After school, I hurried home. I had Art history as my last subject of the day, and I spent the entire period on my phone. I had never been so happy to go up the driveway and park right in front of the familiar, two-story, contemporary house with stone accents. Home.

“Hey, my favorite niece,” Leanne greeted, collapsing on the sofa as soon as I walked into the living room.

“I’m your only niece,” I said flatly. “Where’s Cristóbal?” I asked. I missed my brother, and I was constantly worrying about him.

Leanne sighed. “He’s with Maria at the park. I am going to fire her, I swear.”

“Why?”

“Stuff from my room has been going missing for a while now and I can’t ignore it any longer. It’s got to be her.”

Leanne had mentioned that her favorite watch had been missing for weeks now. Then it was a bottle of perfume that suddenly grew legs and walked off her dresser. It was one she cherished as it had been a gift from her sister, my mother.

“Oh? What’s missing now?”

“A very expensive pair of shoes. I can’t be so careless that I’d lose shoes, right? They were in my closet. I just bought the damn things as treat too.” She pouted. “It sounds materialistic as shit, but I’d rather not have a thief in my home.”

“We’ll ask Maria when she gets back, yeah?” I said to her, sitting up a bit and pulling a pillow into my lap. “What had you in such a good mood when I walked in?”

Leanne’s eyes immediately lit up. “I have a date tonight that I have to get ready for in a few with Michael.” Her eyes shone. She had been talking about this guy she worked with for months now. “I’ve been calling you since I knew your school was out, and you haven’t been answering. Zayne called saying that he’s back from London, and Louis called about your new schedule. Apparently they couldn’t reach you either.”

I was a model. Nothing near billboards and runway shows worthy, but I earned a decent amount of money. Enough to be move out and stand on my own two feet once I graduated. Louis was my manager and an old friend of my parents. He was French and could be a real pain when it came to perfection, but I liked him. He was in his mid-forties, and a very good person to talk to.

Zayne was my closest friend. He was the first friend I had met when I first came to the United States. We first met in an online chatroom before. Meeting in person was a happy accident. After graduating high school, he went to London to stay with his grandparents for a while.

I started and gave up looking for my phone when I realized that I must’ve dropped it on my rush home from school or left it in the car. Calling Louis from Leanne’s phone, I listened as he told me about the upcoming shoots for the Waldorf’s new line of dresses, and how I’d be working with a partner for those shoots. Apparently, the model was up-and-coming and needed the publicity boost.

As soon as I hung up, there was a knock at the door. Leanne had gone upstairs during my phone call to start getting ready for her date, so I went to get the door. To my surprise, none other than the Catalano brothers were standing at the door. “Hi,” they said in unison.

“Hi,” I replied slowly. “How did you guys find where I live?” I leaned against the open door wondering whether to invite them in or not.

“Natalia,” Damian said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked them both.

Daniel handed a small device in a white case with graffiti designs to me, not much of a talker.

“My phone!” I squealed with pure joy. My whole life was in my phone. While everything was backed up, it would still be a nuisance if I couldn’t find it. “Thank you so much. Where did you find it?” I queried.

“It was under your desk in Art History. I saw it when I was walking out. We knew it was yours, so we thought we’d return it,” Damian said shuffling his feet a little.

“Thanks,” I said again looking down at the colorful case and clear, shiny screen.

“Umm… Someone named Louis kept calling. Another boyfriend of yours?” Damian asked with a raised eyebrow and a look on his face that made me want to break out into a wide smile.

I knew he was teasing but it brought me back to the situation earlier with Jack. “Louis is my manager,” I explained even though I didn’t have to.

“Cool,” they said.

“Do you guys do that a lot?” I asked, referring to them talking at the same time.

“No,” they said together.

“Are you sure about that?” I said, a smile tugging at my lips.

They looked at each other. “We’re psychic,” they said.

Damian rolled his eyes and pointed a thumb at his brother. “Call it twin telepathy if you will. I just find it annoying.”

I couldn’t keep myself from giggling.

“I think we should be going,” Daniel said. “Umm, see you tomorrow, yeah?” he said.

“Maybe you should come with us. I’d like someone around who actually knows the place,” Damian said. Daniel looked at him angrily and I just stood there awkwardly.

I glanced at Daniel briefly. I didn’t think he’d want me to come along to wherever they were going. “I don’t think so. I’ve got a lot of homework to deal with,” I lied with a fake smile. I could also tell when I wasn’t wanted.

“Okay,” Damian said. Daniel started walking down the driveway, throwing a wave behind him. Damian held my wrist and leaned in close to my ear when he was passing. “I’ve got a special power you know. I can tell when someone is lying.”

“I know when I’m not wanted,” I whispered back, nodding my head in Daniel’s direction since his back was turned to us.

“On the contrary, Nina, It’s quite the opposite. He’s just shy.” Daniel whipped his head around as if he heard what Damian had just said and glared daggers into him. He was most likely getting impatient since he’d nearly reached the end of the driveway and Damian had yet to start following.

At that time Cristóbal and Maria came turning into the driveway, the boy’s overgrown hair being blown by the wind. Cristóbal hadn’t spoken a word since he heard about our parents’ death. The doctors said he was in shock and depression at first. It was his way of grieving. He didn’t want to eat or go outside for a while. He still refused to even go to school. The diagnosis turned later to selective mutism. Cristóbal simply did not want to speak.

In truth, they weren’t my biological parents, but they were the ones who raised me. I didn’t know how I came to be with them. They never wanted to speak about it, and after years of trying to get them to tell me, I gave up. Of course, this also meant that Cris wasn’t my biological brother, but that didn’t matter to either of us.

“Cris, you okay?” I asked him. Cristóbal walked up to me, held my hand tightly, and started pulling me into the house, signaling that he had something to tell me. We all – Leanne and I – had gotten used to him not speaking and just let him be.

“Umm… Go inside and we’ll talk about it when I come in, okay?” I said but he shook his head stubbornly.

“See you tomorrow,” Damian said, eyeing Cris with the same curious gaze he gave me when I walked into the principal’s office that morning.

I watched as the boys walked away and greeted Maria when she passed to enter the house. Cris started pulling me again, but this time I let him. He dragged me all the way to our father’s study, locked the door, and pushed me into the small couch at the side of the room. As I watched him search the drawers furiously, my eyebrows drew together in concern. Cristóbal stopped for a second and took a deep, audible breath.

Getting up, I went over to him and took his hand in mine. “Oh my god,” I whispered. He was shaking badly. I took him by the shoulders and spun him around to face me. “What’s wrong?” I asked softly, but he just pushed me away and continued rummaging through my father’s drawer before pulling out a notepad and a pen.

‘Fire Maria’ he wrote. Tears fell from his face and a few strands of hair stuck to his wet cheeks. Cris didn’t cry often but when he did, he caught everyone’s attention. ‘She keeps trying to touch me and I don’t like it’ he wrote after wiping his eyes again. ‘I hate her’.

“W-Wait… What do you mean?” I asked him. Did he mean that she touched him, touched him like…? “Where?”

He looked down with tears still in his eyes and I put my hand on his shoulder. I lifted his head by his chin to look at me and begged him with my eyes to tell me what Maria did. One good look at his face and anger flared inside me as I pulled my brother upstairs. When I got there, Leanne was standing in the hallway with her arms crossed and her face red.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I told you that things from my room have been going missing. Maria has been stealing my things. My jewelry, my clothes, money. My bedroom is supposed to be off limits to you. Don’t I pay you enough to look after my nephew?” Leanne almost shouted at the thirty-something-year-old woman standing in front of us.

“Honestly,” Maria said slowly without an ounce of remorse in her tone. “With this huge house, you could pay me way more than you do.”

I went up to her. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I said as calm as I could manage, but I felt like a fire was starting in my veins. “How dare you touch my brother and speak to my aunt that way?!” I walked straight up to her. Surprising myself, I raised my hand and slapped Maria right across the face. I never thought I was capable of slapping someone. “Get out of this house, or I’m calling the cops. You’re disgusting.”

Taking my brother’s hand, I marched straight to his room, closed the door, and sat him on his bed. “Was today the only time she did that to you?” He shook his head. I had heard and read of stories where someone was sexually abused, but I had been brought up in such an overprotective family that I didn’t see how that could’ve ever happened to me or my brother.

“Cristóbal, I’m so sorry this happened. This is not happening again if I can help it. I promise.” He nodded, nonetheless. I wiped his tearstained face.

Cris reached for a pad and pencil on his bedside table. ‘Don’t let Leanne call the police. I just want her out’, he wrote.

“Are you sure? She should face the consequences for what she did to you.” He started nodding furiously before I could finish talking. “But-” I started again, but he started to write.

‘She only tried stuff, but I always stopped her or pushed her away. As long as I don’t have to see her again, I’m good.’

I nodded, though since Cris was a minor, I knew it would be up to Leanne to decide whether or not to press charges. “Can you please tell me why you never said anything before?” When he bit his lip and looked away, I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of him. “Just tell Leanne everything when she asks, alright?”

When he nodded, I kissed his forehead, got up, and left him in his room. We may only be three years apart, but he was still my baby brother.

I closed the door behind me and went to my bedroom, passing Leanne supervising Maria packing her things on the way. “Talk to Cris, yeah?”

“I will,” she said. “I just need to make sure she gets the hell out without taking anything else first,” Leanne responded, her voice hard.