Stay Cruel and Represent

I turned over onto my side and stared at the picture on my bedside table. It was a silver framed photo of my family. My big, protective, polish-slurring, law-breaking family.

At the moment, my family consisted of me and my three brothers - Dominik, Gabriel, and Matthew. There is also our cousins - Marcus, Jacob, and Daisy. Then there's Scarlett, Gabriel's girlfriend. She may not be blood, but she's always around and has been around as long as I can remember.

My parents - Gerik and Alice - my uncle and aunt - Aleksander and Lidia - originally took over the family business after my grandfather and great uncle died. It wasn't really a choice, because like always, family comes first in this city. It would be like a betrayal to let everything my grandfather worked for get taken over by some random greasy crowd of people.

As the years went on the criminal record of Manhattan went up. Our parents didn't want us to follow in their footsteps; they didn't want us to get hurt. It was a smart decision - people are getting beat or stabbed every day in this neighborhood - but as my brothers and cousins got older, they just got sewn into the family business.

Dominik did it because he is merciless and tough. I think he likes to kick the shit out of people because it makes him feel proud of himself. Gabriel and Matthew did it because they couldn't stand the thought of my mom and aunt constantly being in danger all the time. They wanted to help them out and protect them as well. Marcus did it because he liked the power. He liked the feeling of having power over other mobs, having people know that the Kowalski's are the boss's on the block – that we are who you go to if you have problems and who have the final say in most situations. I think Jacob just got involved because everyone else was. He wanted to have everyone's back.

I guess the same goes for Daisy and I. It was hard to go against our parent’s pressure for doing something with our lives, but we couldn’t help it. Daisy and I are the youngest, and on top of that, we’re girls.

Four years ago there was a mass shooting. There was this huge disagreement between us and the Russians. No one ever told me the details because I was a senior in high school. All I knew was that my parents, my aunt, and my uncle left our family owned bar and went down to the Russian mob bosses diner one night... and didn't come back. Somehow, the Russian's were more prepared than my family thought, and during the massive fight, the Russian's won. That left my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and seven Russian henchmen dead.

Since then, Dominik and Marcus pretty much took charge. The Mafia's still going, and my brothers and cousins are more violent, demanding, and protective as ever. My brothers are now accustomed to taking on the role of my parents. They would prefer I'd just go to college instead of helping them keep the Kowalski a well-known family in this city, but I'm just living my life the way I want to. The way I think is right - and that way is being apart of the family business.

I turned around again on my other side and stared out the window. Before I knew it, I finally felt my eyes get heavy and let myself drift off to sleep with the aching for my parents thumping in my heart.