➸ SIXTY ONE | A/N

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Please read the authors note at the end, xoxo

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—————

Thalia Lively Castillo

The slight wind blew past me softly, grazing my arms as I sat in the balcony thinking about my life leading up to now. Never in my life have I thought that this would be my life; worrying about death shouldn't be a problem for a soon to be eighteen year old. The world is filled— hell was even built on insanity, chaos and corruption. Lives are being lost everyday, no matter the age or reason.

I was four when I was brought into this side of the world, or at least that's what I seem to recall.

"You can't just leave!" I look towards mom who yelled at dad hopelessly. "You promised that this was over! You said we were done with this!" She continued.

"It's never going to be over! Get that through your thick skull." He glared at her then resumed hastily rushing through the living room, packing a overnight bag. I took note of how unsettled and pained he looked, with a hint of vengeance lurking in his dark brown eyes.

"Papa?" I spoke out making both of my parents freeze in their tracks. "Papa?" I called out to him again.

"Thalia, Baby, go back to your room." My mom looked at me worriedly but even at four years old, I knew what was happening.

"Papa, are you a bad guy?" I ask innocently while slowly walking over to his bag and pulling out a pistol. "Gun?" I look at it weirdly.

The gun was ripped out of my hands and thrown back into the bag. "I'm not a bad guy, bambina. Do you believe me?" My dad crouched to my level.

"Good guys don't use guns." I reply.

I've been having mini flashbacks randomly throughout the day. They've been occurring more recently, and whatever triggered them was still unknown to me. I hate that I feel like I'm in an empty shell that was occupied by a different person before. All these memories and I don't feel myself connecting to any of them.

I stare into the seemingly endless evergreen forest surrounding Darren's mansion. I couldn't help but be held captive by the mysterious aura looming around the forest that stared back at me. Almost as if it knew me.

"Rapunzel, let down your hair!" I heard someone say from below the balcony making me not only laugh but peer over curiously.

"You're so dumb." I say to Carter who chuckled to himself.

"What are you doing up there anyway? Sulking the day away as usual, I assume?" He smirks at me and I roll my eyes at him.

"No." I answer but after he gives me the 'oh really' expression I change my answer. "Okay, yes." He laughs at me then goes to hold his neck.

"My neck is cramping looking up at you, come down here, and stop sulking you weirdo." He says and I don't know why, but I listen to him as it exit the balcony and race my way down— all the way down— to the front of the house.

"Where is everyone?" I ask Carter once I get outside, noticing that I haven't ran into a single person during my adventure to the front. Yes, adventure, because this house is so big that it took me a whole two minutes to descend the staircase.

"Running your typical mafia related errands," he shrugs. "The only other people here besides us is Riley and your grandmother. Riley's passed out on Emmett's bed, taking the biggest nap of her life and your grandma is making tea or something." I nod slowly.

"Why did you go with everyone?" I ask him as I walk over to a bench and sit down.

"I volunteered to stay back and watch the three of you. It's more of a relaxing job rather than running around buying guns or hunting down possible enemies." He looks over at me once he sits down next to me.

"Is that what they really do?" I question.

"Nah, I think they're out buying outfits for a party Darren is throwing." I shake my head at his made up persona of what mafia members spend their day doing. "They do occasionally go gun shopping and hunt down fugitives, though." I couldn't help but laugh at him. "Now, what are we sad about today? Let's sulk together." He says to me and I smile at his attempt to get me to open up to him.

"Well, besides the fact that Victor and The Mob are coming for us, I keep getting these flashbacks of my parents." I try to gather my thoughts and emotions but lately my mind as been racing nonstop.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" He asks softly.

"Yeah, but not like this. I can't even decipher if they were good people or not. I remember the most random things and I still can't put the pieces together. I've always had this perfect vision of my family, but now I'm learning that maybe that isn't the case." I look down at my hands as I talk. It's an endless tunnel of frustration and I hate it, I hate this cycle of battling with myself. Battling with my past self who refuses to come back.

"Perfection is overrated. I honestly believe that "perfect" doesn't exist. No ones perfect. If we were meant to be perfect we wouldn't have any flaws but as you can see, everyone has flaws. We were born with them. It's just whether you can learn to accept and embrace your flaws or not. You've had it rough, but I know that you're strong enough to push through all of this. Always keep in mind that you control your past. Don't force yourself to remember." I knew he was wise, but not this wise.

"You should write a book." I comment.

"Oh yeah, I'll just schedule time to write a book between interrogating murders and cleaning up crime scenes." I shove him as I die of laughter.  

"You're something else." I say as we both laugh at his sarcasm.

"Moving on, how's things with Nate? Are you guys dating yet or are you still in that phase with no label but you still basically belong to each other." He rolls his eyes.

"Okay, one, no we aren't dating yet ... I guess? I don't know shut up. Two, there's not gonna be any "belonging to each other," we're not property, stupid." I answer his question.

"Why can't you just date already? I mean you practically already are. Just slap on the boyfriend title and make it official." He urges me to take things with Nate further.

"You're right, maybe he'll ask me to be his girlfriend after he's done planning Victor's death." Sarcasm spews our of me and Carter gives me an impressed look.

"Hey, that was a good one." He chuckles and I join him as we both joke about being IN A FREAKING MAFIA.

"Alright, well it was good catching up with you, but duties calling me." He stands up and I stop him before he actually leaves.

"What duties?" I ask with my arms crossed.

"I can literally smell your grandmothers cooking, so I'm going to take my job seriously and go supervise her." He crosses his arm and looks back at me.

"Yeah, yeah. Save me a plate while you're devouring whatever she's making." And with a simple salute from him, he leaves me outside.

I sigh to myself and actually consider taking Carter's advice. Okay, sure, my life is at risk. Yeah, I literally have no memory. And yes, I'm having minor relationship issues. But, what's the point in sulking about it? It's not gonna get any better with me stressing about every detail all day long until I eventually drive myself insane. I really do need to work on my positivity.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a page from Riley's book and take a long, fat, nap to ease away the pain.

• • •

As I expected, I woke up to arguing.

"Griffin's prisoners are pissing me off... along with Griffin." I hear Ethan talk about his vengeance with Griffin.

"Ethan's being a little bitch," I hear Griffin retaliate.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Ethan bounces back as I watch from the staircase.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? This is my home, and you walked straight in here disrespecting me." Griffin calmly answers him.

"Enough," Nathan calls out to Griffin but was stopped by Darren.

"He isn't wrong," Darren says to Nathan who looked at him defensively.

"Neither is Ethan. He didn't come in here with the intention of disrespecting anyone, it was griffin who pushed his boundaries." Nathan stands up for Ethan and steps up to Darren.

"Griffin wasn't doing anything wrong, we have cells downstairs and he just happened to be in charge of them. He's doing his job." Darren steps up to Nathan in return.

Aiden pushed both of them away from each other before either of them got too into the argument.

"I just don't get why they need to be here. They'll be perfectly safe if they just go back home, excluding Thalia, of course." Lincoln looks towards Austin, Ethan, Emmett and Carter.

"I just don't get why they have to be such dicks." Austin's hardened eyes pierce into Lincoln's.

"They're clearly way too young to be involved with all of this," Will says while rolling his eyes at Austin.

"They're clearly too idiotic to think we won't beat their asses—" Emmett was cut off by Riley who looked uncomfortable and worried by the uprising heat between the two friend groups.

"Why must there always be an issue in this damn house?" Ajax complains as he throws a fry into his mouth right afterwards.

"You tell me," Aiden replies as he observes everyone one by one. "You've all divided yourselves at the worst time possible. Now I may not know each of you personally," he looks towards Ethan, Emmett, Austin and Riley. "— but if you're important and trusted by Thalia,"

"Which they are, and aren't going anywhere." I speak up and make it clear to the other side as I stare at each of them individually— making it known where I stand in this.

"— then you're trusted by me. Ethan, you'll switch rooms with me, I'm on the opposite side of the house, far from the cells. Griffin, you're going to move everyone into the guest house cells regardless. It's not safe to have them so close to us. Keep them close but not close enough to have them be a danger to this house. Lincoln and Will, you're going to learn to get along and tolerate them, they may be young but you're the ones acting like children. Austin and Emmett, I presume? Same goes for you. We aren't enemies here, and if you each want to make it out of this alive, you'll learn to respect each other." He speaks with a high volume of authority, making it clear where his position stands in this household.

"And you two," he turns to Darren and Nathan. "I respect your readiness to defend your own, but realize that you're on the same team. Each of these people are on your side, and you will defend each of them equally." His lecture makes my eyes grow wide and I wait for Nathan and Darren's response.

Darren and Nathan both nod at Aiden after a moment of swallowing their pride and settling down.

"And good morning to you," Aiden turns his attention to me.

"You literally slept for five hours, nap my ass." Carter rolls his eyes as he shifts his position on the couch.

My eyes grow wide as I think about how long I've been asleep. "Five hours? Why didn't anyone wake me up? You fake hoes, I bet all of Nonnas food is gone!" I sprint, literally usian bolt my ass to the kitchen.

I open the fridge, check the oven, even check the microwave for any leftovers but find nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And now I knew who was to blame for this.

Once I collected myself in the kitchen, I march towards the living room and make eye contact with my target. Then I attacked my target.

"I TOLD YOU TO SAVE ME A PLATE, YOU FOOD SLUT!" I jumped on Carter and started beating him with a pillow.

"Food slut? I'm not a slut, how dare you?" Carter grabs a near by pillow and attacks me back but he didn't have much luck since I threw both of our pillows away and started using my fist.

"I'm. Fucking. Hungry. This. Is. All. Your. Fault." With every syllable I punched his arm that was shielding his body from my fist.

"I did save you a plate! Ethan ate it! Blame him!" Carter quickly pointed the blame towards Ethan which made me stop beating him and look towards Ethan who literally jumped on Nathan's back.

"Help me." He looks at Nathan who was taken by surprise.

"No, get off." Nathan tries shaking him off but no luck, Ethan is glued to his back.

"Fuck no, she can't hurt me if I'm with you." Ethan avoids eye contact and continues to grip onto Nathan.

"She's hungry, she'll hurt both of us if she needs to, now get the fuck off." Nathan orders Ethan.

"Okay to be fair, I didn't know it was yours." Ethan says to me honestly and slides off of Nathan's back.

I sigh and dig myself into the couch, my face buried into a pillow and my legs thrown on top of Carter who I just recently abused.

After a couple moments, I finally let out an annoyed scream into the pillow then casually sit up on the couch. "So, I heard we're having a party." I change the subject once I've come to terms with the fact that I'll have to wait until Nonna decides to cook again to have a proper, amazing meal.

"She's so cute," Lincoln comments and I blush out of instinct which didn't end well with Nathan who glared daggers at Lincoln. "Chill, it's not like that." Griffin slapped the back of Lincoln's head after Lincoln successfully made this whole situation awkward.

"We are having a party, dress fancy, it starts at roughly nine p.m. Nathan will take you to the location." Darren answers then makes his way out of the room in a very sophisticated manner as he disregarded Lincoln's awkwardness.

"Nine? What time is it now?" I ask everyone in the room, hoping I had time to make myself look decent enough to go to a party.

"It's seven." Riley answers and watches my face pale. "Don't worry sis, I gotchu." She makes her way over to me and drags me off the couch and into her layer of makeup and dresses.

"How the hell do you have so much of your stuff here?" I scan her closet that was combined with Emmett's. "I literally have two pairs of pants then my unlimited supply of Nathan's shirts." I say as I compare my living situation to hers.

"I told my mom I was moving in with you and just brought all my stuff here instead." She says sheepishly.

"I literally live across the street from you, you don't think she'll notice that no ones staying at my house for a while?" I question her.

"She works way too often to notice and when she's not working she's up my brothers ass about how he's her favourite child and whatnot." She shrugs as she sets up her makeup in front of me.

"I doubt that's true. But if anything, you're my favourite human so I think that should overweigh her decision." She smiles at me then stops what she's doing.

"Go take a shower first, your hair looks better natural since it's all curly-ish-wavy-ish. And you still look tired as shit, that nap didn't do you well." She judges me but I just shrug it off and race to Nathan's room to take a quick shower so I'm not late on getting ready. I speed past Nathan who was also in his room.

"Why are you running?" He asks while I grab a towel and a change of clothes into the shower.

"I can't waste time, I wanna look good tonight." I say as I completely forget to close the washroom door and start undressing. I only get to my bra and jeans when I realize.

"You know what else you shouldn't waste? Water." Nathan says as he also takes off his shirt.

"Oh no, no, no. This is my shower, wait your turn." I try to push him out of the washroom but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into him.

"There are people without water in the world, we really shouldn't waste it. I'm just trying to help the earth here." He tries to convince me but I knew he wasn't doing this to save water.

"Save water my ass." I groan and move away from him as I start to undress even more, regardless of if he was still here to see me or not. I didn't have time to be self-conscious.

"Is that a yes?" He asks hopefully but I choose not to respond as I quickly hop into the shower once I'm butt naked. If I wasn't so focused on the fact that I needed to hurry, I would've been red as a tomato when I heard the shower door open and close.

"Nathan-" I feel his lips on my shoulder and hands on my hips. "Nathan," I whine, knowing he's going to successfully distract me.

"You don't need all that time to get ready, you're beautiful as you are." He says simply before turning me around to face him. Disregarding that we're both naked right now, I take in his beauty as we stand literally an inch away from each other.

"You're just saying that," I roll my eyes. I step away from him and continue to do my shower routine by grabbing the shampoo and conditioner for my hair.

"I have not and will never lie to you, so no, I'm not just saying that." He says back confidently then take the shampoo from my hands and does the honours of washing my hair for me.

"What are you doing?" I chuckle as he massages my scalp.

"Helping you out," I turn to look at him as he smiled down at me. Once he finishes rubbing in the shampoo I wash it out and turn to do his hair.

"Come here, loser." I make him come closer to me so I could wash his hair for him in return.

"You know, this is something couples do." I say out of the blue. What Carter said was lingering in my mind, about us officially dating.

"Is it now?" He says back, not really thinking about where I'm going with this.

"Mhm," I hum in response. "Last I checked, we're not an official couple..." I drift off into silence as I start getting awkward and shy, not knowing what to say next. I could feel him staring at me but I focused on playing with his hair in the water.

Before I could blink, he has me pinned against the shower wall. "Titles don't really mean anything to me but I can be cliche and tell you that I want to ask you to be my girlfriend properly "in the perfect scenario" and whatnot if that's what you're looking for." I laugh in response and shake my head.

"No, no. Let's not do that. I just, I don't know, I want to call you mine. Ya know? I want to be official." I mumble.

"I am yours." He says softly and tilts my chin up to look at him. "Let's make it official then, hell, I see nothing wrong with this problem of yours." I look up into his eyes and took the small amount of bravery in me to lean up and kiss him.

He deepens the kiss and I fight the urge to smile as butterflies grow in my stomach. I'll never get used to the overwhelming feeling of pure joy that Nathan triggers within me.

"You're just wasting time on purpose now," I push him away, mainly because I have a feeling this is going to start going to a different place ... that I wasn't particularly ready for yet.

"Screw makeup, can we just kiss again?" He complains from behind me as I try to finish my shower.

"Shut up," I laugh at his problem.

"Choose. Me or makeup." He says non-seriously which made me give him one last kiss before exiting the shower. "Next time I'm in the same shower as you, it's going to end a completely different way, just know that." He says as his eyes trail up and down my body— now finally making me self-conscious.

"Yeah, yeah, finish your down shower." I change into my/his clothes since I stole another one of his shirts.

"Are you sure you don't want to come back in here? You're really going to leave all of this?" He gestured to himself. "For some

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