Chapter 6 - Blair
It’s dark, and I feel like an idiot crouched behind the thick hedge on the side of the road opposite my apartment. If someone sees me here, they’ll probably call the police on me, and it will be a bit of a challenge to explain that I am hiding outside my own home.
After I managed to slip away from Simon, sneaking out by going onto his private beach and then finding an escape route around the side, I came straight here.
While I was on my way here, I was convinced his whole story about those guys was made up… I was convinced that no one was after me, and he was trying to manipulate me.
However, the closer I got to my home, the more uneasy I felt, and I ended up ducking low and basically crawling most of the way down the street, inside and between bushes.
Now I’m sitting here like a lost duckling, staring at my house as though a master is going to leap through the front door.
I can’t explain the feeling. But something is off.
Sighing, I try to pull a twig from my hair, but it’s knotted in there pretty tightly.
I’m filthy. The nice, overpriced name-brand jeans I’m wearing are covered in mud. My t-shirt is streaked with dirt and my hair… I think it looks like a bird’s nest at this point.
What the hell am I actually doing?
This is stupid!
Simon is a liar!
There isn’t anyone at my house, and I can just go home and forget about him and his stupid bullshit!
With a bolt of courage brought on by my anger, I start to stand, but a hand grabs my arm and pulls me roughly back to my knees.
“What are you doing!?” A harsh whisper brushes over me, and I turn to see Simon crouched behind the bush next to me.
“Where the hell did you come from! How come you were so quiet!” I say angrily, trying to tug my arm away.
“Shh, keep your voice down, Blair. I thought you were hiding because you could see what was going on around you?” he whispers.
I scoff, shaking my head. “I’m hiding because you made me paranoid,” I snap, whispering too, even though I’m sure he’s just crazy.
He shakes his head, and even in the darkness I can see the look of tension on his face. He closes his eyes for a moment, then loosens his grip on my arm, not releasing me, but holding me more gently.
“Take a deep breath,” he tells me, his voice calm and deep.
“What?” I snap.
“Just do it.”
I roll my eyes, but because his voice is so calm, I do as he says.
“Ok, now tell me what you see. But really look. Look everywhere and tell me what you see.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes again, I focus on what he’s asked me to do.
“I see…” My voice is a whisper. “I see my home. It’s dark inside. Um. There is a car parked out front. It’s my neighbors. Then I see…” I let my eyes drift further down the street. “A black van. Um. That’s a bit strange, I guess. It looks like someone is inside it.”
“What else?” he encourages me.
“Um, there…” I squint, wondering if I’m imagining it. “Something is moving down the little alley next to my house,” I say in shock as the shadow moves again. Too big to be a stray dog. Too big to be anything but human.
My heart beats faster as genuine fear creeps in.
“And inside the house?” he says.
“Inside?” I say in disbelief.
He nods.
I squint harder, peering into the darkness of my own home, and suddenly I want to vomit. He’s right. There is a figure silhouetted in the window. A dark shape, still, but not still enough.
“They’re inside my home?” I mutter in horror.
“And there is another car parked on that side of the road, with two men sitting inside it. Your home isn’t safe, Blair. Please believe me.”
I’m too stunned to speak for a moment as I try to focus on the faces of the men sitting in the front of the sedan parked nearby. One of them looks familiar, and I realize it’s one of the men who tried to kidnap me.
“You… you planted them here,” I stammer, but even as I say it, I don’t believe it.
“You know that’s not true,” he sighs.
“Can we go now?” I mutter quietly, my voice tight with fear.
He gently wraps his arm around my waist. “Stay low and stay close,” he whispers, pulling me to follow him.
Simon leads me across a wide lawn, heading away from my house. We move through the darkness, sticking to the shadows until we reach his car, which is parked a street over.
He pushes me into the passenger’s seat, then hurries around to the driver’s side.
The whole way back to his place, I’m quiet, lost in thought, my head spinning because I’ve finally accepted that he really didn’t hire those men and that there really is someone scary trying to capture me.
My body is spiking with adrenaline and cortisol. I still don’t understand any of it, and it’s driving me crazy.
He opens the front door for me, and I walk inside ahead of him, sullen and subdued. If he hadn’t shown up, I would have walked right to my front door. And right now, there is no telling where I’d be.
“I want answers,” I blurt out, spinning to face him as he closes the front door behind us.
“Blair, it’s…”
“No, I don’t want excuses or stories or nonsense. I just want the truth. And if you tell me the truth, if I believe it’s the truth… then in exchange for that I will no longer try and escape.”
I let out a heavy sigh as I negotiate this deal. The truth is that I don’t know where to escape to now, even if I wanted to. I can’t go home.
“Alright,” Simon says after a moment’s pause. “Come on, I’ll pour us a drink. We can sit in the living room, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“I want to know everything,” I huff, walking through to the living room.
Simon is sitting next to me, the glass of vodka in his hand is mostly untouched as he spins it around, fidgeting with it.
“So, I was right, you are mafia?” I stammer, trying to process the things he’s been telling me.
“Bratva mafia. Yes. My family has been in the mafia for many generations. But not only are we mafia, but we are also one of the largest and most powerful families in the world. Us, along with other mafia families with which we are in alliance.”
“This is…” I mutter, not knowing how to describe how crazy it all sounds.
“It’s a lot to take in, I understand,” he sighs.
“So, the food business you do is a cover for your real businesses?”
“Correct.”
“I don’t understand how I fit into all of those, though. Why do I matter to anyone? Why are there men waiting for me at my apartment?”
Simon pulls his mouth tight. This time, he does take a sip of his vodka before he lets out a slow, steady breath.
“That would be my fault. Those men are working with a rival of mine. Jaco Marcas. Someone with whom I have some trouble. I have been tracking this rival, following his men, collecting information. And during one of the nights where I was investigating him, I came across you, and I started stalking you.”
“Stalking?” Is he being serious? Why would he stalk me?
“For lack of a better word,” he shrugs. “I had my private investigator look into you; I wanted to learn everything about you. I followed you for about a week before I orchestrated us bumping into each other and introduced myself. After the dinner we had, I meant to pull back, and I did, sort of, but I think my curiosity in you sparked the attention of my rival. They are after you because they see you as a weakness of mine. Someone they can use to get at me.”
“But…okay… but… why did you start stalking me in the first place?” I ask.
My head is spinning with questions, but I need to ask them one at a time.
“Because I wanted to make sure you were safe. And because I thought you’d seen something…I had to make sure I was wrong.” He reaches over and gently pulls a leaf from my hair.
“Seen what?” I ask.
He clears his throat.
“The full truth, Simon,” I demand, reminding him of what I want.
“I was talking to one of my enemies. It got rough. I thought you’d witnessed the interaction, and I didn’t want to leave you exposed to that kind of violence. Especially if you were going to report it to the police. Things get messy when people report mafia business to the police.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I whisper to myself, trying to remember, but nothing comes to mind.
After a moment of silent thought, I look up at him again.
“So, you stalked me because you wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to tell on you,” I sigh.
“That’s how it started. But it was quick and easy to confirm that you hadn’t seen anything. After that…I was just fascinated by you. I couldn’t stop.”
“Fascinated?” I mumble, becoming more and more overwhelmed by everything.
He nods. His dark green eyes pierce into me, and I know without doubt that he has told me the truth. My heart is racing under the intensity of his gaze.
The truth. I mean, he confessed to stalking me. Calmly. As though it is perfectly normal. And he accepted that it’s his fault that these men are after me, and he told me about his lifestyle and his mafia involvement.
And how I fascinate him. My heart flutters wildly, but the unexpected compliment hidden in there is overshadowed by everything else.
My stomach churns with anxiety as everything suddenly becomes too much.
My breathing catches, and I set my unfinished drink down on the coffee table.
“I’m, um, I’m going to shower. I need time to think about all of this.”
“We had a deal, Blair,” he says with a dark edge to his voice.
I stand, looking down at him.
“I know. I’m not going to try and escape.”
His eyes soften, and he nods. I turn away from him and head upstairs, wondering how in the world my life went from normal to this. And what normal even is anymore.