Page 21 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

“How do you know that?” I demand, and she gasps.

“You’re not even denying it,” she blurts out. “You—it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter?” she repeats, incredulous. “Of course it fucking matters. You let me—you let me sleep with you again, you let me bring you to my house, and you could have had any number of whatever psycho criminals follow you around on my tail the whole time!”

“You think they would be interested in you?” I fire back. Of course, I know they would be—they’d be interested in anything or anyone they thought they could use to cause me problems.

“Of course I do!” she replies. “I’m the mother of your child. That’s how it works with you people, isn’t it? It’s all about family.”

She might not know how right she is, but she’s spot on.

I grimace. “Just get out of here,” I mutter to her. “There’s no reason for you to be here. You need to?—”

“I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to,” she counters swiftly. “Who do you think you are? You think you can just talk to me like this, after everything you kept from me? You’re lucky I don’t call the cops right here and now and tell them to come arrest you…”

“Oh, that’s how you want to play it, huh?” I reply hotly, leaning down close to her. “Why don’t you try calling the cops, see how far you get with that? Every cop in the city knows who my father is. They’re not going to do anything to piss him off.”

She presses her lips together.

“Well, I don’t care about your father,” she replies. “I just want you to stay away from my daughter.”

Her voice cracks as she says that—and suddenly, all the anger drains out of her, as though she can’t imagine hanging on to it for another second. Tears spring into her eyes, and she draws her gaze away from me, staring off into the distance for a moment and taking a deep breath.

I reach for her hand before I can stop myself. I know I shouldn’t be touching her in public—it’s probably going to get both of us in trouble, not least give Gina something to gossip about when she spies us out here from the window of our ward. But I can’t just stand by and do nothing when she looks so hurt. She needs my help right now, and I’m not going to deny her.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes. “I don’t—I’m just scared.”

“You have nothing to be scared about,” I promise her hotly. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Or Polly.”

She looks up at me again, her eyes searching mine. She has not pulled her hand away, I notice—I rub my thumb along her knuckles lightly, letting her know that I’m right here.

“I…I heard that you only started working here a couple of months ago,” she begins, gesturing toward the hospital. “What were you doing in the city on the night we met…?”

I pause for a moment before I respond. I don’t know how much I should tell her—but honestly, I think it’s best that I come clean. If she knows everything, then there’s less for her to speculate about, and that’s only going to make this easier to handle for her.

“I studied medicine here,” I explain swiftly. “I—I was going to work as a doctor for my father’s mafia. We live in Harrotsville, a long way from here, but there was something…some trouble that came up, that meant my brother and I had to lie low somewhere else for a while. I wanted to have a job to keep me busy, so I applied here. That’s why I’m working here now.”

“So you’re not going to be staying here forever?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No,” I assure her. “I’m leaving as soon as everything goes back to normal. I want out of here as much as you want me gone, trust me.”

She manages a small smile. And, though I know I have a whole life to get back to in the city with my father…there’s still a part of me that pangs at the thought of leaving her, and Polly, when I’ve only just come to know them at all.

“Okay,” she whispers. “And you don’t think—I mean, what happens if the trouble’s followed you here? What if it comes after me too?”

“I won’t let that happen,” I promise her, with as much certainty as I can muster.

I mean it. I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to communicate to everyone smart enough to listen that she is entirely off-limits. I’m not going to let a damn thing befall her or my daughter, and there is no part of me that will compromise on that matter.

She nods. I can tell she’s still not certain about this, but I will do whatever it takes to convince her.

“If anything happens,” I tell her, squeezing her hand tightly, “call me. I’ll be over there as soon as I can. If I can’t get there, I’ll send my brother—he knows about you, and he won’t let anything happen to you either.”

“Your brother?” she says, her brows knitting together. She doesn’t sound entirely convinced by the proposal, but she doesn’t know Emil. He might be even more stubborn than I am, if that’s even possible.

“If it comes to that,” I assure her. “But it won’t. Because I’m the one they want out here, if they’ve come to this place at all. I’m the one they need. They’re not going to settle for someone else, especially someone who’s so far outside this world in the first place.”

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