Page 9 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

My thoughts flicker in tandem with the lightning.

Nadia.

My hand curls tight in its leather glove, the skin stretching with an ever-present ache as the pain throbs down to the bone. Bad weather always makes it a little worse, but something about hearing her voice has fired up my nerves again. The cabin shudders, causing the glasses in the bar cart to clink.

Air traffic control advises us to divert course. Wait for better conditions. The cabin lights flicker. I refuse to divert. Olivia Basham, my personal assistant, tucks her head against her knees and kicks off her Louie Vuittons so she doesn’t puke on them. We were supposed to be waking up in Switzerland in a few hours, but the wheels touch down on a rain-slick U.S. tarmac again, a balm to the frayed nerves of everyone else on board.

Rain pours down in sheets.

Basham fumbles with her umbrella while I march through the rain to the car waiting, engine on. “Wait,” she screams against the wind. The umbrella goes horizontal. “Mr. Caruso, wait—”

The car door slams and the engine roars.

She fades in the rearview, left behind in the shadow of the jet. Let her catch the next car out. I don’t have time to wait.

Fishing is a game of patience. You bait the hook, cast the line, and drink the time away. I am not a fisherman. I am a hunter. When I pursue something, I chase it down to its last exhausted breath. I leave it trembling and spiritless, but alive, at my feet. For six years, I’ve hunted Nadia. Six long, painful years. Red tints the edges of my vision when I think about it for too long.

Whatever has happened, whatever desperate situation has sent Nadia runningto merather than away, it’s dire. She was being tailed when we spoke. We didn’t stay on the phone long. I sent Elijah ahead of me. My brother’s the only one in the city whom I trust to collect Nadia until I can get to her. If he needs to act before she makes it to my territory, they need to be communicating in real time.

I’m only of use now that I’m back on the ground.

I’m almost to Queens when Elijah calls: “We have a problem.”

“Do you have her?”

“For now. It’s Dellucci. How far out are you from Queens?”

I don’t like that.

“Fifteen minutes. My driver can do it in eight,” I answer. A weighty pause follows, as if even eight minutes might be too much. “Do whatever it takes,” I instruct him, like slipping a leash off a guard dog. My brother growls as good as one and cuts the call short.

My patience ticks like a homemade bomb as I’m left to wonder in the dark. Where has she been this whole time? I’ve tortured and maimed in pursuit of her. Offered bounties. Paid off U.S. Marshals that work witness protection, which is more tedious than one would first think. It’s easy to get a man in just about anywhere else you’d want one, but not there.

Every time I thought I’d gotten close, had a hound dog on the trail, the scent would vanish again. Six years I’ve waited to find her, but these last six minutes are the worst.

I won’t lose her again.

Elijah sends me a location. I slip the gun out of my jacket. This feels like a setup, our car drifting through the dark rain-slick streets. Two dark Bentleys are rammed up on the sidewalk at the address Elijah gave me. One of them is smashed against the side of a dented yellow cab, whose headlights pierce the fog. Allempty. An NYPD cruiser has pulled up to investigate, an officer is talking to the cabbie and muttering into his radio.

The real commotion teems farther up the street. Flashlights sweep across the road. I spot Elijah, rain-soaked, his hands in his pockets and his head down, walking inconspicuously down a street of dense apartment buildings.

“Keep driving,” I order. “Don’t draw attention.”

We pass Elijah slowly. Through the streaked glass, he gives me a subtle nod forward. I order the driver up ahead, faster now, urgent on the gas pedal. We swing around the next block, ignore the stop light at the empty intersection. The long knot of apartment buildings gives way to low brick townhouses, all crammed together side by side. Short fences, a little greenery. No good places to run out here.

The car rumbles over rain-filled potholes. My eyes sweep the shadows far from the streetlights. One of the flashlights in the distance bounces faster. A shout rises up.

“Opposite side, now,” I order him. Marco floors it, runs parallel around the street to head off the silhouettes coming down the sidewalk. We reach the end of the block again, where a narrow one-way lane lets out. I step out into the rain.

Under the sound of shouting and the tread of distant boots, I hear it: the softest slap of feet on pavement, running this way. A pitched, feminine gasp for air as she runs, flashlights blazing behind her in the dark. I step out into the road, directly in her path.

Nadia’s feet skid. She lurches to a stop not twenty feet away as she sees me in front of her.

She’s haloed in bouncing light and drenched from the rain. Her wet hair clings to her cheeks, her nightgown plastered to her body.

She has a tearful child in her arms.

A girl.

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