Page 34 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

“Katie!”

I roar her name as I bang on the door, praying that, this time, I’m going to hear her speak back to me. But once again, I’m greeted only by silence—and the growing dread that something terrible has happened to her.

“She’s not here,” Emil calls up to me, out of breath as he races up the stairs. “I just checked around the back of the apartment. There’s nothing. But it looks like there’s a window broken up there on this floor…”

My heart sinks. I should have known that something like this was going to happen. As soon as those guys rolled up on me like that, it should have been obvious that she was going to be pulled into all of this. I grit my teeth and slam my shoulder into the door a few times. I can’t wait for someone to open it. If I have to take it off its hinges, so be it.

I can feel the hinges starting to buckle beneath my onslaught, and finally, the door crashes open, falling to the ground andallowing me to step inside. I dive in and look around, still calling out for her, though I know it’s no use.

“She’s not here,” Emil repeats as he follows me inside. His voice is taut—I know he’s thrown by all of this, even if we did manage to make light work of the men who were attacking us earlier. He doesn’t want to face up to the fact that we’re in the middle of something really bad here, but with Katie gone, I know it’s only going to get worse.

I rush through to Polly’s room and breathe a sigh of relief when I see that she’s in the crib—she’s bawling, but at least she’s here. I lean down and pick her up, pulling her against me, doing my best to soothe her, though I have little idea of what I’m doing.

A few moments later, Emil appears in the doorway and shakes his head slightly.

“There’s nobody here,” he confirms. “But the bedroom window is broken, the one that leads out to the fire escape. Someone must have come up here, taken her…”

“Shit,” I mutter, panic gripping my chest. Where have they taken her? And why? What do they want with her? If there’s one thing I’m sure of in all of this, it’s that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been on the scene. This is only going down the way it is because of me, and that means I have to be the one to get her out of it.

“Is that…?” Emil asks, his eyes falling to the kid in my arms. I realize, for the first time, that he has never laid eyes on her before.

“Yeah, this is Polly,” I reply. It’s not exactly how I intended for my brother to meet my little girl, but I guess you don’t always get to choose how these things are going to play out.

“Hey, Polly,” Emil remarks, taking a step toward her. There’s a smear of blood on his cheek from where one of our attackers tried to grab for him before they fled, and I wonder what she must think of him right now. When it comes to the way I hoped she would meet her uncle, this is pretty far from it.

“I’m going to call up my apartment manager, tell him to get a nursery set up,” I continue, as I hold Polly in my arms. She has started to calm down slightly now, though I’m sure it’s going to be a long time before she fully comes back down to earth. After seeing what happened to her mother, I guess it’s only natural that she would be in full-blown panic mode. She’s just a baby, after all, and she’s not prepared for anything that comes with this.

“A nursery?” Emil replies, knitting his brows together. “You’re going to move her in with you?—”

“I don’t see what choice I have, Emil,” I shoot back angrily. “What, you want me to just leave her here? Pretend like I’ve never even met her? My own daughter, when I know her mother isn’t there to look after her?”

He shifts from one foot to the other. He has the decency, at least, to look a little embarrassed.

“You said you weren’t going to get involved with them,” he reminds me bluntly, lifting his gaze to meet mine. “What the fuck happened to that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” he counters, pissed. “If we’re going to get through this mess, then we need to be honest with each other. And I need to know when you’re running around with some?—”

“Running around?” I exclaim. “She’s the mother of my child, Emil! It’s not like she’s just some random?—”

I stop myself before I go on, glancing down at Polly. I know she’s hardly old enough to understand me yet, but that doesn’t mean I want to speak about women in any derogatory way in front of her.

“It’s not like the other women I’ve been with,” I continue, lowering my voice. “We have something. Something real. And I’m not just going to turn my back and walk away from that without finding out if?—”

“And now she’s been kidnapped,” he reminds me. “Now she’s in trouble, and you have to get her out of it, because you’re the one who got her into it. Remember?”

“And I will,” I protest. “Whatever it takes to get her out of there, I’ll do it. I just need to get Polly somewhere safe, get her locked down, and then I’ll get Katie out.”

“You don’t think that’s what they want?” he explodes. “The Magliones are obviously the ones behind this, Luca, and you’re about to walk straight into their trap!”

I clench my jaw. I hate to admit it, but he’s right. They’re expecting me to come looking for Katie. They want me to forget all of my good sense and go after her, and they’re going to trap me into something I can’t even fathom right now as soon as they get the chance.

“That doesn’t mean I’m just going to sit back and do nothing!”

“I’m not asking you to do that,” Emil replies, stalking toward me, his face hot with anger. “I’m asking you to think twice about this. I don’t care that some girl has got in trouble?—”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I snarl. I know he’s not the one I should be aiming my anger at right now, but I can’t hold it in. The thought of them coming here and taking her, taking Katie from me, abandoning this baby to the apartment all alone—it’s so fucking sick and twisted, I hardly even know where to start.

---