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As soon as I saw Mauro, I tried to turn my back and get the hell out of there.
What the fuck was he doing here? My mind raced as I tried to make sense of it, any kind of sense of it, but nothing was clear. It felt too convoluted to figure out, even though I knew I was going to need to.
But I crashed straight into a couple of stern-looking men about twice my size, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get out of this so easily. My heart thudded heavy against my chest – what was happening? Why was Mauro here? Didn’t he know that I was in the middle of something pretty damn important right now?
They marched me back over to Mauro, who watched me with a grim expression on his face. My heart wouldn’t slow as I tried to steady myself. I had no idea what to expect with all of this, but I wasn’t going to show him even an inch of fear right now. I had been through too much for that. Nothing was going to stop me.
“What do you want?” I asked him, voice as curt as I could make it. He sighed, and suddenly, it was like he had aged thirty years at once.
“I want you to leave. But there’s something I need you to know before you do.”
I tensed up. I didn’t like the sound of this, didn’t like where this was going. Hadn’t I been through enough already? Hadn’t I dragged my ass through this nightmare for too long as it was? What else could there be for me to find out? I had never asked to be part of this world. I had just had it thrust upon me out of nowhere, and now that I was so close to getting out, here Mauro was, trying to stop me from making a clean break.
“What is it?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest and glancing reproachfully up at the guards on either side of me. I didn’t need to be manhandled around this airport like I was going to make a break for it. I was so close to getting out, and nothing was going to keep me here in New York, not if I could help it.
“I’ve been working with the Serbians this entire time,” Mauro admitted to me, and his voice dropped, as though he could hardly believe that he was saying it out loud. I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since Andreas’ father died,” he continued. “I knew that – well, I knew that Andreas was hot-headed, and I knew he might not be able to handle the weight of it all on his head when he first came to power. So... I stepped in. I helped. I needed to make sure that he wouldn’t land himself in more trouble than he could handle, so I did what I thought I had to.”
I shook my head. Did Andreas have any idea about this? I would bet not – if he’d found out his right-hand man had been working with the Serbs, it would have wrecked him.
“It was the only way to keep the peace,” he went on, defensive. “I’d do it again. I did what needed to be done, you have to understand that.”
“I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me,” I muttered. I wasn’t the one he had betrayed – that was Andreas, and he knew it.
“They’ve got the city,” he told me, his voice cracking. “I – it’s not the way I wanted it to go down, trust me. If I could have done anything to make sure that Andreas and his father’s legacy stayed where they were meant to be, I would have, but it’s too late for that now.”
“What do you mean, too late?” I demanded. Had something happened to Andreas? Was he hurt? Why was Mauro so sure that this was the end?
“I can’t get into all of that now,” he replied, shaking his head. “But it’s over. The Serbs rule in this city, it’s done.”
“Is Andreas safe—”
“I can’t talk to you about that,” he told me, bluntly. He was hardly letting me get a word out. I wondered if this was actually about him telling me the truth, or just getting whatever was bothering him off of his chest before I left for good. I was a confession booth to him right now, a chance to get this out of his head before he had to tell the truth to Andreas, and I hated that.
“Then why are you talking to me at all?” I demanded. He knew I cared about Andreas above all of this – even in the chaos that Nikita had dragged into our lives, I still thought of Andreas first and foremost, needed him to be okay.
“I’m the one who arranged for you to get out of the city,” he explained. “I’m the one who’s getting you and your father to Serbia. And I need to know that you’re going to go through with it.”
“What about the fact that I came all the way down here makes you think that I wouldn’t?” I demanded, shaking my head. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Andreas is going to do everything he can to try and stop you,” he admitted. “He’s going to do what he can to try and get you back, but he has no idea how to handle all of this. He doesn’t know what he’s up against, and all he cares about...”
He eyed me, for a long moment, inhaling deeply as he tried to get a handle on all of this.
“All he cares about is you, and I’m not sure there’s much I can do to change that. He’ll do whatever he can to keep you close to him, but I need to know that you and your father are gone. And that you’re not coming back.”
“If Andreas wants me here, then that’s our decision to make.”
“I can’t talk you out of it,” he agreed. “But I – I can tell you for sure that you need to think long and hard about who’s going to be able to protect you and your father if you choose to stay in the city. Now that the Serbs are taking over, you can’t rely on the Italians to keep you safe. And if something happens to you...”
He trailed off, leaving the threat of it hanging in the air menacingly. I knew what he was trying to tell me. He wasn’t going to come out and say that my father and I were dead meat, but he didn’t have to – I could already tell that was what he meant, and I didn’t much feel like fighting him on it.
I felt something clam shut inside of me, something tightening in a way I couldn’t escape from. I was locked in now, I had no choice but to run, and the thought of that scared the shit out of me. I had no idea how I was going to make it out of this in one piece, but I had to find a way to try.
“So what do you want me to do with that?” I demanded. “Where do I go from here?”
Mauro’s eyes darted this way and that, making sure that nobody was listening to us.
“I’m asking you to get on that plane and tell Nikita anything that he needs to hear from you,” he replied. “And get out of this city. Stay out of it. What’s going to come next, you don’t want to be here for it.”
I chewed on my lip. I wasn’t sure if I trusted him, but then, who else knew the extent of everything that was happening here? He was the person who had the most control over all of this, the one who could twist the screws to make things fit the way he wanted. I had no choice but to trust him right now. This wasn’t just about me, it was about my father, too, and he was relying on me to make the choice that would allow both of us to get out of here alive.
“Will I ever get to see Andreas again? If I get on that plane?” I asked him bluntly. That was the question that was caught in the web of my mind right now, the one I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t imagine being without him, but at the same time – if I had to run, for the sake of my family, I knew it was what he would have wanted for me.
“I don’t know,” Mauro admitted. “But I do know for sure that it’s not safe for the two of you to be around each other right now, do you understand? If you don’t leave, he’s going to be distracted trying to look out for you, and if that happens...”
He shook his head ominously. I knew what was on the line here, we both did, knew that the stakes were dangerously high. I just didn’t want to admit that I had no choice but to leave him behind; it didn’t feel right, not after all that we had been through. I wished I could just see him again, one more time, tell him that this wasn’t my choice and that I would have stayed if I could have...
“I get it,” I replied, finally.
“There might be some point, far down the line, where the two of you can see each other again,” he offered me. “Far from this place, of course. But I don’t know when that might be. Or if it’ll even happen.”
I nodded. At least he was being honest with me. That was the most I could ask for right now, now that I was running – now that I had no choice but to put as much distance between myself and the man that I loved as I could.
“You need to go, Nadia,” he urged me. “I can’t tell you any more. Just... leave. And don’t let anything Andreas says convince you that you should come back.”
“I will,” I promised him, even though the words seemed to choke in my throat as I tried to get them out. How could I do this to him? I was sure he would never forgive me, or at least that he would put up a fight to keep me close – he hadn’t let me just walk out of his life to Miami, after all, and I was certain that he would do what he could to pull me back to the city once he knew I was gone.
But I had to stand strong. I had no idea what the future was going to bring, but I had to trust that Mauro knew what he was talking about when he told me to get out. It was the best thing for my father and I, even though I didn’t exactly want to put any trust at all in Nikita – I didn’t believe he was the best person to protect us, but he was about the only option we had right now, so I didn’t have much of a choice.
The bodyguards stepped aside to let me go, and I started back towards the plane. My heart was thrumming in my chest, but I tried to ignore it. I was making the right choice, even if it didn’t feel like the easiest one – I was making the choice that I needed to make, the one my survival hinged on.
And so, I did my very best to ignore the tears dripping down my face as I went to leave this city – and Andreas – for good.
