“The fire escape is through the bathroom window,” I whisper.
I hear the door swing open and the low murmur of men’s voices coming from the living room. “Too late for that,” he says with a shrug. “Come on.”
“Why are you helping me?” I ask. “You obviously hate me. You think I’m a monster.”
“Because I’m either right or wrong about you, Mia, and you’re going to prove it one way or another. Serafin’s been pining over you since the day he met you. Everybody’s tried to tell him you’re not worth the ground he walks on, but it’s time he found out for himself. I’d like to think you’re going to prove me, Rafal, and his parents wrong…” he trails off, lowering himself onto the balcony beneath my apartment with a grunt and reaching his hand up for me.
“His parents are the reason why I left in the first place,” I say. I apprehensively put my toe over the edge, carefully shimmying my way down the six foot drop onto a patio table. A little boy with bright red cheeks presses his face up against the glass window, sticking his tongue out as he watches us. I chase after Fabian until he reaches the fire escape and starts running down the steps, wishing he would just stop and look at me, but the row of cop cars lining the street makes my legs move a lot faster.
We get to the ground floor and he sprints towards a black Jaguar. I don’t know much about sports cars, but I know this thing is worth more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. He shoves me in the backseat and I duck down low, trying to catch my breath as he slams the door behind him. My hand makes contact with something hard and metallic on the floor, and my jaw drops as I pick up a pair of handcuffs. I can’t help but wonder if Serafin uses these for work or if they’re a part of his extra curricular activities.
A few awkward silent moments pass before Serafin jumps in the car and revs the engine.
“What’d they want?” Fabian asks as Serafin looks over his shoulder at me scrunched up in the backseat. Something about his gaze makes me feel trapped. It makes me feel little. Useless. Helpless. But for some reason, the way he smiles at me makes me feel like for the first time in a long time everything is going to be alright.
That smile never left my mind. It never left my heart. Even when Bartek was putting me through my worst, I never forgot the way Serafin always made me feel safe, even though I was never supposed to utter that name again.
“Apparently Janka went on a real bender last night. She held up a liquor store and tried to flee the country with a fake passport. Everybody’s on the lookout for her.”
“Jesus,” I mumble. “I had no idea she was capable of any of that.” I figured our crimes were just petty, silly, and never really hurt anybody. The men we robbed were men who could afford to be robbed. We never followed up on our blackmail threats because we never had to. She had me convinced I was committing victimless crimes and it was for the greater good.
“They want you to come in for questioning, Mia,” Serafin says. “Told me if we saw you to bring you down to the station.”
“What did you tell them?” I ask. The police are definitely not going to just question me. Any opportunity they get, they’ll throw me right in jail, and there, I’ll certainly be killed, just like Bartek promised.
“I told them we were also looking for you, and if we found you first, you wouldn’t be able to answer any questions because you’d be sleeping with the fish.”
I gasp and him and Fabian start cracking up. I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, but I’m not surprised that’s what he told the police. I’ve known my whole life the Kings of Krakow have everyone in this city in their pocket from cops to priests. The police officers probably thanked him for his service.
“Awe, Misiu, have you forgotten how to take a joke?” he taunts, wrapping his arm over the seat of the car and smiling at me in the rearview mirror.
“I’m a little on edge. I nearly saw a man die last night, the police are after me, and now I’m being kidnapped by a couple thugs. I’m really failing in seeing the humor in this.”
“We’re not kidnapping you, Mia,” Fabian says. He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and offers me one. I definitely need a little something to calm my nerves at this point, and I eagerly take one. “We’re saving you from a life of petty crime. You want to end up like your friend Janka? Spending the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?”
I take the unlit cigarette and crumble it in my hand, sprinkling the tobacco all over the pristine backseat of Serafin’s car. There hasn’t been a day since Serafin’s attack where I haven’t looked over my shoulder for one reason or another. Now, I’m not even going to be able to close my eyes at night without worrying about what these psychopaths have in store for me.
Serafin just smiles, and I try not to get sucked in. That safety I always felt with him was fleeting. It was fake. It was only based on the fact that his family’s corruption was enough to protect him from any consequences, and that his violent tendencies were never directed at me. Now as he pushes the speed down the highway and swerves in and out of cars, I wonder if it was all a sham.
I’ll play their games. I’ll do what I have to do to pay off my debts.
