Chapter 14
Dominik
Getting Rian back was harder than I’d wished it would be, it made me resort to Aiden Javol. What Josh forgot to mention was that he was Love’s hero, and was invited to stay with us for an indefinite amount of time. Fucking pain in the ass.
He walks around with his creepy cat who only seems to like him and Love.
How lovely. The universe is playing a hell of a joke on me.
I hold my breath before leaving the house.
The boys have a target that needs to be erased, they need me to go undercover on the spot, at the casino.
Apparently the guy already knows Josh and no one else volunteered.
I’d never say no to killing someone who had it coming anyway so I hopped in.
“Abort mission,” I whisper when I see Stephanie standing by the bathroom door.
I say and proceed to throw my camera, microphone and auricular to a garbage can, before walking in Stephanie’s direction.
She made several attempts at trying to contact me, from several numbers, on several different phones, from several different locations.
“What do you want, Stephanie?” I ask and she starts shaking. Stephanie doesn’t shake.
“After everything that happened I only get that?” she asks pushing her luck, she knows I don’t hit girls, she plays this game where she tries to take me over the edge and make me break my rule.
“Do you prefer ‘get the fuck out of here and exit my life?’,” I question, Stephanie laughs.
“I missed that,” she says, “I missed you, I mean,” she says and attempts to touch me.
“You have about five minutes until the security team comes in,” I warn her and she doesn’t move.
“I only need one,” she says her amber eyes glimmering, she has something on me.
She’s here to blackmail me. “I got pregnant two and a half years ago. I hid it from you because you wanted nothing to do with me. My daughter is now starting to notice a missing piece in her life, her father. And unfortunately, it’s you,” Stephanie speaks and let’s admit I wasn’t expecting that.
Is it true? It has to be bullshit. “This is her,” she shows me a photo of her and a 1-year-old baby whose eyes look exactly like mine.
Can’t be. “We were a lie to you Dominik, not me. But I was never the woman to hold a man against his will with a child,” she says and she sounds sincere.
I look at the baby better. It has to be AI.
Her hair is a dirty blonde almost brown like Stephanie’s but with blonde highlights of my hair tone.
Her eyes, strikingly green, greener than mine, and that’s saying something.
I look at the photo and almost fall to my knees.
“She’s at the parking lot with Layla,” Layla her best friend, of course she had to be here.
This can be a far-fetched scheme to kill me but I need to see the baby by myself, know it isn’t true.
Stephanie knows how much I valued having a family and being a father, I wanted it more than anything in the world, she can absolutely and most likely be tricking me.
“Follow me if you want,” she whispers and I do follow her.
I follow her until the back parking lot and Layla gets outside a black BMW with a baby, and her eyes. It needs to be fake. I move closer and see the baby smiling at Stephanie, she’s real. “I want a paternity test”
“I expected no less,” Stephanie says, yet I need to know now.
“Can it be now?” I ask Stephanie and she nods.
“I know someone who’ll do that,” I whisper my voice breaking.
I’m a dad. I’m a dad and I’ve been neglecting my child and trying to get my daughter’s mother killed.
Worst father of the year award goes to no other than the man who swore he’d be better than his father, and do ANYTHING for his children.
I pick up my phone when we enter her car and I tell her the hospital’s name. They drive there and Damian is already waiting for us outside, he’s the only one who knows what’s happening. I don’t have the guts to tell anyone, at least not now. Not until I know for sure.
“Ian, tell me you have everything ready,” I whisper to him entering the hospital with Stephanie, Layla and the baby.
“I do, but it’ll take 24 hours,” Damian says and I assent, I looked online at the timing and it usually takes several days, so he’s really rushing it.
“No one can know I’m here,” I beg him and this time he’s the one to accept.
“Got it,” he says and leads me to a blood drawing place, “So what are we hoping for?” Damian asks me and Stephanie looks damingly attentively at me.
“For a hell no,” I say and after my blood is drawn I go outside trying to distance myself from the baby, my heart accelerating beyond repair. I might actually have a heart attack right here, thankfully I’m already at the hospital so I will most likely not die and leave this child fatherless.
I take hold of the third cigarette in years and am about to light it when I see Love parking her car in front of the hospital.
I go back inside not ready to tell her. ‘Hey, I’m a father, still want to date me?’.
I go to Stephanie’s side after Karl says Stephanie has a flight planned for the other side of the world.
“What are you planning, Stephanie?” I ask her in the waiting room, the baby starts crying. Stephanie tries to soothe her but she doesn’t look very motherly.
“You did a check on me and found the tickets,” she says unbothered that she was caught. “I’m leaving, Dominik. For good. I can’t take her with me. She’d be in danger. You’re the only one I trust in,” she says and I breathe in relief.
“So she’s not my child?” I ask her and she shakes her head, I’m about to warn Damian so he talks to the lab but Stephanie holds my hand away from the phone. “It’s your brother’s”
This has just turned downright terrifying. “You’re the mother?” I ask her and she nods tearing up.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers and in any other circumstances I’d say “not my problem” but this is my brother’s child. I’m bound to protect her.
“I’ll figure it out,” I tell Damian the changes, for him to see if I’m a blood relative and walk outside by the back door to call someone I wasn’t expected to ever talk to again.
“Dalia? I need a favour. I need you to relocate someone under the child protective program,” I say to the only woman who can help me sort this out.
Dalia is a family friend who works with the secretive police and is the only way for someone to disappear from the mafia world and go incognito.
I can’t have this child live in a mafia world that led her father, grandfather and grandmother to their death. That’s too much of a weight to bear.
“When can I get the child?” she asks and I look at the sky. Sorry brother. I can’t bring her to this side of the world. She’ll have the life both you and she deserved, I’ll make sure of it.
“Tomorrow. I’ll send you the details,” I say sending Karl a message of what I need him to tell Dalia “It’s settled,” she says a few seconds after she receives the data. And I see a small blonde figure looking up at me.
“You disappeared, I thought you were kidnapped,” she says clearly hurt.
My soul stabs me in the heart. Metaphorically, but it feels legitimate.
“Stephanie is here,” she whispers and I try to touch her but she shakes me.
“Should I be worried? You completely ditched the mission for her,” she says this time I can see her repressing tears.
Josh is standing at the other end of the parking lot giving me his deadliest “I’ll destroy you” stare.
“Don’t answer what Josh wants you to. Or what I want you to. Say the truth. No matter how much it-”
“My brother has a daughter. Apparently Stephanie has her. She lured me here saying she was my daughter. She’s got Ricik’s eyes.
I came here to a paternity test. You have nothing to worry about.
I just had to manage this alone until I was sure of everything.
I still don’t even know if the child is my brother’s they’re testing the blood.
It will take another,” I check my watch, “Nineteen hours. Stephanie is leaving. That’s why she lured me, she needed to leave the child behind if she wanted her to stay safe and have a proper life,” I end and Love seems to be taking the information in.
“I got her into protective police. She’s getting out of this world”
“I see,” Love says and starts to walk away but I hold her wrist. When she turns around she’s crying. “You scared me to death”
“I’m sorry-”
“No, you don’t get to say you’re sorry when you left me in the blind. I’ll talk to you later,” she says and shakes my hand from her wrist, going towards Josh’s car.
My whole world falls apart when they both leave.
What have I done?