On my way to the airport, one of my prison contacts, Wolfie, called me.

“I can’t talk now, I have something important going on right now,” I said quickly. I was expecting to hear from Sierra and Alice. I wasn’t sure if Alice had been released from the hospital yet, and we only had a few hours until our flight was supposed to leave.

“You’re going to want to hear this, Apollo,” Wolfie said. “Giorgio’s been arrested. Once he gets booked, he’ll post bail, but you need to watch your ass. Word is, he thinks that you and his wife are behind all of this and he has people looking for you.”

“Tell his guys that I’m driving to Los Angeles,” I said, hoping someone would be dumb enough to buy it.

“I’m not touching this situation, man. I’ll tell you whatever is happening, but I’m not going to meddle around in this. It’s too dangerous.”

“Come on, Wolfie, help me out here.” I looked in my rearview window, suddenly very suspicious of every car on the road.

“All I know is that wherever you are, you need to get the hell out of the city. There are eyes out for you everywhere. The same goes for the wife. Are you with her?”

“Not currently, no,” I said, scanning the road.

“That’s probably for the best. I heard that the boss has very specific instructions for what to do with her.”

My stomach churned. I didn’t want to know what that meant. Hearing that only reinforced my belief that I did a good thing.

“So what should I do? I’m trying to get out of town as we speak.”

“Keep your head on a swivel, man.”

“Just keep me updated if you hear anything else.”

“Will do.”

After I got off the phone with Wolfie, I pulled over to a gas station to fill up. I paid the attendant and went into the bathroom to relieve myself before I finished my drive. With all of my nerves flowing through my body, I really had to pee.

I was starting to feel paranoid, so I checked all of the stalls. I was all alone. I went to the urinal and unzipped my pants when a man walked in. He was short, but stocky and was wearing a leather jacket. Something about this man made me feel uneasy, so I zipped up and walked toward the door.

“Are you Apollo Nano?” the man asked.

At the sound of my name, I instinctively turned around. That was my mistake.

Identifying his target, the man took a swing at me that collided with my chest. It winded me, and I leaned against the door trying to catch my breath. I saw him wind up for the second punch, so I ducked and his hand smashed into the metal door.

He muffled a scream as he cradled his broken hand in his free hand, giving me enough time to go on the defensive. A kick to the stomach knocked him down, and a second kick to his head rendered him unconscious.

I quickly checked his pulse afterward to make sure he was still alive. It shouldn’t have mattered to me since he would have tried to kill me, but it did. If I wasn’t going to kill Giorgio, I wasn’t going to kill anyone. Fortunately, he was just unconscious. I washed the blood off my knuckles and booked it out of the bathroom, back to my car.

I was pretty shaken up, so I sped the rest of the way to the airport. I parked the car in the middle of a lot, unlocked, with the keys inside. It wasn’t of any use to me anymore.

Bringing along my only bag of possessions, I walked briskly toward the airport’s international terminal, constantly looking back and forth in case some other psycho came running after me.

I held my breath as I let the airline attendant scan the passport that I got before I went to prison. I was finally going to be able to travel. For some reason, I thought the employee would recognize who I was and would tip Giorgio off. Like I said, I was feeling really paranoid.

I got through to our scheduled gate after standing in lines waiting to check my bag and get through security. Each time, I wondered if Giorgio had plants in the airport, looking for us.

Finally, I saw the person I had been waiting to see all day. She must have been looking for me, too, because once I stepped into her eye line, she came running for me.

“I was so scared,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck. I embraced her waist, pulling her in close.

“I was scared, too,” I said, kissing her on the head. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Alice walked over to us, a proud smile on her face. I hadn’t asked, but it seemed like she approved of us. At the very least, she wasn’t actively trying to keep us apart.

“I have some bad news,” I said tersely. “One of my contacts called me a little bit ago and said that Giorgio has men looking for us. Well,” I said, looking at their shocked expressions, “looking for Alice and me. As far as I know, he doesn’t know that Sierra has anything to do with this.”

Sierra grasped my hand. “Do you think there’s anyone here?”

“I don’t know. I got attacked by a guy in a gas station not too far away from the apartment. I knocked him out, though, so he won’t be telling anyone about it anytime soon.”

She grasped my hand even tighter. I heard her phone vibrate in her pocket.

“It’s him,” she said, a look of pure panic on her face. “What do I do?”

“Answer it. Make something up. Don’t tell him that we’re with you. Just play dumb about the whole thing. He already knows that we’re involved, so you need to pretend to be innocent.”

She took a deep breath and answered the phone, walking around to find a quiet spot to speak. Alice and I followed close behind, trying to listen to every word.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said cheerfully. “Are you back from your trip?”

“Darling, where are you? Have you seen your mom or Apollo anywhere?”

“It’s my day off, Dad. I was feeling stressed so I went to the spa for a few hours to relax. Mom is still at the hospital but is going to be discharged soon. I don’t know where Apollo is, but I told him to leave me alone while I’m trying to relax. He’s probably back at that apartment you put him up in.”

We heard silence on the other end. Sierra looked at us with wild eyes. I nodded at her reassuringly. She was doing a great job.

“I think you should come home, Sierra,” he said.

“Why? Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s not. Your whore of a mother has joined up with your bodyguard in a petty attempt to hurt me. They’ve made up all sorts of nasty lies about the both of us to the police, and I need you to get home so we can talk with the lawyer. I’m really not surprised this is happening. Alice was never a good wife, and I knew I should never have trusted that rat Apollo.”

I grinned when I heard this. He was right about one thing.

“Okay, I’ll leave now. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon, Sierra. If the cops try to talk to you, tell them you need your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone until you talk to me.”

“Okay, Dad. Bye.”

She looked at us with the beginnings of a smile on her face. She looked exhausted like she hadn’t slept in a few days, but beautiful, nonetheless.

“Did you hear all of that?”

“Yeah. He’s going to be waiting a long time for you to come home,” I said, pulling her in for a hug.

In the remaining hour, before our flight took off, we sat on the floor in the terminal, talking about everything from our childhoods to our future goals. If we were going to spend the rest of our lives together in one way or another, we needed to learn everything about the other.

I had never gotten so close to anyone before, but I found that it was easy to open up to someone that I trusted. We had been through so much already, so any uncertainties in the future seemed manageable.

Once we got on the plane and watched the city disappear below us, I knew that we would be just fine. Sierra and I had managed to dethrone the mob boss, and no one could hurt us now.