Page 23 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

Before I can linger much more on that thought, a buzzer sounds at the door, and I rush over to let him in. At least, I hope it’s him…

Much to my relief, a few moments later, I hear his footsteps on the stairs, and he appears in the doorway. He’s dressed down, in a tee and jeans, and his brow is furrowed with concern as he lays eyes on me again.

“What’s going on?” he demands, grasping me by the shoulders. I gaze up at him—and before I can stop myself, the tears rush up, and I begin to cry.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he assures me, his voice dropping as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to him. I press my head against his chest, listening to the soft beat of his heart beneath me, and eventually that serves to bring me back to earth.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I—I probably shouldn’t have called you. Nothing really happened, it was just…”

“Just what?” he prompts me as he guides me inside, looking around to make certain there’s no danger waiting to spring out on us.

“I was at the store with Polly,” I tell him finally. “And there was this guy—shit, looking back now, he was probably just another shopper trying to go about his day, but I felt like he was following us. I left the store, and he left too, and I managed to shake him off and go back to the apartment, but I can’t help but feel like someone’s watching me…”

The words spill out of me in a desperate rush that I have no ounce of control over, but he’s quick to soothe me, rubbing his hand along the small of my back in an attempt to bring me back to the real world.

“It’s alright,” he promises me as he guides me to the couch so I can sit. “You were right to call me. I meant it when I said you could get in touch with me any time you needed.”

I sink into the couch beside him, and let out a long breath. Okay, I’m starting to feel a little better now. A little less like I’m losing my mind, though I doubt he feels the same way. I can actuallythink straight, and looking back, maybe there was something going on at the store. I’m going to have to be careful for the foreseeable future, and that’s something I’ll just have to find a way to wrap my head around.

“Is Polly okay?” he asks, and I nod at once—but then, as if on cue, I hear her crying from the next room.

“Oh God,” I murmur, and I get to my feet. “Sorry, I have to go check on her…”

“No, it’s fine,” he replies, and he pauses for a moment before he speaks again. “Can I come with you?”

I’m surprised—I guess I shouldn’t be, given that the girl in the room next door is his daughter, but I just figured he would want to be out of here as soon as he got the chance, given that nothing is actually going on.

“Yeah,” I reply, staring up at him for a moment. I nod, shaking the surprise from my face. “Yeah, of course you can. She might be a little finicky, but…”

“I deal with babies all day at work,” he reminds me with a slight grin. “I can handle a baby with a bit of an attitude, trust me.”

I laugh. I feel so much better having him here, though I don’t know exactly how that makes sense. He’s a mafia doctor, a criminal, a man who is probably more dangerous than I even know what to do with. And yet, as he sits there opposite me, it’s hard to believe any of that about him.

It’s hard to believe anything bad about him at all, actually.

I rise to my feet and head for the bedroom, and he follows behind me—there’s something about the sound of another set offootsteps in this place that feels right, as though it was built for a family.

As though this is always how it was meant to be.

10

LUCA

I hang backin the doorway as she goes to lift Polly out of the crib and into her arms, and for a moment, I just stand there and take her in.

When I got that text from her, asking to come over, I had been dead asleep—one of the few nights I got off from the hospital, and I wanted to catch up on as much rest as humanly possible. But the moment I saw her message, I jumped to my feet and rushed over, not even thinking twice. If there was something going on with her, then I had to be here to protect her—I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her or my daughter, and that was the end of it.

When I got here, of course, I found out that it likely hadn’t been anything too serious. She was apologetic, which is ridiculous, but that shouldn’t surprise me. She still doesn’t really understand how serious all of this is, how much danger she could be in if she takes her eye off the ball for too long, and I’m not going to be the one to force her to find out.

And now, as she cradles a wailing Polly, I can tell how tired she is. She looks exhausted, and not just in the way that most newmothers are, but something deeper. Something bone-deep, the worry of what she has brought into her life by getting involved with me. I hate seeing it, but at least I can go some way to assuaging that by being here with her.

“Hey there, honey, it’s alright,” she coos to her little girl, bouncing her up and down in her arms. “I’m right here. You’re all good. You can go back to sleep whenever you want…”

Polly’s cries slowly began to die down as Katie speaks to her, the sound of her mother’s voice utterly relaxing to her. At this age, babies hardly knew they aren’t still a part of their mother, and it’s clear Polly can see no real difference between the woman who holds her and the person she actually is.

Once she has settled, Katie glances over her shoulder at me. “You want to hold her?”

I hesitate for a moment, surprised. I haven’t actually held my daughter as of yet, something I’m all too aware of. But one of the reasons I’ve been trying to hold back on that is that I know I’m going to get too attached to her.

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