The Mandate
The Adriatic sun, a relentless, brilliant gold, poured through the large arched window of Amalia Vuković’s dorm room, painting a parallelogram of heat on the worn oriental rug. Dust motes danced in the light, like tiny, frantic stars. From her vantage point on the window seat, Amalia could see the ancient white stone of Diocletian’s Palace, the lapis lazuli of the sea, and the green hump of Marjan hill. Split was a postcard, a jewel box of history and light, and for two years, it had been her sanctuary. Her gilded cage, yes, but one with a breathtaking view.
Now, the voice on the other end of her phone was threatening to lock the cage door for good.
“It is not a discussion, Amalia. It is a fact.”
Her father’s voice, Dimitrije Vuković, was a low rumble, a sound that spoke of boardrooms and undisclosed agreements, of pipelines stretching across borders and money that moved in silent, digital rivers. It was a voice that tolerated no dissent.
Amalia tightened her grip on the phone, her knuckles bleaching white. She tucked her feet, clad in soft cashmere socks, beneath her. Her room was a reflection of her conflicted soul—one side, the spoiled daughter of a Balkan energy magnate: a stack of designer leather bags in the corner, a wardrobe bursting with clothes that still carried the scent of Milanese boutiques. The other side, the aspiring student: textbooks on Renaissance art and Dalmatian history splayed open on her desk, a well-loved copy of The Bridge on the Drina bookmarked on her nightstand, a guitar leaning against the wall.
“But Papa, I don’t understand,” she pleaded, her voice a carefully modulated blend of reason and petulance. “The security here is already a circus. The school has its own guards. I have the panic button. The tracking app on my phone that you check more often than I check my own messages. What more could you possibly need?”
She heard him take a slow, deliberate breath, a sound she knew well. It was the prelude to a verdict. “The situation is… evolving. My business interests have expanded. There are new players. New… rivalries. You are my only child. You are the most visible symbol of my success. That makes you a potential target.”
“A target for what?” she exploded, her composure cracking. She stood up, pacing the length of the sunbeam on the rug. “For who? Are there barbarians at the gate of the Gimnazija? Is there a secret cabal of rival energy executives hiding in the coffee shops on the Riva, plotting to kidnap me for a better tariff on natural gas?” The sarcasm dripped from her words, hot and sharp.
“Amalia.” Her name was a warning shot. “Do not be naive. The world is not your sunny Split waterfront. There are men in this world who would not think twice about harming you to get to me. This is not about smothering you. This is about keeping you alive.”
“Alive?” she scoffed, stopping her pacing to stare out at the perfect, peaceful sea. “Papa, I go to school. I study. I have coffee with my friends. I walk along the Riva. The greatest danger I’ve faced this year was a badly prepared octopus salad that gave Matea food poisoning. This isn’t about danger. This is about control.”
The moment the word left her lips, she knew she had crossed a line. The silence on the other end was profound, a vacuum that sucked all the sound from the room. She could picture him in his Belgrade office, twenty floors up, the city sprawling like a gray model at his feet. He would be standing, his broad back to the glass wall, his free hand clenched into a fist on his monolithic desk.
“Control,” he repeated, the word flat and cold. “You think this is about control.”
“What else?” she pressed, her courage fueled by a rising desperation. “You control who I see. You control where I go. You control what I wear, what I spend, what I read—or at least you try to. You picked this school, this city, this room! Now you want to control the very air I breathe by putting a… a stranger in it, twenty-four hours a day? It’s inhuman!”
“It is necessary,” he countered, his voice dropping into that calm, terrifying tone that was far more frightening than any shout. “His name is Luka. He arrives tomorrow. He is from Aegis Shield, a top-tier private security firm. He is the best in his field. He will be your shadow.”
A shadow. The word sent a shiver down her spine. It sounded so Gothic, so final. She wouldn’t just be watched; she would be haunted.
“What does that even mean, ‘my shadow’?” she whispered, her voice suddenly small.
“It means he will accompany you everywhere. To your classes. To the library. To the market. He will have adjoining quarters. He will be your constant companion.”
“My constant jailor!” The heat of frustrated tears pricked at the back of her eyes. She blinked them back furiously. She would not let him hear her cry. Crying was a weapon she had learned to holster long ago; he only saw it as a weakness to be exploited, a problem to be solved with a new car or a piece of jewelry. “What about my friends? What about my life? How am I supposed to be a normal seventeen-year-old with a… a gargoyle in a suit following my every move?”
“You are not a normal seventeen-year-old,” he said, and for the first time, she heard a flicker of something else in his voice—not anger, but a weary, almost paternal finality. “You stopped being normal the day you were born a Vuković. This is the reality of our name, Amalia. It is a privilege and a burden. You have enjoyed the privilege. Now, you must bear the burden.”
The words landed like a physical blow. They were the family mantra, the unassailable truth that had governed her life. Privilege and burden. The private jets and the bodyguards. The unlimited credit cards and the pre-vetted friends. The villa in Mykonos and the profound, echoing loneliness.
She walked back to the window, her reflection ghosting the glass. She saw a girl with long, sun-streaked light brown hair that fell in soft waves down her back. She saw a face that people often called beautiful, with high cheekbones and a mouth that was too often set in a stubborn line. But her most striking feature, the one she had inherited from her long-dead mother, were her eyes. Impossibly green, like the deep, clear jade her father had once brought back from Hong Kong. Right now, in her reflection, they looked like twin pools of stormy seawater, full of a trapped, furious light.
“What if I refuse?” she asked, the question barely audible.
“You cannot.”
“I could run away.”
“You would be found within hours. And you would not like the consequences.” There was no malice in the statement, only the cool, hard certainty of a man who dealt in facts, not fantasies.
She thought of the last time she had tried to rebel, a little over a year ago. She had taken a train to Zagreb with a boy her father disapproved of, a boy with a guitar and revolutionary dreams. They hadn’t even made it to the hostel. Her father’s head of security, a grim man named Dragan, was waiting for them on the platform, his presence a silent, humiliating reprimand. The boy had been paid off, his family’s struggling business suddenly the recipient of a mysterious, generous investment. Amalia had been shipped back to Split, her phone and bank cards suspended for a month. The message had been clear: her freedom was an illusion, a leash long enough to let her think she was roaming free, but one he could yank back whenever he chose.
This was a shorter leash. This was a choke chain.
“What is he like, this… Luka?” The name felt foreign and hostile on her tongue.
“Competent. Discreet. He comes highly recommended. His file is… impressive.”
“His file?” she echoed, a fresh wave of disgust washing over her. “So he’s a product. A human security system. You vetted his specifications. Does he have a soul, Papa? Or just a list of confirmed kills?”
“Amalia!” The roar was sudden, shocking in its intensity, even through the digital distance. It was the first time he had truly raised his voice. “Enough. This is the end of it. Luka arrives tomorrow at 08:00. You will be in your room. You will be civil. You will cooperate. This is for your safety. My decision is final.”
The finality in his voice was an iron door slamming shut. She knew that tone. It was the sound of the end of the discussion, the end of her freedom, the end of the fragile, carefully constructed normalcy she had carved out for herself in this beautiful, ancient city.
She didn’t answer. She simply stood there, the phone pressed to her ear, listening to the hollow silence that was her father’s love.
“Do you understand me?” he prompted, his voice back to its controlled, businesslike calm.
She closed her eyes. The sun was warm on her face. Outside, she could hear the distant laughter of students, the clang of a boat bell in the harbor, the vibrant, messy, beautiful sound of a life being lived. Her life.
“Amalia.”
She opened her eyes. The green in them had hardened, cooled to the colour of ancient sea glass.
“Yes, Papa,” she said, her voice flat, devoid of all emotion. A perfect, polished stone. “I understand.”
“Good. I will call you tomorrow after he has arrived. I love you, ćerko
.”
The term of endearment, my little daughter, felt like a lie. She didn’t respond. She just pulled the phone from her ear and pressed the button to end the call. The screen went black, reflecting her own pale, set face back at her.
For a long time, she didn’t move. The sounds of the city washed over her, but she was no longer part of them. She was an observer behind a pane of glass. The argument replayed in her head, not in words, but in sensations: the hot spike of anger, the cold plunge of fear, the slow, sinking dread of powerlessness.
His name is Luka. He arrives tomorrow. He is your shadow.
She looked around her room, her sanctuary. The art books, the guitar, the half-written essay on her desk. It all felt suddenly like a stage set, a flimsy fabrication. This wasn’t her life; it was a carefully managed scenario. And now, a new character was being written into the script. A stoic, silent character who would follow her every move, a living, breathing reminder that she was not a person, but an asset. A possession.
A soft knock came at her door. “Amalia? You coming? We’re going for coffee at D16.” It was her friend, Lara.
Amalia took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the mask back into place. She painted a smile on her face, a skill she had mastered in childhood. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“Yes! Just a second!” she called out, her voice artificially bright.
She grabbed her bag, a simple linen tote that cost more than most people’s monthly rent, and slung it over her shoulder. She took one last look in the mirror, adjusting a strand of her hair. The girl who looked back was beautiful, poised, and utterly trapped.
As she opened the door to join her friends, to laugh and gossip and pretend everything was fine, she felt the walls of her gilded cage constrict. The mandate had been issued. The sentence had been passed. Tomorrow, her shadow would fall. And the sun-drenched freedom of Split would never feel the same again.
