Page 15 of Pregnant By the Mafia Boss

“Listen, your daddy’s dead, and all you have to do is hand over the files to us. If you don’t…I’m going to hunt you down,”Ruslan remarks ruthlessly.

Hunt you down. Hunt you down.Shuddering at the sound of his voice, I reason that Ruslan must be part of some sort of mob operation himself, because why else would he want what my father had?

There’s a great irony amidst the fact I couldn’t outrun the mob, because inadvertently I ended up sleeping with a mob man.Fuck.

I click the phone dead; the triple whammy raining down on me like a ton of bricks. My father’s deceased, and I didn’t get the opportunity I wanted to bond with him. But to be honest, I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s not as if the man was a mainstay in my life. It was my mother and sometimes my aunts who had a hand in raising me. Originally, we all resided in the Midwest, in Ohio until I was age six, but during that time, all I remembered was him in and out of the house a whole bunch.

Often, I would stand near my bedroom door at night, only to hear them shouting back and forth. Their voices were so intensely loud they’d wake me up in the middle of the night, and I would rush out to see what’s going on.

“You knew what I was when you married me! You were attracted to me because of it, and now you don’t approve?”

“Not like this. I don’t want this lifestyle for our daughter. No Luca—you can’t. I don’t want her mixed up in what you have going on.”

“Is it so bad? I can protect her.”

“Luca, you are crazy! You have men coming and going at all times of the night, and you don’t have the time or the inclination to protect your daughter properly. You don’t have eyes in the back of your head. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m Luca Marino—the fucking Don, and any daughter of mine will be well equipped for this life. I can even organize a bodyguard for her.”

“A bodyguard? You know, Luca for all your smarts, you’re a very stupid man. My daughter will have a normal life. She will go to school with her friends. She will do her homework, and she will be like any other child in the neighborhood. I will not have you turning her into some ruthless killer! I don’t want her ending up like you.”

For weeks on end, the arguing got worse, until one night, it just stopped altogether, and that’s when I knew things had changed for good. My father stood in the middle of our childhood home, a pained anguish lining his face.

“It’s over. Your mother and I have decided what’s best for you. You’re going to stay here.”I’d flung my arms around him, pleading and begging for us to stay as my mother clung onto the edge of the door watching with a steely expression.

“No! Please, don’t leave me, Daddy!”

“Where your father is going is no place for young girls. You’re coming to live here for good with me in Ohio, and your father’s going to Chicago,”she told me that morning when I started bawling about my father departing. He would peek out the window, pulling the curtains back as I watched the amber headlights of his vehicle light up and the engine start. Sometimes he wouldn’t arrive back until late in the morning, only to slip right back out the same day. At the time I was too young to grasp what was going on.

Underground rumblings from the kids at school is what made me realize how notorious my father truly was, and that was on top of everything else.

“Is your father Luca Marino?” the kids would ask during recess and lunch breaks.

“Yeah, so what about him?”

“He’s in the news. Isn’t he going to jail?” the kids would taunt in grade school.

“No, he’s not going to jail. Mind your own business?”

“Your father’s a jailbird. He’s a jailbird. He’s going to jail. Luca Marino’s going to jail.”

I distinctly recall my mother grasping my hands as a young girl before I watched my father pack all his bags into his car before giving me a quick peck on the cheek and that was his last goodbye.

“Okay, kiddo. I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

“Daddy! Daddy! Where are you going?”

“Someplace you don’t wanna go. Stay with your mother; you’ll be safe here.”

The memory bubble pops as I break down, tears flowing like a river. He’s dead, he’s dead, and now what the hell am I supposed to do with this box?

Chapter Ten - Ruslan

“Ah, so Luca has more secrets, not just the files,” I say to Andrei as we hover over the old man’s hospital bed. I’m used to killing fields, depending on the situation, but in an odd way, I feel sorry for the old mobster Don going out in such a weak way. To me, this is a horror scene from a bad movie. Luca’s hooked up to so many machines it’s impossible to see him clearly, but it’s clear that he’s dead. Tubes are coming out of nose and stomach, and some sort of machine is drawing blood. Our cover to slip into the private Chicago hospital wasn’t exactly airtight, but the nurses in hospice weren’t exactly hanging on to hope the mob boss would stay alive.

In my former life, I must have been an actor, because when Andrei and I entered the private Chicago hospital with our downtrodden faces, the nurse showed us mercy and let us through.

“Please—we want to see our old friend. We’ve known him for many, many years, and we’ve traveled from far away to come and see him.”

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