I fuss with my scarf and sneak a sideways glance.
A dark sedan idles at the fire hydrant across the street, windows deeply tinted. Maybe it’s waiting on takeout. Maybe it’s waiting on me. I think I see a rectangle glow before it vanishes—the lift and drop of a phone.
If I were a different woman living a different life, I would call this paranoia. But I’m not. As of last night, I’m a woman wrapped up with a Bratva kingpin.
I keep moving.
My building is three and a half blocks down, past the deli with the best sandwiches and the laundromat with the cranky machines that eat quarters for sport. I start walking at a steady pace.
The sedan doesn’t pull away. I can feel the weight of it from across the street as surely as I can feel the weight of my coat.
Don’t be dramatic, I tell myself.It’s probably nothing.
I pass a church with a hand-lettered sign on the door announcing a Christmas pageant and a storefront dispensary with a neon snowflake promising holiday specials.
I keep walking, the fight-or-flight sensation keeping pace. I glance in the dark glass of a closed café, using it as a mirror. I see the sedan creeping forward a car length, not enough to be outright noticeable but more than enough to be real.
Could this be Damien? Is he tracking me? The idea doesn’t sit right in my mind. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who needs to stalk.
I decide I’ve had enough. I lift an arm and hail a cab, because this is still New York. It pulls up to the curb, battered and heroic. I slide in, slam the door, and give the driver the cross streets near my building.
Then I add, “Can we go up Bedford and cut over on Pacific? I want to avoid Eastern.”
He side-eyes me in the rearview. He’s Dominican and in his forties, with the eyes of a man who has probably seen everything twice.
“You running from someone, mami? You need the police?”
“No. I just want to take the scenic route, you know?”
He shrugs, then noses the cab back out into traffic. I glance over my shoulder, watching as the sedan pulls out and makes the same turn we do. The cab rattles over a shallow pothole. The driver catches my eyes as I turn back around, and he nods.
“I see him,” he says casually. “Relax. We’ll lose him.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, embarrassed I’m so easy to read. My heart thuds hard in my chest. All I want is that sedan to be gone.
We head up Bedford, past the barbers and bars. It’s that blue hour, when every lit window looks like a stage—people cooking, laughing, drinking, scrolling on their phones. The cab windows fog up, and I wipe a circle clear. The sedan turns at the light behind us, smooth and just close enough. My mouth goes dry.
“Want me to keep going?” the driver asks.
“I don’t know if he’s actually following me,” I respond. “Just… take the back streets.”
He zigzags us through Pacific, St. Marks, Bergen. The sedan floats with us, two cars back, patient. On Atlantic, a delivery van wedges itself neatly between us. At the next light, it stalls just long enough to trap the sedan. Our light turns green, and the driver guns it. I slam back against the seat, half from the launch, half from relief.
Three turns later, no sedan. I release a huge sigh of relief.
“I can circle around and see if he’s still there,” the driver offers.
“No,” I say quickly. “Home, please.”
He nods. We roll by a mural I love—a girl with a honeycomb crown, bees buzzing eternal.
By the time we turn onto my block, things feel right again—kids bickering over a scooter, a woman in a pink parka standing outside smoking.
The cabbie idles at the hydrant just outside my building. I pay, tipping too much. The driver studies me for a beat. “Want me to wait?”
I think about it. Witness or wasted money. “No. Thank you.”
“Then get upstairs quick. Don’t look back unless you have to.”
