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AS I HEADED BACK TO the apartment, I couldn’t help but smile. I was exhausted, but the afternoon at the café had kept me busy enough that I hadn’t had much time to think about anything else in my life – and that was putting me in a better mood than ever.
But, as soon as I reached the door, I heard voices inside – and I slowed to a halt, pressing my ear against the wood so I could make out what was going on and who was in there.
Because my father didn’t really know anyone in this city, not yet anyway. Apart from that cousin of his. Who the hell was he talking to? I tried to make out what was being said, but whatever they were saying, they were speaking in low tones. I felt a shiver of worry run down my spine. That was basically never a good sign.
I hovered outside the door, until it finally opened – and a man I had never seen before stepped out. He glanced at me, but didn’t say a word as he took off down the corridor, and I peered inside to see my father sitting with his head in his hands on the edge of his bed, looking like he wanted to lock that door and make sure nobody bothered him again.
“Dad?”
He lifted his head when he heard my voice. I could see from the look on his face that he was having a hard time, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out to him and tell him it was all going to be okay – though I was sure that he wouldn’t have believed me, even if I had been able to tell him that.
“Hi, honey,” he replied. He sounded exhausted. Whoever had just gone, they had clearly taken it all out of him, and I hoped that he was going to be okay.
“Who was that?” I asked, and he shook his head as he rubbed a hand over his face.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does,” I protested. “What’s wrong? Why won’t you tell me who that was?”
“I... I can’t talk about it with you,” he replied, his eyes sliding away from me. I winced. I hated this. I hated feeling like he was keeping stuff from me, when all I wanted was for him to come out and tell me what was on his mind.
“Why not?” I demanded. “You really think that I can’t handle it?”
“It’s not that,” he replied, shaking his head. “It’s... it’s just not something you need to worry about.”
I sat down on the bed next to him. I wasn’t sure what it was going to take to get him to see that I really wanted to help. I was an adult now, and I wanted to make sure that I was pulling my weight around here, but it seemed like he would do anything and everything he could to keep all of this from me. He needed to remember that I was grown now, that he could trust me with the stuff he might have tried to keep from me for so long. I didn’t want that from him, didn’t want that for him – didn’t want him to have to shoulder that burden all by himself. I loved him too much. And I knew he had given up too much for me to expect him to just sit back and take care of it all himself.
“Please tell me,” I asked him softly. I knew this was a lot for him to take, a lot for him to admit to, but I needed him to come through and understand that I wanted to do anything I could to help. I loved him, and I knew that I couldn’t expect him to shoulder this enormous burden by himself.
He looked up at me. The corners of his eyes were creased, his brow furrowed, like he couldn’t believe he really had to do this. I hated the way he looked at me. Hated the grief that seemed written all over his face. It wasn’t fair that he had to go through with this, wasn’t fair that he did this to himself, or that I had pulled us into the middle of a mess that I had no idea how we were going to get out of.
“It’s the store,” he admitted finally. I nodded. I was sure there was so much hanging over his head right now, but the place that he had breathed life into alongside my mother was his biggest concern.
“What about it?” I pressed him. We hadn’t really spoken much about everything that had happened there, and I had no idea how to get it out of him, or if there was anything else he was expecting me to take care of, if there was anything more I could do to ensure we didn’t lose that place entirely.
“I... had to hand over the running of it to some... cousins of mine,” he continued. He was dancing around the point, I could tell that much for sure, trying his best to avoid coming out with whatever it was that was truly on his mind. I wanted to push him, but I knew he would just avoid my questions, and I couldn’t handle that right now.
“Okay,” I murmured back. I put my arm around him, silently urging him to keep talking, to tell me what he was going through right now. I couldn’t even imagine how hard of a time he was having with all of this, leaving his home, the place where he had made a life with my mother, and coming out here to some city that he’d barely spent a day in previously.
“And I don’t know...”
He trailed off again. I scanned his words for some kind of clarity, but found none.
“Who is it who’s looking after the place?” I pressed him. I wasn’t going to be happy until I heard it out of his mouth once and for all, and I had no idea what it was going to take to get it out of him.
“An old friend.”
“You don’t trust him with it?” I asked. He shook his head.
“It’s not him that I don’t trust,” he admitted. “It’s the people that he’s enlisted to try and keep it ticking over that I have a problem with.”
“And what’s up with them?” I asked, worried. The thought of our little store being the center of some chaos back in New York made my stomach twist up into a knot. I hated the thought of that, of someone else getting in the middle of everything and making it a serious problem. What if our place was targeted next? What if we lost that, too? We would have nothing to go back to. If we ever had any intention of going back in the first place, of course.
“They’re... they’re with the...” he began, but he couldn’t manage to get it out. I winced. There was only one thing that he would have been too worried to tell me about, and I was certain that there was something illegal about the people he was trying to avoid admitting to.
“The mafia?” I asked him, bluntly. We were already out of that mess as it was – we might as well keep it moving and be honest with each other. His head drooping down to his chest, he nodded.
“Yes.”
“Shit,” I muttered. I thought we would have left all that behind when we got out of the city, but clearly, I wasn’t going to get so lucky. How was it that, even after everything that had happened, I still seemed unable to shake the chaos of everything Andreas had brought into my life?
No, no, this wasn’t about Andreas, and I knew it. This was about my father. About my dad, the things he had tried to do to keep our business afloat. He had worked his ass off to try to keep that place open under his own steam. He just hadn’t been able to do it, when it came down to it. I couldn’t blame him for that. And I wasn’t going to, either. The two of us had passed the blame around enough as it was, and I refused to let that happen anymore.
“What are they doing to it?” I asked. He shrugged.
“I don’t entirely know,” he admitted. “I think... I think they’re using it for something that they shouldn’t.”
My mind raced as soon as he said that. What could he mean?
“I’m worried about it,” he admitted. “And I’m worried about you, too. I’m worried what this could mean for both of us. I...”
He trailed off, shook his head. I could tell that he was close to tears, and I wanted nothing more than to assure him that he had nothing to worry about. I was doing everything right, I was trying to get us back on our feet, and whatever happened to that store, I was going to make sure that we survived.
“I’m okay,” I promised him. “Really, I am...”
“What about the guy who’s been following you?”
“The what?” I blurted out, shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t noticed him?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “He was at the café one of the days I came down there to meet you, and he was hanging around outside the apartment not long afterwards.”
A wave of exhaustion hit me. I wasn’t sure I could handle someone else like that. After what had happened with Roger, I couldn’t stand the notion of having attracted the attention of someone else, someone who wanted something more from me than I was willing to give. I had hoped that I’d left it all behind, but it looked like I wasn’t getting out so easily.
“You must be overthinking it,” I told him. I knew that he wasn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time something like this had happened, and it made me ill to even think about it going down the same way again. I hated the attention that I seemed to attract, hated the way men seemed to see me and spot an easy target. The last thing I wanted was to have some dude look me up and down and decide that he had found a decent target. I wanted to be left the hell alone, for the rest of my life, preferably, but there was already someone making himself a problem.
“You’re just worrying too much,” I told him as gently as I could, but I wasn’t sure I really believed what was coming out of my mouth. I wanted to believe it, but that was a different thing entirely. I could buy that someone was out there, trying to get their hands on me. It had happened before, and I had seen without a shadow of a doubt the way men could go after women if they thought they were owed something from them.
What had I done? Made eye contact too long with someone while I was serving them a coffee or something? I was running through every interaction that I’d had since I arrived here, but I couldn’t come up with anything that explained someone following me around.
Maybe my father really was just paranoid. After what had happened, I didn’t blame him. I just hoped – prayed, with everything I had inside of me – that he was wrong, that I didn’t have to fear for my life, for my safety, for what little comfort we had managed to find since we arrived in this place.
I hugged him close. I hated that we’d had to do this, and I knew it was my fault, all my fault. If I could have gone back in time and undone it all, I would have, but I knew it was never going to be that easy for me. My life was a mess now, and I had dragged my beloved father into it, made it his problem as much as mine.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promised him. But it was an empty promise, I knew that much for sure – a promise that I made with hope rather than with any sense of sureness in my heart. He could tell. But he still hugged me back, then looked up and smiled at me.
“I know, darling,” he replied. I rose to my feet and headed through to the tiny little bathroom that attached to this room so that I could get a moment of peace and quiet to myself.
And as soon as I shut the door behind me, I felt tears start to run down my cheeks. When was this going to be over? That was all I wanted to know; when this was all going to be behind me, when I could leave this mess in my past and look forward to a future that actually seemed bright.
And who was that man following me? Was my father making it up in his head, scared that he had something to worry about? Or was I in real danger?
And had Andreas been the one to send him to find me?
I had so many questions and no way at all to find answers. The best I could hope for was that we could both get some rest tonight, and face tomorrow with our heads a little clearer.
I could go down to the beach, swim, and try to forget all of this for a while. And pray that my newfound stalker wasn’t watching me as I let the waves lap over my skin.
