Page 69 of Mafia Baby

As I look at the worry on his face, I realize he’s so scared because he thinks of Dom just like his actual son. My heart softens toward Vince despite how much he had rubbed me the wrong way when we first met. Even then, he had meant to protect Dom, just like any parent would do.

“We have to believe that he’ll be okay,” I tell Vince. I hold out my good hand, and he takes it, giving it a squeeze.

“We make a good team, I think,” he says to me chummily, and I laugh. “I’m not kidding!” he says to me. “You’re as fierce as a lion. There are many men who wouldn’t have been brave enough to take on your brother like that. It means a lot to me that you saved Dom’s life.”

I swallow hard. I hope that I did. It’s killing me not to know anything about his condition. He had looked absolutely terrible when we dragged him out of the warehouse. I wanted to kill my brother all over again for beating him up and stabbing him.

I’m sorry about your brother,” Vince says, seeing the look on my face.

“Thank you,” I say in a small voice.

“It doesn’t get easier,” Vince says, coming over and taking my hand. He gives it a squeeze. “But it’s just part of the game for us. I’m sorry if you didn’t want to be involved in this life.”

I look down at my belly, thinking of the tiny life inside of me. “I already was part of it and just didn’t know,” I tell Vince honestly. His hand feels nice holding mine. I can’t think of the last time that my father did anything like this for me.

I realize now what I probably should have noticed before. My family had always treated me like an outsider, as though I wasn’t actually related to them. They had taken care of me, paid for my school, and provided me with what I needed, but they had never acted like I was one of them.

Even now, lying injured in this hospital bed, terrified for Dom, I still feel more loved and wanted than I ever have in my life.

Vince’s warm fingers wrapped around mine feel like a solid anchor in a storm of uncertainty and I’m grateful that he came to rescue us.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Vince asks me.

I shake my head, then wince at the pain that the movement causes. “Can you stay with me? I…I’m scared,” I admit.

Vince smiles warmly at me. He has a nice smile. His face is weathered from years of sun and stress, but his smile crinkles the skin at the corners of his dark eyes and softens his craggy features.

“I’m glad you said yes,” he tells me, going to get the chair in the corner of the room and bringing it over closer to my bed, “because I’m scared too.”

***

A hand on my shoulder wakes me up. I blink owlishly, feeling like I’m trying to swim through oatmeal to get to the surface of wakefulness.

Vince is looking down at me with a gentle smile on his face. “The doctors are here to update us about Dom,” he says.

I feel a sharp stab of worry, and suck in a breath. I nod, feeling a little dizzy. Everything about my future comes down to this moment. Everything about how I will live my life depends on what they say to us.

“I’m glad to hear that the baby is just fine and that your injuries will heal without surgery,” one of the two doctors by my bed says to me. She looks like she’s about forty. She’s quite pretty, and she exudes competence.

“Thank you,” I manage to choke out around the fear that is clutching at my chest.

“The surgery went much better than expected,” she goes on. “We were able to repair all of the damage. He will have to have a tube in his chest for a little bit so that his lung doesn’t collapse again. It’s not very comfortable, but we’ll give him medication to make the process of healing the damage less distracting for him. He’s very lucky that you two were there to help him. If you had shown up even a few minutes later, he might not have survived his injuries.”

I sag with relief against the pillows behind me. Dom is okay. He's hurt and healing, but he’s going to be okay. I start crying as I thank the doctors over and over again, mindless with relief and retreating fear.

Vince asks some more questions about how long Dom will need to be in the hospital for, but I’m not really listening. I press my good hand to my belly.

“You’re going to get to meet your dad,” I whisper to the baby. “Everything is going to be okay, after all.”

“When can we go and see him?” I hear Vince ask.

The doctor checks her watch. “He’s in recovery right now. In about a half hour, I will have someone come and get you guys so that you can go see him.”

Vince thanks the doctors and we watch them leave. I start to sit up in bed, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain that are surging through my body.

“Hey there,” he says to me. “Slow down. We’ll get a wheelchair to take you to him. They aren’t going to let you walk around while you are in their care.”

I realize that Vince probably knows far more about how all of this works than I do. He’s probably been in the hospital a fair number of times over the course of his life due to the kind of work that he does.

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