"I don't know if I'm being paranoid or if this is genuinely happening, but I'm being followed," Natalia rushed out when Gabe opened the door from her panicked knocking. When she said it out loud, she sounded paranoid as hell.

But it had taken her a few days to reach that conclusion. There was this one black car that had been following her for days, the driver obscured by tinted windows. The car had shown up when she was on her way to work, she'd see it going to the supermarket or coming back home and even meeting up with Porsha for drinks or yoga.

First she thought she was going mad, then she kept noticing the same type of car and plates and started changing her routes. She had read that in a spy book once and she hoped it worked.

Natalia took longer drives and more turns but the car still followed her. It made her feel uneasy with worry and today, when she saw that same car parked outside the house, it heightened her fears. She thanked all her lucky stars that Gabe was home before her since that was rarely the case.

Gabe gawked at her, his brow furrowing and his forehead wrinkling. She could see the cogs turn in his mind as his eyes furiously looked behind her shoulder, out onto the street and then pulled her inside the house.

"Are they still there?"

So she wasn't crazy? It was nice not to be dismissed straight off the bat as she had done to herself.

"Yeah it's the dark saloon parked opposite the house. I noticed a couple of days ago and I know I should have told you, but I thought I was being paranoid."

"Wait here and lock the door."

Natalia watched from the living room window as Gabe's tall gait quickly ate the distance between the house and the parked car.

To the casual viewer he looked like he was cheerily giving someone directions but the exchange was tense. She could tell by how taut his back muscles were, bowed like a spring and just waiting for the right trigger to go off. She had never seen Gabe like this, he was always so relaxed and easy going with a lot of patience for people and quick to let grudges go.

The car drove away, the tires squeaking and driving in zigzagged lines moments later. Gabe stood in the street watching the dust settle before he made a phone call.

"Tell me everything you've noticed," he led her into the kitchen, helping her out of her jacket as she toed-off her shoes in the hallway and stashed her work bag on the floor.

He turned the kettle on. It made her smile in the midst of her panic, there was nothing like a cup of tea to settle your harrowed nerves after a long day of squabbling with mini-adults and dodging black saloon cars that were trying to follow you.

"This one black car has been following me to school and back. I've even tried taking a different route home and it's still following me."

"Anything else you've noticed?"

"No, what did you find out?"

"Not much he claims to be waiting for a friend, you'll ride with me until we can get to the bottom of this."

"Okay," Natalia agreed easily, she had never felt this spooked about anything. "What's for dinner?" she asked, wanting to change the subject.

"Chicken breast and — "

Natalia wrinkled her nose.

"Chinese...we're having Chinese for dinner," Gabe corrected quickly to accommodate her request, pulling up the food delivery app on his phone.

"Thank you, you take such good care of me."
Gabe's arms came around her. Inhaling his familiar scent and feeling the strength of his muscled body against her, she felt safe and taken care of. Gabe would go to extreme lengths to protect his loved ones, she wouldn't insult him by worrying more than she had to.

The next morning they were taking a different route to work in Natalia's car. The roads were unfamiliar to her. Gabe was driving with his eyes constantly on the rear view mirror.

His driving was erratic, turning without signaling, speeding and cutting other vehicles off. At one point he started talking on his phone, giving directions and then pulled up into a narrow alleyway road and as they got further in, Natalia realised it was a dead end.

She hadn't wanted to say something before but now it was really starting to get weird. Her palms were sweating and Gabe had this focused look in his eyes that she had never seen before. He was in a different mode entirely.

When the car came to a sudden halt. He gave her strict instructions to stay put no matter what. "Gabe, you're scaring me what's going on?"

"Just stay in here and don't come out. I mean it, Natalia."

He opened the door and was out of the truck, Natalia noticed the black saloon parked up behind them and the white pickup also at the entrance of the road as she craned her neck to alternatively look out of the back window, the rear and the side view mirrors.

Ty stepped out of the white pickup truck. They had clearly coordinated this morning and had planned to ambush the car that had been following Natalia around. She couldn't believe that the driver had the audacity to carry on following her even when Gabe had gone out to confront them yesterday.

Gabe had fished the driver out of the car, like he was yanking a weed out of a perfectly manicured lawn. It was a white man in his forties, dressed in nondescript dark clothing and sunglasses.

Natalia gasped as Gabe held a gun to his head. She had no idea where the gun had come from but all her attention was focused on the matte black coloured object. Her heart hammered in her chest. This whole situation was escalating beyond control. She had no idea, Gabe would take it there. The police could arrive at any moment and then what? This was not what she had signed up for at all.

Ty checked the driver's body for weapons, coming away with his wallet. Natalia could see him flick through the cards and ID, he took snaps of them on his phone before he turned his attention on the car and gave it the same thorough search.

Meanwhile Gabe was having another tense conversation with the man. She couldn't see the man's face but could tell from the rigid way he held his body that he was terrified. She'd be terrified too if she encountered Gabe and Ty in an alleyway. Their teamwork was seamless, as if they had done this together countless times and it was routine for them. She couldn't get over the quiet, efficient nature they had executed the ambush in.

Ty was coming around the sides of her car with a mirror, looking for something. He paused on his hunches when something caught his attention. "Found it," he announced holding a tiny black box. It looked like a GPS tracker. Someone was tracking her car? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.

"I told you to stay in the car," Gabe said as soon as he saw her standing with her arms crossed observing the scene unfolding in front of her.

"This guy is tracking me, I have a right to know what's going on."

"And that's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm handling it, get back in the car."

"No." Natalia stood defiantly, with her chin out.

"Well, isn't she stubborn?" the man commented.

"Don't you speak about her," Gabe warned a hand across the man's throat. The man let out a choking noise, his face turning puce from lack of air.

"What are you doing? Stop!" Natalia screamed. This hurting people in broad daylight was not her bag at all.

"Get back in the car, I'm not going to ask you again." The voice he used was distant and cold and menacing.

She felt numb all over as she got back into the car. What a horrible turn of events. Furthermore she was late to work. She didn't even think she was able to work after this. She dialled the school office to let them know she was sick and that she wouldn't be in, her voice sounded shaky enough that she wasn't asked what she was sick with. Luckily, they stored all their lesson plans in a central cloud, so a substitute could easily cover her lessons for the day.

She shut her eyes when she heard the distinct sound of flesh hitting flesh, and felt the bile push up her throat. This wasn't the Gabe she knew or recognised.

She didn't know how long she sat there, shutting out the world. She heard him tap on the window to let him; she stared at him through the clear glass. This stranger who looked like her Gabe but who went around waving guns in people's faces and punching them.

"Nat, open the door," his voice was gentler, more like him. She gingerly opened it. Waiting for him to get inside.

She could see that Ty had backed out of the alleyway and so had the other car. It was just them left in there. Gabe effortlessly reversed out of the narrow space between the two buildings, and got them back onto the open road.

"Can you drop me off at home, please?" she requested avoiding looking at him directly.

"Sure, babe." he took her hand. She looked down at their joined fingers, her brown coloured smaller ones encased in his thick and tanned beige digits. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. Natalia withdrew her hand, placing it on her lap. How did his knuckles get so bloody, how many times did he punch that man?

When they got home, she was relieved to see there were no cars out of the ordinary parked outside.

When he leaned in to kiss her goodbye, she turned her head. His lips landed on the corner of her mouth, instead of their usual place on her lips, where they felt like home.

She let out a surprised squeak when he grabbed her chin suddenly, forcing her to meet his determined green gaze. "Whatever you're mad about, I suggest you get over it cos I'll never apologise for protecting what's mine. Ty's outside if you need him." With that he climbed back into the car and drove off.