Page 44 of The Sicilian Brotherhood I

“We should leave,” he said.

“Now?”

He swung out of bed and heaved a sigh, as if his body were slowing down, unable to match the fast pace of his life.

“Yes,” he replied, “We spent one night here safe but there’s no guarantee we’ll have another.”

He dressed and I followed him up the stairs. He knocked on the door, and no one answered. Skye had a barrier pulled in front of the basement door for privacy, so we needed her to open it. Giacomo knocked again, louder this time.

No response.

“Try the door,” I suggested.

He tried it and it flung open. She’d moved the barrier in the middle of the night. We walked into Skye’s kitchen, where the smell of eggs and toast held promise that she’d only been right around the corner.

Millie sat in the kitchen, eating eggs and toast that she’d made at the table. She looked up at me with wide brown eyes.

“Aunty Dahlia, where’s my mom?”

My heart tightened. She sat close to where a man had just been injured or possibly killed. Millie was too innocent to be anywhere near this. Hearing her ask for her mother terrified me.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s not in the house.”

“Sonuvabitch,” Giacomo muttered.

I glared at him and sat next to Millie at the table.

“You mean she stepped out?”

Millie shook her head.

“She’s gone.”

Tears formed in the girl’s eyes but she pushed them away and kept eating her eggs and toast. She had more than a suspicion her mother had dipped, leaving her in my stead — our stead. She knew.

“Millie, did your mother tell you she was leaving?”

Millie shook her head, but the tears that poured out of her eyes betrayed the truth. Skye fled, leaving a young girl in our care.

“Giac, come.”

We left the kitchen and Giacomo insisted that we search the house before jumping to conclusions. It was empty. Skye was gone. Her clothes were ransacked and there were no signs of anything that would have tied her to her home, except her daughter.

“She left a kid with us. I only have my bike. What are we supposed to do with a kid?”

“We’ll figure it out Giac… I promise,” I said, gripping his hand.

“We need to ditch this bike and get a proper car. I’ll call Santo.”

He did and Santo arrived, trading us his black sedan for Giacomo’s bike. I could sense Giac didn’t want to leave the bike behind, but with Millie in tow, we had no choice.

“We’ll bring her to the Long Island safe house. Elena will look after her.”

I’d met Pietro’s girl and she’d been kind enough to me that it appeared to be a reasonable solution. We fixed Millie in the back seat and she didn’t ask too many questions or protest. I told her we would bring her somewhere safe and she trusted me enough to just pack her suitcase and follow.

I got into the car and Giacomo drove off. Millie fell asleep quickly in the back seat.

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