I Hid the Mafia Boss’s Baby, but His First Question—and the Call That Followed—Changed Everything

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Chapter 1: The Call

The phone rang once.

Dominic glanced at the screen. Whatever he saw made his expression go still.

“Who is it?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

The phone rang again. I set the ginger tea on the edge of his desk, careful not to spill a drop. My fingers had started to tremble, and I didn’t want him to mistake that for permission to decide what happened next.

“Who’s calling?”

“Someone who knows how to wait.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

The third ring cut through the office. Dominic picked up, but I reached for the phone before he could lift it to his ear.

“Speaker.”

His eyes met mine. For a moment, the man who controlled half the conversations in Chicago looked as if he might refuse.

Then he tapped the screen.

“Talk.”

“Mr. Bellano.” A man’s voice came through, clipped and low. “We have a problem.”

Dominic’s gaze stayed fixed on me. “You have one minute.”

“Someone’s been watching the clinic on North Halsted. One of our people recognized him from Raines’s crew.”

The room seemed to tilt.

I grabbed the desk to steady myself. The ultrasound picture pressed against my purse beneath a packet of tissues, its soft paper edge suddenly feeling like a flare in the dark.

Dominic’s expression hardened. “How long?”

“We can’t say. We saw him near the entrance this morning. He wasn’t there when we circled back.”

“Did he follow her?”

“We don’t know.”

My throat tightened. “You’re talking about me.”

There was a brief silence on the line.

“Who is this?” I demanded.

“Security,” Dominic said.

“Your security chief?”

“Correct, Mr. Bellano,” the man replied.

“Did you know I went to the clinic?” I asked him.

Another pause. “I didn’t know until we received the report.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Dominic reached to end the call. I stepped between him and the phone.

“Don’t.”

His hand stopped above the screen.

“Tell me what you know,” I said to the voice on the line.

“Only what I told you. A man connected to Raines’s people was seen near the clinic. We’re checking the area now.”

“Checking it how?”

“Quietly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re trying to find him without drawing attention.”

I let out a short, unsteady breath. The word quietly was supposed to make me feel safe. It didn’t. It made me picture strangers moving around my life while I was kept in the dark.

Dominic took the phone.

“Keep your people away from her,” he said.

“Sir—”

“I said keep your people away from her unless she asks for help. If you spot the man again, you call me. You don’t approach him.”

A beat of silence.

“Understood.”

Dominic ended the call.

I stared at him. “You knew.”

“I knew someone might be watching.”

“That’s not what I meant. You knew I went to the clinic.”

His gaze flicked toward my purse. He had always been good at noticing what I tried to hide. I’d spent four years pretending that quality made me feel seen. Right then, it made me feel exposed.

“Yes,” he said.

The answer landed harder than a denial would have.

“How?”

“I called your doctor.”

For one second, the office went silent enough for me to hear the hum of the lights.

“You called my doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was worried.”

“You were worried, so you called my doctor?”

“I knew something was wrong. You were pale. You stopped drinking coffee. You’d been—”

“Don’t list my symptoms like evidence in a case.”

His mouth tightened. “I’m not.”

“You called the person I went to for private medical care and expected me to accept that as concern?”

“No.”

“Did you give them my name?”

“Penelope—”

“Did you?”

“I called. I had no right to.”

“That still isn’t an answer.”

He looked down at the phone in his hand, as though it might offer him a better one. Then he set it on the desk.

“I won’t make excuses,” he said.

“I didn’t ask for excuses.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” My voice shook, and I hated that. “You don’t get to reach into every part of my life just because you can.”

For the first time since I’d entered his office, he looked less like the man Chicago feared and more like the man I’d trusted in the quiet hours before sunrise. That didn’t help. If anything, it made the hurt harder to hold.

“I shouldn’t have called,” he said.

“No. You shouldn’t have.”

He took one step toward me. I stepped back.

He stopped.

The space between us held more than nine weeks of silence. It held the night I’d left his penthouse before dawn, the questions neither of us had asked, and the tiny heartbeat I’d heard that afternoon. I pressed one hand against my purse, protecting the photograph inside without meaning to.

Dominic noticed. Of course he did.

His eyes lowered to my hand.

“Penelope,” he said quietly. “What happened today?”

“That’s mine to tell.”

“Yes.”

“You keep saying the right thing after doing the wrong one.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” I asked again.

His jaw flexed. For a moment, anger seemed to rise in him—not at me, I thought, but at the helplessness of not being able to fix this by making one call or giving one order. Then he swallowed it.

“The man outside the clinic may be looking for leverage,” he said. “I don’t want you walking out of here alone.”

“I’m not staying here.”

“I didn’t say you had to stay.”

“You were about to.”

He held my gaze. “I was about to ask you to wait until my people know the building is clear.”

“Your people have already made this worse.”

“That doesn’t mean the threat isn’t real.”

“I know it’s real.” I gripped the strap of my purse. “That’s why I’m going to the clinic myself. I want to speak with them and find out who you contacted, and what they can tell me. I’m not going to sit in this office while everyone else decides what I’m allowed to know.”

“I can have someone drive you.”

“No.”

“Penny—”

“No driver. No guard. No one following me to prove you’re sorry.”

A muscle moved in his cheek. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“Then listen to what I’m saying.”

The words seemed to stop him more effectively than any threat could have. His hand, which had been resting on the desk, curled once and opened again.

“All right,” he said.

I watched him, waiting for the order that didn’t come.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I won’t make you take a car. I won’t send anyone after you.” He paused. “Will you let me call the clinic and tell them you’re coming?”

“No. I’ll call them.”

“Then call them.”

I had expected him to argue. His restraint didn’t erase the anger or fear twisting my stomach, but it gave me room to breathe.

I took my phone from my coat pocket. Before I could unlock it, Dominic spoke.

“If you see the man, don’t confront him. Go somewhere public and call someone you trust.”

“That’s my decision.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

The simple agreement unsettled me more than another command would have. I looked at the closed office doors, then at the phone on his desk.

“Who else knows?”

“About the clinic? No one in my office should.”

“That isn’t the same as no one.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

I wanted to ask whether he knew what I’d gone there to hear. I wanted to ask if he’d known there might be a baby before he bought ginger tea for my desk. But I couldn’t make the words come out without exposing the secret I’d come here determined to keep.

So I picked up the tea.

It was still warm. The ginger scent rose faintly from the cup, gentle and familiar, and for one brief second I nearly broke. He’d remembered what helped when my stomach turned. He’d noticed the things I hadn’t told him.

That tenderness didn’t give him the right to my doctor.

I put the cup down again.

“I’m going back to my desk,” I said. “Then I’m leaving.”

Dominic didn’t block the door. “I’ll have security clear the elevators.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know.” He glanced at the phone. “The floor is quiet. Let me at least make sure you can get out without walking past anyone.”

I considered refusing just to prove I could. But the man near the clinic wasn’t an argument I could win by being stubborn. I could choose what help to accept without pretending I wasn’t afraid.

“Clear the elevators,” I said. “Don’t send anyone with me.”

“Understood.”

I reached for the door.

“Penny.”

I looked back.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology sounded plain. No promise that I would forgive him. No claim that he’d had a good reason. For now, it was the only thing he could say that didn’t ask me to comfort him.

I nodded once and left.

The executive floor remained unnaturally quiet. My desk sat where I’d left it, the cup ring marking the polished wood beside my keyboard. I put the ginger tea down and took my phone out again. My hand was steadier now. I searched for the clinic’s number.

Before I could press call, a soft chime came from Dominic’s office.

Then another.

I glanced through the open doors. He had picked up his phone. A sharp line appeared between his brows as he read the screen.

“What is it?” I called.

He didn’t answer.

I walked back toward the office, stopping at the threshold. “Dominic.”

He looked up. Whatever was on his face made the air turn cold.

“Show me,” I said.

“Penny—”

“Show me.”

He turned the phone toward me.

The image was grainy, but there was no mistaking the woman in it: my dark coat, my pale scarf, the hand clutching my purse as I stepped out of the clinic. The clinic sign was visible over my shoulder.

I knew the moment. I knew the sidewalk. I knew the cold wind lifting the end of my scarf.

The photograph had been taken from across the street.