Page 10 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

And shit, that was the way I liked it too. I had trained as a doctor, but I never had any intention of actually working in a hospital—I planned to serve as the primary medical team for our mafia, to make sure none of our men ended up with injuries more severe than they could manage. I’ve seen too many men die for stupid reasons, because they were too scared about getting caught to go to the hospital and get the help they needed, and I knew that the only way to change that was to provide the same service in a way they couldn’t turn their back on.

I was just getting started when the Magliones started causing problems. At first, we thought it was little more than the usual gang bullshit, people trying to stir up trouble for the sake of looking tough. But as time went on, it became obvious that these fuckers weren’t going away—and that we’d need more than we currently had to make them pay for what they had done.

Because it wasn’t just the usual shit that people tried to pile into this world. No—they weren’t bringing in bricks of weed or coke, or even trying to move guns through the streets. They were selling people. Women, to be specific. Walling them up in these twisted little buildings and then charging a cover fee before they allowed just about anyone to walk in there and do what they wanted.

We raided one, but it only pissed them off—we managed to get a few girls out of there, but there were dozens more captured all over the city, and I had no doubt that they were doing everything in their power to make sure they brought in more. I hated the thought of it, all these women being dragged into something they didn’t understand—perhaps promised some work, something stable, only to find themselves servicing the kind of pigs who liked nothing more than to abuse women who had no choice but to take it.

And the raid sparked an attack on us. Not one of our warehouses or gangs, but my father’s home. They fire-bombed it, but thank God, my father managed to get out before he was burned alive in the fury of the fire. But from that moment out, he realized that he couldn’t keep his sons around any longer—he needed us gone so he could focus on taking them down, once and for all.

Emil and I dug in our heels, of course, but it didn’t do shit. If we were stubborn, we had learned it from him, and he knew that nothing good would come of keeping us there.

“You need to get out,” he told us, his voice firm. “You need to get out of the city for a few months till all of this dies down. I can’t risk them targeting you. And I can’t risk being distracted by the worry that they will.”

“Dad, we can’t just—” Emil started, but Dad whipped his hand up, silencing his youngest son.

“You heard me,” he replied sharply. “You need to go. I have apartments set up for you in Pensacola, and that’s where you’re going to spend the next few months. Just try not to get in any trouble while you’re out there, okay?”

I nodded—and I meant it, even though I knew my brother would not agree with me. I intended to come here and to let sleeping dogs lie, to keep my head down and focus on work at the hospital. I applied for a job here, and I was pretty sure that my father’s name had gone some way to making sure that I landed it—either way, I was glad for the distraction. I had a six-month stint currently planned, and while I don’t know what’s going to happen when I come out the other side, at least I have something to keep me busy while I’m living here.

But trouble? Yeah, I might just have walked into more trouble than I know what to do with. And I don’t have a single clue of how I’m going to work through it.

“What happened, then?” Emil demands, his eyes narrowing as he locks them onto me. Emil looks more like our late mother than I do—her brown eyes, her light brown hair, her tone of voice. I know he wouldn’t like the comparison, given that he wants to be seen as the toughest motherfucker on the block, but he knows as well as I do that it’s true.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. No easy way to break this. I just have to rip the Band-Aid off and tell him the truth.

“I have a daughter.”

He lets out a short bark of laughter—like he assumes I have to be joking. But as he stares back at me and waits for me to confess that it’s all a joke, I just stay silent.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he growls, leaning forward, his voice dropping in panic. “What do you mean, you have a daughter? You got someone pregnant? We’ve only been here a few months?—”

“It was a while ago,” I reply. “You remember when I came back here at the start of the year, before all the shit back home kicked off? I hooked up with a girl at this—at this party…”

“You never mentioned that to me,” he fires back.

I shrug. “Not like I’m going to tell you abouteverygirl I sleep with.” The flicker of a smile crosses my face. “We’d be here all day, wouldn’t we?”

He smirks slightly. He knows as well as I do the reputation I have with women, and he’s not going to go pressing for moreright now—not when there are bigger things for us to concern ourselves with.

“So you slept with this girl, got her pregnant,” he continues. “How did you find out? Didn’t know you were keeping in touch with these women…”

“I’m not,” I reply. “I…I delivered the baby.”

He falls silent once more, his eyebrows nearly vanishing into his hairline as he downs the rest of the vodka. Once he has poured himself another glass, he turns his attention back to me.

“You delivered the baby.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re sure it’s yours?”

“I asked her,” I reply. “She tried to deny it at first, but she eventually came clean.”

“Shit,” he mutters. “So she knows you’re the father. Does she know who you are? What you do?”

I shake my head. “No. As far as she’s concerned, I’m just a doctor,” I assure him. “No reason to think she would look into it any further than that. But…” I trail off.

I know Emil’s mind must be where mine is right now, because the two of us have been focused on keeping our heads down and our shit under control since we’ve been here. I can still hear my father’s voice ringing in my ears, telling me to stay out of trouble—I guess I have, insofar as I knocked this girl up before I even came back here to escape our enemies.

---