grip on the wheel to hold myself back from exposing my activities for the past year just to be able to justify my paranoia. But I can't possibly tell her, "Yes, he can, because I'm technically stuck doing undercover work in this Mafia gang and Patrick's friend, Jax, is also in it and if I make a single wrong move, he might rat me out and get me killed or kill me himself - which is why he might or might not target you because you're my sister and he doesn't really like me to begin with."
Yeah, I don't think that would go down so well.
Instead, I turned the attention back to her. "Why are you so adamant about going anyways?"
Casey fell silent before turning her body so that she'll face front and she glued her eyes to the road in front of us rather than my face.
"They told me that a nerd like me can't possibly fit in in a party like Patrick's." She said darkly.
I shook my head. What in the world goes on in these girls' heads?
"What's the correlation that's supposed to exist here between fitting in and attending a party?" I asked just to clarify and maybe make sense of the way these girls think.
Casey shrugged as if she didn't quite understand either. "I don't know, I guess stepping foot in a party automatically makes you cool or something."
That only caused me to shake my head even more. Something's definitely wrong with these girls' heads.
Casey turned to me after a while. "Please, Bry? I really need to do this. I can't not show at the party after the stunt I pulled in that house in front of all of those girls. You know how kids our age are these days. You know how cruel the social food chain, its rules and all that shit are. They will eat me alive."
I bit the inside of my cheeks. On one hand, she is right but on the other hand, I can't shake off the uneasy feeling I get whenever I imagine her going to a party of someone that's so closely associated to someone like Jax. I didn't want her to get dragged into something that she doesn't even know exists.
I don't want her to end up making the same mistakes I made.
"Besides, I've never been to a party before because it never interested me and you've always been one to say that you only live once yadda yadda yadda, gotta try everything at least once to know what it's like yadda yadda yadda, gain experience yadda yadda yadda-"
"Okay, okay, okay, I get it. I'll let you go. But you're not staying there for more than a few hours, you hear me? 3 hours max." I told her.
"4?" She negotiated.
"Make that 2." I replied without needing to think twice.
"3 it is." She said with no hesitation.
I smiled in satisfaction.
"When's the party?" I asked her.
"In a few days."
"Are your friends coming with?" I glanced at her.
She nodded, "Yeah, I'll just stick with them."
"Smart," I nodded approvingly.
"Thanks, Bry." She smiled, turning to look at me.
"Just stay safe. That's how you're gonna thank me." I told her without taking my eyes off of the road.
She nodded, smiling.
I set my jaw, wondering if I did the right thing there.