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Largo
“Storms draw something out of us that calm seas don’t.” ~ Bill Hybels
The sound of my heavy breathing filled the air as I hid behind a dumpster, trying to catch my breath. The moment I left the hospital, a sense of unease washed over me when I noticed a dark figure lurking in the shadows. I should have known they wouldn’t even give me time to grieve for my family.
All these years of hiding were for nothing.
In the end, they still found us.
They promised protection for all of us. They swore to us we would be safe. That they had no hope of ever finding us. And for a while, we believed them, trusted them.
They lied.
Over the course of a mere twenty-four hours, the life that we had painstakingly constructed was utterly obliterated, leaving only me, with nothing but remnants, forcing me to walk away from everything and everyone I loved dearly. My job, my friends, my husband, and eventually my daughter.
All because my dad and I witnessed something we shouldn’t have.
It was right before dad was due to ship out for another deployment. We were running errands for Mom when we walked past an alley and witnessed the hit. I remembered standing in shock while we watched three men kill two youngmen. It was horrible. What I didn’t know was the two men who died were our bodyguards and the men who killed them were Italian Mafia. What I did know was when I gasped, one of the men turned and saw me and Dad watching them.
That was seventeen years ago.
A lifetime ago.
After that day, everything changed.
One minute we were living in southern California, the next Mom and Dad were racing me and Landon to New York City with new identities and new lives. Dad was no longer in the Navy. Mom gave up her family and ancestral home, and my brother and I left behind friends we would never get to see again.
For a while, we made the best of things. Moved on. Tried to forget our past and embrace our new future. For my brother and I, it helped when we started school. We could escape and just be us again. Well, the new us. But for Mom and Dad it was harder. Dad loved the Navy. Lived and breathed it. It was what he knew. Adjusting to his new reality was hard for him. Mom tried to help him, but even she had a hard time leaving her past and her family behind.
One minute we had everything.
The next, it was gone.
It was three years ago when dad received an unexpected call from a friend who had been helping us, interrupting our otherwise thriving existence in our new normal.
And that’s when everything changed.
For the last three years, we’d been running, hiding, and laying low. Giving up everything all over again, when, instead, I should have insisted we take everything to the club. I tried explaining to my dad that the club would help, but Dad wanted no more deaths on his hands. He blamed himself for all our problems, despite being the victim, just as I was. Everyone who ever tried helping us ended up dead. When Dad noticed thesmall apartment we’d been hiding in was being watched, he knew it was time to leave.
It was a decision that would cost him, Mom, and my brother their lives.
Now, it was just me.
The only one left who could identify them all.
I should have been in the car with them.
I was supposed to be, but I missed Dad’s call.
I just wanted to see Sophia and Mercy one more time, before I disappeared for good.
I wasn’t asking for much.
I needed to know that they were okay.
That they were safe.
Ultimately, that decision saved my life.
