Chapter 5 Nadia, Stop

• “No one call the cops!” Theodore yelled as he reached for Nadia. He wrapped his arms carefully around her waist. “Nadia, come here. Please… come here.”
• “I am going to kill her!” she screamed, struggling against Theodore as she continued to reach around her husband, punching and smacking him.
• “Damn it, Nadia, STOP!” Quinn shouted.
• “I’ve called the cops!” the doorman yelled.
• “Fuck,” Theo wrapped his arms tighter around her, tugged her but she was lost in a haze of pain and fury. “Please Nadia, stop. Come to me.”
• “You are making this really ugly!” her husband accused.
• “I am making this ugly? You want to see ugly?”
• When she released him, Theo took a deep breath. Nadia reached down and pulled off her heels. Sandra screamed again and cowered behind Nadia’s husband.
• “Quinn, the baby! Stop her!”
• “Nadia, I know you are angry,” Theo breathed in a rush as he tried to hold her back. “but if he cheated on you, he is not worth—”
• “Go ahead, Sandra. Keep hiding behind him. I am still going to stab you with this heel for my baby!”
• “She is going to hurt the pregnant woman!” one of the witnesses yelled.
• Quinn grabbed Nadia’s upper arm, wrapping his fingers so tightly that Nadia yelped.
• “Hey, asshole, you’re going to hurt your ‘wife’!” Theo unwrapped one arm from Nadia’s waist, balled his hand into a fist and aimed at Quinn. “Let her arm go before I—”
• Nadia threw head back and flung the heel at the glass windows. An entire glass door shouldn’t shatter with that small force, but it did.
• “Holy fuck. You see? That is why I was holding her arm. Look at what she did to the window!” Quinn glared at his wife. “Damn it, you will go to jail, Nadia.”
• “I don’t care!” she shouted back, trying to backhand him.
• “Goddamn it. Stop hitting me!”
• “They can come and take her dead body and yours once I am done with you two,” Nadia replied. Theo managed to pull her away from him and held onto her tightly.
• “Nadia?” he said carefully, the sound of sirens filling his ears. “Come here. They are not worth it. I know you are angry but they are not worth you getting into trouble. Come here. That’s right…”
• “They lied to me.” When she began sobbing again, he pulled her entire body against her and her arm fell limply to her side.
• “I know. But I have got you.”
• “I am going to kill them both,” she cried with more pain than determination.
• “Stop saying that. Security called the cops,” he whispered into her ear.
• “I don’t care.”
• But he could tell she was scared. “Shh.” He enveloped her in a hug. Her limbs were stiff but she fit perfectly. She kept mumbling uncontrollably. “They are not worth it. They are assholes that did you wrong. But they are not worth it.”
• “They’re assholes. I tried my best to be a good friend and wife.”
• “Theodore, you asshole. Why are you comforting her?” Sandra spat from behind Nadia’s husband.
• Without loosing his grip on Nadia, he glared at his little sister. “Because you are a brat who can’t keep her hands—” Nadia whimpered and tears streamed down her eyes, making him stop. “Shh. I’ve got you.”
• “I didn’t deserve this. Just like my dad didn’t deserve what my mom did.”
• ‘I don’t deserve this, Teddy. What did I do to deserve this? How could you do this to us?’
• Theodore closed his eyes and dropped his head next to Nadia’s. Their temples were side by side as he inhaled her scent.
• “Quinn, what is she blabbering about?” Sandra asked.
• The police walkies neared.
• “It will be okay. Your piece of shit husband isn’t worth your tears.” He carefully pulled her away from Quinn, trying to calm her as much as possible before the cops came.
• “Get the lunatic out of her, Theo! She belongs in an asylum. Quinn and I would have eventually told her… kept it friendly…”
• Nadia’s head shot up. “FRIENDLY?”
• “Don’t listen to—”
• Her arm swung. Theodore felt a sharp pain in the middle of his face. It throbbed and consumed him for a couple of seconds. He tasted blood in his mouth. His arms went to his face and grabbed the placed she had accidentally elbowed him. His palms came back stained with red, warm and sticky.
• “Oh shit… It’s all right, Nadia,” he said through his pain.
• But Nadia was focused elsewhere. A series of footsteps advance, crunching over broken glass.
• “She is inside that building. That is her! She threatened my son and destroyed his phone!”
• “Yeah! She threatened a pregnant woman, too!”
• “Nadia, the cops are outside. Please come here.” Theodore held his gushing nose with one hand and reached for her with the other. He drew back when he noticed the blood. “If you allow me, I promise… I’ve got…”
• “SHE SAID FRIENDLY!”
• “No… I promise.”
• She lunged again, but this time, a few cops grabbed her and pushed her face down against the lobby floor. “Alright, Miss. You have the right to remain silent—”
• “Damn it. She is in no condition to be thrown in jail. Just let her go. I will pay for the damage and take full responsibility—” Theo hissed and took a step forward.
• “No. Don’t let her go! I am pregnant,” Sandra said, flinging words out again. “She threatened me and my unborn child. And she attacked her husband!”
• Nadia’s head shot up. “That is my baby. I hate you. I hate you both.”
• “Shut up, Sandra. Shut the hell up.”
• “Go to help, Theodore. She broke your nose and you are defending her?”
• “Yes, officer, she threatened my son and destroyed his phone, too.”
• “She is not dangerous. What was your son doing when he had his phone broken, anyway?” Theo challenged. The woman didn’t respond. With no time to waste, Theodore spoke to the female officer who had been called. “Look officer. She is in shock. That is all.”
• The male officer kept reading Nadia her rights, but she couldn’t respond.
• “Look, she caught her husband cheating,” Theo explained.
• “She caught you cheating?” the female officer replied.
• “No. Not me. Her husband.”
• “And you aren’t her husband? But you are the one defending her. Who the hell is the husband?” her frown deepened. Officer Smith looked thoroughly confused.
• Theo pointed towards Quinn, who hadn’t approached his wide. Instead, he stood beside Sandra, looking lost and confused.
• “Hey, fucker, how about you get your ass here and take care of your wife?” Theo spat furiously.
• Quinn stared at him through bewildered eyes. His mouth was open in shock.
• “Sir, are you this woman’s wife?” Officer Smith asked as she stared at Sandra clinging onto him. There was disgust on the officer’s face.
• “Yes, she is her husband but she attacked him! She attacked my brother too!”
• “She did not attack me. I accidentally walked into the wall and if anyone tries to say otherwise in the official report…” he glared at the other officer.
• The other officer stopped writing.
• “I will beat the crap—”
• “But it’s obvious—”
• “Hart, stop writing, right now!” Officer Smith yelped. She turned to Theodore. “I understand your story but if you don’t calm down, you will be in the jail cell with this woman, do you understand?”
• “You’re going to arrest her because she caught her husband cheating on her?” Theo asked.
• “No, I’m sorry. But there were a lot of witnesses who saw her destroy public property and threaten others.”
• Theodore had to step back as the paramedics arrived and took Nadia away. She screamed and writhed as she was sedated. He watched helplessly as she stilled. They laid her on the waiting stretcher and in a few seconds, loaded her into the ambulance, leaving Theo helplessly watching.