Page 30 of King

That, or I forgot to set it.

I’ll get up and have a quick shower so I can be ready in time to get to work.

“I’m late,” I say and get up out of bed.“Maybe your driver can take me this morning?I won’t have time to take the subway.”

“Yes, of course.I’ll take you.I have some business in that part of the city, so I might as well be your chauffeur.”

I lean over and give him a quick kiss, and then I am up and rush to the bathroom to start my shower.

By the time I’m dressed, Harrison is finished with his shower, so I leave him and go downstairs to put the coffee maker on.I need a cup of coffee to get me ready for the day, and so will Harrison.

He comes down to the kitchen just as the coffee has finished running through the machine, and so we both fill a thermos and leave the apartment.I check my watch and see I have fifteen minutes to get to work.

That’s barely enough time, but just enough.

We pile into the car and Harrison drives off, but not before we see a vehicle in the garage start up and follow us out the doors.

“Jesus, are they following us everywhere?”Harrison says, his tone frustrated.

I sigh.“I saw someone with a red button on his lapel on the subway yesterday, so yes, I expect they are following us everywhere.I guess we should be happy about it, considering the people we’re involved with.”

“I’ll be happy when this is all over and we can live a normal life.”

I watch the street as the car drives through the city.“Will we ever be able to live a normal life?With our families?The only thing we could do would be to get new identities and start over somewhere far away.Like, maybe California.Or Oregon.I was in Portland once.I liked it.The air seemed so clean compared to New York.”

“Portland, huh?”Harrison says playfully and takes my hand in his.He kisses it briefly.“Can you put up with a winter of rain, because based on what I’ve read, it rains almost all winter.”

I shrug and smile at him.“Rain would be preferable to some FBI Special Agent following me around 24/7.”

“That will end as soon as we get Andropov’s ass in jail.I promise we’ll get O’Connor Enterprises cleaned up, and then we can live normal lives.Have a family.Take our kids to Central Park and enjoy the weekends.Go to the fair and ride the Ferris Wheel.Eat ice cream cones.Listen to live concerts in the park.Spend our summers on Fire Island.”

I smile at his description of the perfect life.It sounds almost perfect to me, too.

“That sounds too good to be true,” I say, and squeeze his hand.Of course, it’s then my pregnancy weighs heavily on me.We’re not even close to the kind of life Harrison imagines.Part of me can’t imagine we will get rid of all this mess by the time I have our baby.I had hoped that we would solve all our problems by the time I deliver, so we can be parents without anything hanging over our heads, but that seems less and less likely.Every time I hear more about the operation that we’re part of, I think it’s going to take much longer to extricate ourselves from this mess.

“Nothing is too good to be true.We can make it true.One step at a time.First, we get you to work.The rest will work itself out.”

We drive through Manhattan to the hospital and Harrison pulls into the parking lot next to the staff entrance.We kiss and he cups my face briefly.“Go.Do your doctoring for the day.Put all this out of your mind.I promise we will live a normal life — a better-than-normal life — as soon as this is all behind us.”

“I hope you’re right,” I say and kiss him back.He lets me go, and I leave the car and walk up to the staff entrance.I wave as he drives away and then turn and enter the building’s interior.I’m not truly ready to start my day, but I have zero time left, and so I do my best to turn the worrying part of my brain off and turn the doctoring part on.

My day isthe usual mix of patients, meetings with other doctors to discuss patient care, and reading over case files, trying to sort through patient problems and find adequate solutions.By the time the end of the day rolls around, I’m exhausted and ready to leave.I check my watch and see that it’s only a quarter of an hour before my shift ends, and I’m glad.I was able to distract myself by being busy with my cases, but in the back of my mind, I was still anxious about the operation and what it’s doing to Harrison and me.

My mind keeps going back to the eight months Fogerty talked about when they knew about my parents’ deaths and the involvement of Giordano.They knew for almost a year, and did nothing, and said nothing to me.Why?Was their ongoing operation more important than justice for their own murdered member and his wife?When did they actually know, and why didn’t they move sooner?Part of me just doesn’t believe anything I’m told by Fogerty anymore.The FBI will lie and delay if they believe it’s in the service of their higher cause — getting the really big fish.Little fish like Giordano, and the murder of one of their own distinguished members, is not as important.

Sure, part of me understands.The real problem is the Mafia as an organization, of whatever variety, and the systems they have in place — moving drugs, sex trafficking, gun running, extortion rings… That’s the bigger, more important problem, and the FBI is right to be focused on that.

But at the same time, my mother and stepfather were murdered…

I hang my lab coat in my locker in the staff room and say goodbye to my fellow residents, then I head down to the lobby, where an Uber awaits to take me home.I’m too tired to take the subway, and Harrison is in a meeting, so we agree that I’ll take an Uber.

It’s waiting at the curb when I get outside.I step into the back seat, and the driver glances in the rear-view mirror and asks for my name.

“Natalia,” I say, and he nods.Then, he repeats my address, and off we go.

I glance outside, and in the side-view mirror, I see a dark sedan pull out from the curb behind us, and immediately, I wonder if that’s an FBI tail.

Do they really think I’m that important or that much in danger that I need an escort or protection 24/7?