Page 11 of Vows of a Mobster

* * *

Marcus,

The next mistress you buy a condo for will come out of your paycheck. This company’s profits are not meant for support and gifts of your multiple mistresses. Do that on your own dime, not on a company card.

Mateo

* * *

A smile played around my lips. His big brother was behaving like his father. He was right though to object. Wow, Marcus must be a generous boyfriend. I read the message again and wondered whether I should reply to it. Marcus told me to reply to all, and he emphasized several times, all his emails. My first week, I’d run his emails and my drafted responses by him but he would cut me off, and told me he wasn’t interested. So here I was now, a month later, just handling it all without him ever peeking at his inbox.

* * *

Dear Mateo,

Of course, you are right. It won’t happen again.

Marcus

* * *

That sounded so stupid but what was I supposed to write back. From what I understood, this company belonged to the older brother and Marcus was lucky he gave him a job. Although to this day, I wasn’t sure what Marcus’ job was exactly, nor his title. Everyone called him Mateo’s brother. With a deep breath, I clicked send and the moment it left my outbox, I turned off my computer.

I rushed out the door, taking the elevator to the garage. The moment I was in the elevator, I quickly changed out of my heels and slipped on a pair of flats I had in my purse. Best invention ever, those packaged, folded flats. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and already felt more like myself.

As the elevator door opened, I almost ran into an older gentleman.

“Oh, sorry,” I muttered.

“No worries, bambina,” he responded. I looked at him surprised. The way he said the word made me believe Italian was his native language. He was older, light wrinkles around his eyes. He might have been older but he looked strong. A good-looking older man. His hair was dark with a mixture of silver-grey strands. His dark and piercing eyes were sharp, intelligent, and observant. He stood tall and muscular despite his age. I was never good at guessing people’s age but my guess was that he was in his fifties. My eyes traveled down to his side, gun peeking out of his holster.

Maybe he was a guard.

I nodded and rushed past him. I didn’t like guns, in fact I hated them. My father was a cop and we used to go down the range and practice shooting. But violence was never my thing and made me nervous.

Pushing the memories out of my mind, I threw my purse into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel. Nothing mattered right now but getting through these doctor’s appointments and treatments.

* * *

“What?” I couldn’t understand it. “How can that be? I’m her mother, I should be the best match for it.”

This didn’t make any sense at all. All the research clearly indicated that relatives were the best possible bone marrow donors.

“Brianna, I told you mothers are usually the closest match,” Dr. Guzman was being extremely patient, speaking in a soothing tone. But instead of calming me, it had the opposite effect. “However, I did warn you it is not always the case. Sometimes, it is exclusively one or the other side of the family that is the match. In Emma’s case, it seems it would be her father or his family. Could you get in touch with them?”

Oh my God! This couldn’t possibly be happening.

“No, I don’t think so,” I swallowed hard, trying to endure his drilling eyes.

He leaned back, as he thought about options. His head was full of white hair and I knew this would be his last case before retiring. If Emma’s diagnosis didn’t come back the way it did, he would have already been retired. He wanted to see this through the closure and the happy ending. He took his patients’ well-being to heart. I could never thank him enough.

“Hmmm,” he muttered. “We could try parents on your side,” he suggested. “Or any siblings, cousins, you have.”

I tried to keep my face brave, but my lip quivered. The list of people was so short, it was sad really.

“My father is dead. I was an only child.” But even as I said that, I knew what I had to do. I haven’t spoken to my mother since that day when she severed all connections with me. It felt like it was a different lifetime and a different me but it was barely five years ago. “What are the odds that maybe an unrelated person could be a potential match?”

“It’s worth a shot,” he replied. That saying when it rains, it pours was so true! Because at this point, I felt like I was en route to get drenched.