The Don Lost His Little Orphan Chapter 03

The Don Lost His Little Orphan Chapter 03

I got sick.

Fever burned through me like I’d been thrown into a fire.

Half-conscious, I dreamed of the explosion at East Harbor. My father shoving me between shipping containers, his face covered in blood, “Sienna, live. Live like a weed.”

I woke up three days later.

The room was freezing. No heat. Just a bowl of cold medicine the elder Mrs. Moretti’s maid had left.

“Miss Sienna, you’re awake.” The maid’s face was blank.

“The elder Mrs. Moretti says you disrespected an important guest and angered the Don. You’re confined to your room for a month. No going to the front of the house.”

I looked at the cold medicine. I didn’t say anything.

I drank it down in one gulp. Bitter all the way to the bone. But I didn’t even frown.

I threw off the blanket and got up.

From under the bed, I pulled out an old suitcase and took everything I’d saved in seven years.

A few hundred dollars. Two cheap earrings. Some faded clothes. That was it.

I stuffed it all into a gray canvas bag. Then I walked to the mirror.

The girl in the mirror was pale, lips cracked, but her eyes were surprisingly calm.

Nico thought I’d stained his marble floor.

Fine. I wouldn’t get in his way anymore.

Confined? No.

I was leaving. For good.

…

The Moretti estate had tight security, but I’d lived there seven years. I knew the service entrance where deliveries came in opened at 4:00 a.m.

On the fourth morning, I put on my oldest clothes, grabbed my bag, and slipped out the back door before dawn.

The guard was smoking, looking at his phone.

I moved quietly past the truck and out.

Beyond the tall iron gate, the sea wind hit my face.

I took a deep breath.

My chest was still tight from the fever, but it was the easiest breath I’d taken in seven years.

I didn’t go to a hotel. Too easy to find.

I went to the worst part of Queens. Old town. The kind of place where Moretti’s cars rarely went.

I curled up in the corner of a twenty-four-hour laundromat for the night.

The next day, I took my cash to an agent who did paperwork for immigrants.

“I need to get married,” I said flatly. “I don’t care what they look like or where they come from. They just need to be decent, have a clean record, and be able to get it done today.”

The agent looked at me like I was crazy.

“Miss, you…”

“I have money.” I put the small stack of cash on the counter.

The agent’s eyes lit up, and his expression shifted.

“You came to the right place. I’ve got a young guy.”

“Law school grad, studying for the bar. Good guy, just broke. Taking care of his blind mother. The other girls didn’t want him because he had no money. Want to meet him?”

“Take me to him.”