Chapter 22 Natalie
NATALIE
“Mommy, where are we going?”
I clutched Maisie’s small hand tightly as we hurried along the sidewalk.
A man walking at the corner of the intersection made me flinch as he drew near.
The homeless bum didn’t make eye contact with me, but I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
Being out here on the street and not near the watch of any Orlov men, I struggled with deciding what was a threat or nothing to stress about.
Volleying my gaze from the man who walked by and my daughter who whined about being outside, I hurried her to walk even faster.
To stay moving. Mobile was best. It was harder to feel stuck and trapped and preyed upon when I could move and dodge trouble.
Rushing along the pavement was the only way I could try to begin tamping down the emotions that wanted to rule me.
After hearing the Orlov guards talk about how Sergei was responsible for my late husband’s death, I couldn’t think straight. Controlled by the instinct to get out of that building, to run away from someone so dangerous and deceptive, I grabbed my daughter and left.
Instinct, not strategy, propelled me forward. But I had no destination in mind. No location came to me. I only knew that I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t let my daughter be there in that man’s home.
All that I could react to was the need to get out before he came back.
That was why Maisie and I walked along the sidewalk now, on this cold night in the city, without much to rely on.
I’d told her that we were going for a walk, enticing her to cooperate by saying it was a surprise.
The change of plans was a surprise. Instead of her being in her “big girl” bed and sleeping, she was out here with me.
I’d stashed a few things in the biggest tote bag I could find and hurried out of there with her.
I didn’t even have any money on me, no longer needing it with Sergei providing for us. I left my phone behind, not wanting Sergei or any of his men to track me. Leaving the way I had was an impulsive choice, but I couldn’t see any other alternative.
“Mommy?” Her teeny fingers squeezed my hand. “Mommy, where are we going?”
Her petulant tone was shifting into something more of a worry.
I don’t know.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I don’t know where we can go.
I had become so reliant on Sergei that I had stopped thinking about where I could go and stay. All I was confident about was that I couldn’t be in his penthouse and pretend to be happy while knowing my husband’s murderer was there, wanting to care for me.
“Are we going to see Daria?” Maisie guessed.
The idea had crossed my mind, but it was too risky to go to Maisie’s former babysitter.
We couldn’t go visit her because that would take us back to the building we once lived in.
The apartment was off-limits now because of those men tracking us there.
I couldn’t take the chance of bringing danger to Daira, too.
I felt like ten kinds of a fool to have ever believed Sergei. I felt like a colossal idiot to have exposed my daughter to his dangerous world. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I contaminated Daria’s life with him either.
“I thought about visiting her,” I told Maisie. It was a lousy reply. It was a non-answer. I truthfully had thought about visiting the sweet young woman, but I couldn’t tell my daughter a yes or no now. We didn’t have anywhere to go where I could have faith that we’d be safe again.
“Mommy, why can’t we just go home?”
I closed my eyes briefly and cringed, holding on to her hand.
Home?
Where is home?
The last time I had a sense of being home was when her father was alive. Back when Fitz and Maisie and I were a family of three, there were no questions about danger or trust. The freedom to count on a man felt like a pipedream.
Because I had trusted Sergei with my daughter’s life. With my body as he taught me how to love again.
Shame mixed with guilt. Anger coated frustration. All these emotions swirled in a chaotic combination that I had no time to address now. Right now, I had to put distance between me and my daughter and Sergei.
What mattered right now as I clung to my daughter’s hand was that I resisted this cluelessness of fleeing and concentrated on getting and staying away from all the wicked evil Sergei represented.
What did you expect?
The first second you realized he was with the Mafia, you should’ve left.
It was all my fault for caving and wanting him. It was my mistake to use the safety he gave us as an excuse to overlook the kind of man he was.
Now I knew.
He was a murderer.
He was the murderer of my husband.
“I want to go home to Mister Sergei,” Maisie whined.
My heart cracked and ached at her sad voice. But my head hurt more at how confused she was.
It’s my fault you’re attached to him.
“I miss Anya,” she said.
That was another strike against me. I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid crying or replying.
She stopped suddenly, tugging on my hand. I doubled back to look down at her, wincing at the delay to hurry off to nowhere in particular. She was already getting so big that I couldn’t easily carry her. I was too short. She was too tall. I needed her cooperation to walk with me.
“I wanna go home.”
I sighed. “Maisie, we just need to have a little break from being with Sergei.”
That felt like a lie too. Now knowing that he was responsible for the death of her father, I wasn’t sure if I could ever see ourselves back in his home anymore. Nothing felt certain. I had no idea of where to take my daughter and keep her as safe as she was there.
Maybe I could look up Rosa. She might let us stay at her place.
Maisie wouldn’t budge. She tugged on my hand and pouted at me. “Mommy, I don’t want to be out here.”
“Baby girl, we just need to—”
Her eyes opened wide with fear. She shrank back, as if fearing me. “Mommy, let’s go!”
It was too late. Her alarm was too abrupt.
I turned to see what had spooked her just as a man ran up from behind me. His arms were out, reaching for me. Despite the big step back that I took, his fingers found purchase and curled around the fabric of my sleeve.
“No!” I screamed it, experiencing such a drastic hit of déjà vu that I cried out as loud as I could. Grabbing Maisie close, I hugged her and blocked her with my body as the man yanked me backward.
“No! Someone, help!”
My cries didn’t matter. No one heard. If they did, they didn’t come rushing to assist me. This time, Sergei didn’t magically show up like he had the last time this specific incident happened.
Fighting and wrestling to shake off the man’s grip, I refused to loosen my arms on my daughter. We couldn’t be separated. They couldn’t pry her away. It was up to me, and no one else, to keep her close and protect her from these street thugs.
Maisie screamed and cried, panicking and clinging to me.
The man resisted my futile attempts to break away.
I kicked, I elbowed, I even bit one man’s hand.
It did us no good, though. Because once the first man grabbed us, others showed up.
They all spoke in that slurred Russian accent, reminding me too clearly of when Sergei fought off the men the other time.
They had to be the same. These street thugs had to belong to the same group that had targeted me before.
Once it was clear that I couldn’t fight them back, I focused on holding Maisie close. Of keeping her in my arms, then on my lap as they forced us into a van.
Maisie buried her face against me, pushing into my embrace as if she could shield herself from the horror of our being snatched off the street like this.
They shoved us into the cargo space and sped off, without a question, not speaking a single demand.
Nothing. They took us like it was their job, and no matter how many times I yelled at them to let us go, to ask what they wanted, and also to threaten them that they’d never get away with this, they either ignored me or laughed me off.
“Or what, huh, bitch?” one taunted. He turned to smirk at me through the window that separated the cargo area and the cab space. “Let you go or else what?”
“Or else!” I yelled back, letting all my protective instincts rise up and keep me mad. So long as Maisie was here and captured with me, I’d be a fierce mama bear to defend her.
“Or else your boyfriend’s gonna come and kill us?” he replied, laughing at me. “Is that it? If we try to take you and your brat, Sergei Orlov’s gonna come after us?”
I clamped my lips shut, unable to go there.
Sergei had. He had gone after these men before to keep me and Maisie safe.
But I’d left. I’d wanted distance from him, something I warred with now. I had been safe there, but at what cost of my integrity and conscience could I have stayed there when I knew he was Fitz’s killer?
“Maybe that’s his goal,” the driver said, laughing with the other. “Maybe he killed her husband because he wanted her all for himself.”
I held my breath, furious all over again.
Covering Maisie’s ears was all I could try to do to shield her from this violence.
The first time the men spoke up and cursed, I’d put my hands over her ears to shelter her.
I prayed she didn’t hear that part about her father.
About the protector she was attached to.
The driver laughed louder. “You know he ain’t boyfriend material, right, bitch?”
“He isn’t just some soldier or anything. We’re talking about Sergie Orlov. Mikhail’s enforcer. He’s one of the most lethal motherfuckers in all of New York.”
“One of the deadliest assassins in the goddamn country,” the driver said, chiming in.
No. No. Please, no. Stop talking. Stop saying these things…
I wished I could close my eyes and cover my own ears. The concept of ignorance being bliss wasn’t an option like this, but I wished I could tune it all out.
How?
How could I have been so blind?
So dumb?
He was in the Mafia and I’d unwisely overlooked that. He was a killer, the one who’d taken my husband from me, and I’d run without thinking, right into the enemy’s clutches.
But hearing that he was some decorated murderer was too much to bear.
How could I have been so stupid?
Fitz was so peaceful, so loving, so calm and such a pacifist. Moving on to want a deadly, manipulative serial killer was such a gross jump of my reality that I hated how na?ve I must have been all this time.
Sitting there for the rest of the ride until they brought us into a safehouse, I let my hatred of Sergei be the mask against this terror that almost enveloped me. I let my loathing for him keep me sharp among the men who pushed me and Maisie onto the floor before locking the door.
If I had been smarter, if I hadn’t been so lured by the illusion of safety with him, I wouldn’t have ended up in this position.
That was the sin I’d never forgive myself for.
As I sat with my daughter and held her close, her small frame shaking in fear, I vowed to never, ever repeat that mistake.
I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I caved and surrendered to such a violent opposite of my husband again.
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
I hugged her tighter and rested my chin on top of her head. “Me too,” I admitted in an honest, raw reply. “But we will get out of here. We just have to stay strong.”
She nodded weakly, her face smushed against me as she cried softly.
I will stay strong.
I will be smarter.
I will keep you safe, baby girl, until we can run again.
I could only hope that I’d be able to guide her to run with me to a safer destination this time.
Screw Sergei. I wasn’t relying on him ever again.
It was just me and my daughter against the world now, regardless of how lonely and dangerous it would be.