Page 111 of Niccolaio Andretti (The Five Syndicates)
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PROLOGUE
Nevermind your happiness.
Do your duty.
Peter Drucker
Something was wrong.
Most of my life had been spent without luck. So often did my life go wrong that I couldn’t distinguish between bad and worse.
But this? I could feel it deep within my bones.
Something was wrong.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
I knew that much. And at that moment, I couldn’t wrap my finger around how I knew. But my mind was still hazy from the blur the last twenty-four hours had been, and I couldn’t quite convince myself to focus on the dreadful feeling that was welling in the pit of my gut.
Instead, I ignored it and focused on the kind nurse as she grabbed my newborn baby from my reluctant arms.
My beautiful Ariana.
All of this was for her.
I had run away from the only home I ever knew. For her. For something that didn’t even weigh seven pounds yet. It was funny if I thought about it like that.
“She’s beautiful,” the nurse said, smiling.
I opened my mouth to agree, but the only sound that escaped my lips was an odd gurgling sound.
The nurse frowned and clutched my baby girl tighter, protectively. “I’m going to return Ariana to the nursery, but I’ll be right back. Okay?”
I vaguely remembered nodding before she left. I almost expected her to say, don’t move. I’ll be right back. As if I could move. I was in the hospital, having just given birth hours ago, and I didn’t plan on moving for a long fucking time.
I bit my lip.
I had a baby girl to take care of now, and I shouldn’t have been cursing. Perhaps I was delirious, but for some reason, I found that thought to be hilarious. The most hilarious thing I had ever heard of.
Me?
A baby girl?
I was a stripper.
Correction: I had been a stripper.
That was before I ran away, but still… I was hardly qualified to raise a child. And the father? My darling, beautiful girl was better off without one than with the one whose DNA she shared. That was a secret I would take to my grave.
I was still laughing when another nurse entered the room. I forgot her name, and she was frowning as I tried to guess it.
“Ms. Simpson, if you’ll please,” she began. “You left your baby’s last name blank on the birth certificate form.”
“Huh?” I said, waggling my eyebrows, because it was fun.
“De Luca,” I barely got out.
