Page 105 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“Take them both,” Olivia barks. She shrinks between the closing shoulders of the two men.

***

My hands and mouth are bound. Harper’s, too. One of the muscled men now has a pretty ring of small purple teeth marks on the outside of his thumb. The car bumps along as I keep my head down, breathing through the thick knot of cloth making it impossible to shut my mouth.

What are they going to do with Harper?

It’s the only thing I can think about. Every wrong turn I made. To Dellucci, to Ren, to Elijah. I am the common denominator. The one who failed her over and over.

What are they going to do with her?

An angry scream builds up behind the cloth again, shaking my whole chest as I let it out, thrashing and kicking again. The men have to hold me down, even restrained, until I am dragged out of the back of the car like a dead body.

Olivia brings Harper behind us, walking her along. I wish she would run. Just take off somewhere and find help. Maybe her odds would have been better without me all along. But she follows me, like she always does, steered by the shoulder by Olivia.

I can’t tell where we are, but it smells of chemicals. The floor is dilapidated, aged, the high walls peppered with graffiti. Abandoned machinery stands in long aisles that we walk between. Some kind of old garment factory, maybe. I can’t lift my head long enough to make it out.

In the back rooms, which have been gutted of their machines and office supplies, a handful of men watch our approach like a parade. A couple of them are counting something out, standing amid cheap tables and doorless supply closets, their eyes lifting from their work to watch me get hauled through their midst. We pass stacked boxes teetering in corners, guns leaning against walls, casually, like they’re waiting for something, too.

I am knelt before a table, forced onto my knees that scab against worn concrete.

A clapping arising from behind the table. Slow and mocking.

Dellucci rounds the table, nearly barreling it over in his carelessness. We’re not in an office. It’s not even a proper desk. It looks like a prison, almost, with slabs of plain wall and oppressive yellow light. His face comes into focus against the glare. He’s aged a lot in just a few years. Or maybe a few weeks.

The cloth is ripped out of my mouth, but the cotton feeling stays behind.

“Jon,” I rasp. “Jon, please. My daughter.”

That self-satisfied smirk withers up into an ugly snarl.

“Jesus Christ, girl, if I hear one more word about that whelp of yours,” he threatens, his voice low and angry. I bow my head in front of him. Hate the way my hands shake underneath me.

“But it would be something, wouldn’t it?” Dellucci asks, his voice gruff and low. “One of those rare times you can really give somebody a taste of their own medicine.”

I shake my head.

“He attacked us,” I cry.

“Because you ran, Nadia. You always run.”

I lean over until my forehead is pressed to the damn floor.

“Please,” I beg, choking on my own wracking sob. “She didn’t do anything! I took your fucking money; I killed your son!”

Dellucci rounds the desk where he can look down at me properly. I hear his steps, see his shoes in the edge of my vision.

“Please—”

He sighs.

“You know what I think the problem is?” he asks, rolling the words around in his cheek. “What got us all in this big, ugly mess? You’re just too pretty when you cry.”

My throat closes with a hitch. I hear something in that tone. I glance up, not sure if it’s something I can use to get out of this. It makes my stomach turn, but if there is something—anything—that I can trade for Harper, I will give it away.

“Something like that, it really gets to me. An Achilles heel they call it. If I had just turned you over back then…” he huffs out a low, disappointed sigh in himself.

I look at the floor because it doesn’t matter. The world is one wet blob dancing in my vision.

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