Page 21 of The Mafia King's Baby

Fuck, this isn’t good.

I stare at the innocent journal in my hands, my mind struggling to process what this means. Somehow, in the rushed darkness of leaving her house before dawn, I grabbed the wrong notebook. The real ledger, containing six years of encrypted transaction records and enough evidence to bring down federal judges, FBI agents, and political figures across three states, is sitting in a bedside drawer in Celia’s guest room.

This is the worst mistake I’ve made in years. Possibly the worst mistake I’ve made since entering this business.

I sink into the safe house’s single chair, the guest notebook heavy in my hands despite containing nothing but blank pages. Every survival instinct I’ve developed over the past six years is screaming at me to move, to act, to fix this catastrophic error before it destroys everything I’ve worked to protect.

If Lang traces me to Lake Tahoe and finds my notebook before I can retrieve it, he gets everything he needs to destroy my organization and eliminate me. He’ll have documented proof of our entire corruption network, every payment we’ve made,and every official we’ve compromised. Officially, he’ll use it as evidence to bring down thebratva. Unofficially, he’ll leverage that same information to take control of our operations and the officials we’ve been paying.

The tactical disaster pales in comparison to the personal horror now consuming my thoughts. Celia has my organization’s notebook in her house. She might already have found it and might be trying to decode the information it contains. If Lang tracks our operational records to her location before I can retrieve them, she becomes a target who knows too much about activities that could destroy us all.

Marcus Lang is not a patient man when he doesn’t get his way. Three years ago, when a shipping company owner in Oakland refused to sell him established trade routes, Lang burned down the man’s house with his family inside. The official investigation concluded it was an electrical fire, but everyone in our business knew better. Lang leaves no witnesses when he eliminates obstacles to his goals.

If he discovers Celia has the notebook, he won’t hesitate to eliminate her along with any evidence of her involvement. The fact that she’s an innocent civilian who stumbled into this situation through my carelessness won’t matter to him. If anything, it will make her death easier to arrange and cover up.

I stand up and pace the small living room, my mind racing through options and calculating risks. The smart play would be to send Leonid to retrieve the notebook, letting him handle the tactical challenge while I remain hidden and secure. He’s skilled enough to get in and out without being detected and experienced enough to avoid unnecessary complications.

Sending a stranger to break into Celia’s home would terrify her, even if Leonid’s intentions are protective rather than threatening. She’d call the police and create exactly the kind of attention that would draw Lang’s interest to her location. The cure would be worse than the disease.

I could have Leonid approach her directly, pose as a friend or associate of mine with a plausible story about retrieving something I’d left behind, but that requires trusting her discretion and ability to play along with a deception she doesn’t understand, putting her in the position of having to lie to potential investigators if Lang’s people come asking questions later. If she realizes I’ve put her in that position, she’ll likely betray me.

Every option I consider puts Celia at greater risk or reduces the chances of successfully recovering the notebook before Lang realizes where it is. The cold tactical assessment points to one unavoidable conclusion. I have to go back myself.

Going back to Lake Tahoe means potentially walking into a trap. If Lang has already traced my movements to Celia’s house, he could be waiting for exactly this kind of mistake. He knows me well enough to predict that I’d return for something as valuable as the ledger, and he’s patient enough to use Celia as bait to draw me into a confrontation on his terms. Right now, he could be holding her at gunpoint, with the journal in his hand, waiting for me to walk into his ambush.

Truthfully, it’s not just about the notebook anymore. Celia’s life could be in very real danger, and that danger exists because of my poor judgment and careless mistakes. I put her at risk by getting involved with her in the first place, and I’ve escalated that risk exponentially by leaving evidence of my real identity and activities in her possession.

I owe her better than abandoning her to face consequences for my failures.

My phone buzzes with an encrypted message from Leonid.“Secure at your location? Need status update.”

I type back quickly.“Situation complicated. Will contact in 2 hours with new instructions.”

“Problems?”

“Managing them. Stand by.”

I end the conversation before he can ask questions I’m not ready to answer. Leonid’s disapproval of my involvement with Celia was clear during our meeting this morning, and his reaction to learning that I left critical evidence at her house would be volcanic. Better to handle this myself and present him with a solution rather than another problem requiring his assistance.

I pack quickly, taking only essential items and leaving the safe house prepared for immediate abandonment if necessary. The drive back to Lake Tahoe will take two hours if I push the speed limits, assuming Lang hasn’t already positioned surveillance on the mountain highways looking for my vehicle.

As I lock the safe house and walk toward my car, I try to construct a plausible story for my return. Forgotten business documents, maybe, or a family emergency that requires changing my travel plans. Something that explains why I’d drive back from San Francisco after less than twelve hours but doesn’t reveal the real reason for my urgency.

The story matters less than my ability to get in and out of Celia’s house without alerting Lang’s people to the notebook’s location. If I can retrieve the ledger and disappear again withoutleaving traces, she returns to being a random civilian with no connection to my activities. Safe, protected by anonymity, and free to continue her ordinary life without fear of retaliation from enemies she doesn’t know exist. That thought causes a pang of envy and longing that I suppress.

If I fail, if Lang reaches her before I do or discovers our connection through surveillance or investigation, she becomes a liability he’ll eliminate without hesitation.

The Nevada highway stretches ahead of me, empty and straight under afternoon sun that turns the desert landscape into a shimmering mirage. I push the rental car harder than advisable, trading caution for speed as I race against time and the possibility that Marcus Lang is already closing in on the woman who reminded me what it felt like to be human instead of just a collection of survival instincts.

Every mile brings me closer to either salvation or disaster. Either I reach Celia before Lang does, or I drive straight into a trap that will end with both of us dead and the network I’ve spent six years building crashing down around the people who trusted me to protect them.

The mountain passes between Nevada and California blur past in a haze of controlled desperation. I monitor radio frequencies for any sign of unusual law enforcement activity, check mirrors constantly for surveillance vehicles, and maintain the kind of situational awareness that’s kept me alive for eight months of running.

Underneath the professional vigilance, a different kind of fear gnaws at me. Not the familiar fear of capture or death that I’ve learned to manage, but something rawer and more immediate.It’s the fear that my mistakes have doomed an innocent woman who showed me kindness when she had no obligation to do so.

Celia deserves better than becoming collateral damage in a war between criminals and corrupt federal agents. She deserves to continue her quiet life in the mountains, helping elderly neighbors and walking ridiculous dogs and creating beautiful spaces for travelers seeking temporary refuge from the world’s complications.

She doesn’t deserve to die because I was careless with secrets that could destroy governments and criminal organizations alike.

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