Alaric.
I've always known that Nia is rich. You can't be the daughter of two Big Five mafia bosses and not be wealthy. I knew it intellectually, academically, the way you know facts without really understanding them.
But seeing it in person? Actually standing in her house? That got me dumbfounded.
This is wealth on a level I understood existed but never truly comprehended. I didn't know how she'd react to seeing me after I went MIA four years ago.
Four years of silence. Four years of no explanation. Four years of disappearing from her life right before she graduated, right when I was planning to finally tell her how I felt. Four years of her probably thinking I abandoned her. Or forgot about her. Or never cared in the first place.
All of which are so far from the truth it's almost funny.
I thought about her every single day in Italy. Every morning when I woke up. Every night before I slept. Every moment in between when my mind wasn't occupied with revenge or grief or the brutal work of destroying the men who hurt my parents.
But I couldn't contact her. Couldn't risk bringing that darkness into her life. Couldn't make her a target by association.
So I stayed away. And hoped that when I finally came back, she'd understand.
So here I am. Back in Kenya. Standing in her house. About to re-enter her life after four years of silence.
I always wondered how I'd approach her after being away for that long. What I'd say. How I'd explain.
Nia has always seemed serious about her future. Even as a student, she had this focus, this drive that set her apart. She knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to get it.
That's one of the reasons I didn't approach her while she was still in university. I always thought she'd turn me down. Or worse, her parents would come after me for pursuing their daughter while I was supposed to be her professor.
They'd skin me alive.
People don't change much. Not really. Not in the ways that matter. Nia still looks like a flower. Delicate and beautiful and somehow resilient despite appearing fragile. She doesn't smile much, but when she does, she lights up the whole room. Makes everything brighter just by existing.
It's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. That smile. The way her whole face transforms. The way her eyes crinkle slightly at the corners.
I only got to see it once today, when her fathers were showing her affection. Picking her up and spinning her around like she's still a little girl. Kissing her forehead and her cheeks and telling her how much they love her.
It was so cute to see. So pure. Two powerful, dangerous men reduced to absolute softness by their daughter. The daughter who clearly has them wrapped around her finger.
She still has that caramel scent laced with mandarin. I noticed it the moment she walked into the room where I was waiting with her fathers. Sweet and warm and citrusy all at once. It's intoxicating. Makes me want to lean closer. To breathe her in. To memorize every note of that scent so I can recall it later.
But she looks colder than before when she looks at me. Her eyes are guarded. Distant. Not hostile exactly, but not welcoming either. She's built walls. High ones. And I'm standing on the outside wondering if I'll ever be let back in.
After her parents leave, Nia casually walks toward the door. She's wearing a mask over the lower half of her face, a black tailored suit, and Mach and Mach black heels.
She pauses at the door and looks back at me.
"Are you coming, or are you planning to guard me while sitting in my living room?" Her voice is sharp. Sarcastic. "Or maybe you need a red carpet laid out for you?"
Damn. I think she's mad at me. Actually mad. Not just distant or guarded. Angry. I silently stand and hurriedly walk behind her, my heart hammering in my chest. My heart cannot handle being around her. It's too much. Too overwhelming.
The scent that follows her like a cloud. The confident walk despite her small stature. The ponytail swaying side to side.
I am a man apologizing for falling for someone and their walk. For being attracted to something as simple as the way she moves through space. The perfect click of her heels on the marble floor. The sway of her hips. The way she holds her head high despite being barely over five feet tall. I'd record a video of her walking and watch it on loop for twenty-seven hours a day.
Get it together, Alaric. You're her bodyguard, not a stalker.
I thought I'd be driving her to work. I don't see her driver anywhere so logically, as her bodyguard, I should be the one driving. Nia has other ideas. She casually walks to a Bentley Continental GT parked in the expansive garage, one of many cars I can see and heads straight for the driver's seat. The Bentley. She's driving the Bentley. Of course she is.
I slide into the passenger seat before another dig can be thrown my way, trying to look calm and professional and like I'm not internally panicking about what's about to happen.
"You might want to fasten your seatbelt, Mr. Amani," she says without looking at me.
She's one of the few people who calls me by my Swahili name instead of Alaric. I once asked her why, back when she was my student. She'd smiled, one of those rare, beautiful smiles, and said, "The name is just beautiful."
I'm so lost in that memory, in a world where everything smells like caramel and mandarin, that my brain takes some time to actually process her current statement. That is, until the engine revs.
The sound jolts me awake. A deep, powerful roar that vibrates through the entire car. But I still don't fasten the seatbelt because I don't think it's that important. She's just driving to the university. How fast could she possibly be, right? Wrong!
We pull out of the parking garage and she accelerates.
Now I understand why I need a safety belt. But I don't want to lose my cool in front of her. Don't want to seem weak or scared or like I can't handle her driving. So I just put on a brave face and look forward, gripping the door handle with white knuckles. We are out of the driveway, a driveway that took me twenty minutes to drive up in my car this morning, in six minutes. Six minutes. If that's even possible. Which apparently it is, because we just did it.
She might as well be in the wrong profession. Forget psychology professor. She should be a Formula One driver. I thought it would get better once we reached the main road. I was wrong. It gets worse. We're on the highway now, weaving between cars at speeds that are definitely illegal. Definitely dangerous. Definitely going to give me a heart attack.
And she's doing it casually. Like this is normal. Like everyone drives like an absolute maniac on their morning commute. Since it seems like I'm being bullied by a five-foot-nothing lady who's currently driving like she's trying to break the sound barrier, I scramble for the seatbelt and fasten it as fast as I can.My fingers are shaking.
Pathetic, Alaric. You've faced down armed criminals and you're scared of a tiny woman driving a car. She's not tiny. She's terrifying. There's a difference.
I glance at her, expecting her to be focused on the road with the intensity this speed requires.Instead, she's grinning. Actually grinning behind that mask, her eyes crinkled with amusement. She almost made me lose my shit and she still has the strength to shoot me a bombastic side-eye.The audacity of this woman.
We arrive at the university in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes for a drive that would take normal, sane people forty-five minutes minimum.
I'm going to tell my fratellone about this in the evening and he's going to have so much fun mocking me. I can already hear his laughter.As we walk through the hallways of the university where she teaches, students greet her cheerfully. They shoot me curious glances, probably wondering who I am and why I'm following their favorite professor around like a shadow. They must really like her. Respect her. There's genuine warmth in their greetings, not the fake politeness students sometimes give professors they fear.
One thing that's been bothering me since this morning is why she's wearing such baggy clothing and covering her face with that mask.
The Nia I remember wore fitted clothes. Not revealing, but tailored. Clothes that showed her figure, her confidence. She never hid behind oversized hoodies and masks. Something changed. Something happened. And considering the amount of attitude I got this morning. The sarcasm, the coldness, the reckless driving, it's clear she's not going to tell me willingly.
At that thought, I discreetly pull out my phone and text Atticus: Need you to look into something. Luna Muriithi. Find out what happened in the last four years. Why is she hiding? Everything.
We're almost to her office when a woman approaches.
A woman wearing too much makeup her foundation caked on so thick it looks like a mask, eyeshadow in colors that don't match, lipstick bleeding outside her lip line. Her clothes look like she borrowed them from a ten-year-old based on how tight and small they are. A skirt that barely covers anything, a top that's straining at the seams, everything inappropriate for a professional setting. And her heels. Madonna Santa, her heels. She can barely walk in them, wobbling with each step like a baby deer learning to stand. She approaches with that tight smile people give to people they don't like. Fake friendliness masking obvious disdain.
"Good morning, Luna," she says, her voice saccharine sweet.
"It's Miss Luna for you, perra," Nia bites back without hesitation, looking like she'd rather eat nails than talk to this woman.
Perra. Bitch. She just called this woman a bitch in Spanish.
I need to know about their beef. This is fascinating.
"What did you just call me?" the woman gasps, her fake smile slipping.
"What do you want?" Nia continues, completely unbothered. "I've got so many better things to do than stand here talking to you, Samantha."
"My name is Sarah," the woman huffs. "And who did you come with?" She takes a step toward me, her eyes raking over me in a way that makes my skin crawl.
I instinctively step behind Nia. Using her as a shield. Which is ridiculous because she's tiny and I'm over six feet tall, but somehow it feels safer behind her.
"Forgot your name there, Sandra," Nia says sweetly, pausing for dramatic effect. "And to answer your question, it's absolutely none of your business. If I were you, I'd stop buying my clothes in the kids' section before putting my nose in other people's business."
The woman whose name is Sarah? Samantha? Sandra?, gasps dramatically. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish. Then she turns on her heels and run-walks away from us as fast as her unstable heels will allow.
Nia's shoulders start shaking. She's laughing. Silently, but definitely laughing.
"Who was that?" I ask as we enter her office.
"She's just some lady who used to bully me when I was new here," Nia says, setting down her bag and pulling off her mask now that we're alone. "She used to call me all the wrong names deliberately. Reina. Lena. Lucia. Luna-tic. Whatever came to her petty little mind. It stopped when she learned who my parents are and I took the initiative to call her whatever name comes to mind when I see her."
She says all of this with a completely straight face. No anger. No bitterness. Just matter-of-fact recounting of petty workplace drama. Wow. So that's where that beef came from. Workplace bullying that turned into mutual pettiness. I find myself smiling despite the tension between us. That's so... her. Turning someone's weapon against them. Making bullying into a joke at the bully's expense.
Nia starts preparing for her lecture while I sit in the chair opposite her desk, just watching.
She's completely engrossed in whatever she's doing. Reviewing notes, organizing papers, pulling up a presentation on her laptop. Her natural hair is pulled back into that low ponytail. Not a single strand out of place. She pushes her glasses up her nose with her middle finger, which kinda feels like an insult by the way.
She's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. And she has no idea. No clue how beautiful she is when she's focused like this. When she's in her element. I could watch her like this for hours. Days. Forever.
Get it together, Alaric. You're supposed to be professional.
When it's time for her lecture, I walk with her to the lecture hall. It's a large room, probably seats about a hundred students, with tiered seating and a projector screen at the front.
I sit in the front row on the students' side, pulling out a notebook and pen I borrowed from her office. Might as well take notes. Refresh my memory on psychology concepts. Pretend I'm here for academic reasons instead of just wanting to watch her teach. Her students arrive in groups, chattering and laughing. They greet her warmly as they pass.
They're genuinely fond of her. I can see it in their faces. The way they smile when they see her. The way they choose seats close to the front instead of hiding in the back.
When the lecture hall is nearly full, Nia begins. And the transformation is immediate.
Gone is the sarcastic woman who called her colleague "Sandra" and drove like a maniac. In her place is Professor Muriithi. serious, focused, commanding.
She lectures with the same confidence and composure she had back when I would ask her to come to the front and explain concepts to the class. Back when she was my student and I was trying very hard not to fall for her.
(I failed spectacularly at that, obviously.)
She's impressive. So impressive it hurts to watch. The way she explains complex psychological theories in simple terms. The way she engages with students who ask questions. The way she commands the room without raising her voice. This is her passion. Her calling. You can see it in every gesture, every word.
I remember back when she was in my class, she didn't wear a mask until second year. She said it was for some nasal condition. But sometimes, when she'd come to my office for questions or clarifications, she'd take the mask off for a while. Said it was easier to talk without it. That my office had better air filtration than the rest of the building.
I'd be lying if I said there wasn't tension during those office visits. Something unspoken hanging in the air between us. Something neither of us wanted to acknowledge because acknowledging it would mean crossing lines that couldn't be uncrossed. But it was definitely there. In the way she'd lean forward when explaining her thoughts. In the way I'd watch her lips move when she talked. In the long silences that felt charged instead of awkward. We both knew. We both felt it. We both pretended we didn't.
The lecture ends after exactly ninety minutes. Nia dismisses the class with reminders about upcoming assignments and office hours. Some of the students linger, asking questions. I notice a few of them shooting me curious glances. probably wondering where the hell I came from in the middle of the semester. Why there's a strange man sitting in their psychology lecture taking notes. Let them wonder. I'm not going anywhere.
When the students finally clear out, I stand and help Nia gather her materials. Laptop. Notes. The half-empty water bottle she's been sipping from.
I walk a few paces behind her. Trying my best not to be in her space too much. She doesn't even spare me a glance.