In Protective Custody

Whatever she thought her in-laws were involved in could wait. Hadn’t he already bitten his tongue regarding the Rialtos for more than a year? While Max had instinctively distrusted Joe from the start, Emily had been blinded by love.

Emily drew an unsteady breath and frowned. “Joe…murder’d.”

This much he already knew. The police had filled Max in on witness accounts of how an armed man had barged into the restaurant where Emily and Joe had been dining and shot her husband in cold blood.

Max choked back the bile that rose in his throat, imagining his sister’s fear and pain the night Joe’s killer had opened fire on them. The horror. The violence.

“I know, Em. The police are working a few leads to try to find the man—”

“Joe…murder’d.”

Acid burned his gut. Was she saying she knew who killed Joe? That his murder was somehow linked to his family and drugs?

Max mentally reviewed what he knew of Joe and his father. Their shipping business was small but enormously lucrative. And could easily have been infiltrated by drug smugglers.

Or did Joe’s murder mean the Rialtos’ involvement was consensual?

That possibility kicked Max’s pulse up a notch, stirred a cold frisson of suspicion in his bones. Either way, living on the fringes of such a volatile business was no life for Emily. Or her son.

“Pr’tect…baby from…Rialtos.” Emily’s pleas echoed his own thoughts, and a foreboding chill washed through him.

“Maybe you could get a restraining order to—”

Emily shook her head, her eyes reflecting the same skepticism that twisted in him. After witnessing Anthony Rialto in action, Max knew she was right. A court order wouldn’t stop the Rialtos from taking what they wanted.

He tried to reason out a better option, but Emily nixed every idea, offering cold truths she’d learned about her father-in-law. When he suggested involving the police, she claimed Anthony Rialto had dirty cops on his payroll.

Gasping her beliefs one key word at a time, she argued breathlessly that if the Rialtos got the baby when he was released from the hospital, they’d take him out of the country and fight her custody rights. Her impassioned pleas for her child, even as she fought for her own life, wrenched Max’s emotions in knots.

“You’re only…one I…trust. Don’t…let baby…outta…your sight.” She was truly winded now, struggling for air, and Max place his free hand over her lips.

“Easy. Hush now.” He clenched his teeth and sighed. “I won’t go to the police, and I won’t let Joe’s family get near your son. I promise.”

Her grip loosened, and relief softened the tension in her face. “You’ll…take…m’baby? Hide?”

Her breathlessness plucked at his heart as much as her determination. The pleading in her eyes tore him apart. The fear and resignation in her voice tormented him.

What else could he do? The Rialtos didn’t negotiate. They had the money, the lawyers, the power and influence to get their way, right or wrong.

“But what about you, Em? I can’t leave you like this. And I can’t care for a baby and be here for you at the same time.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and Max knew he’d lost. He was a sucker for a woman’s tears. Especially Emily’s.

“I don’t know anything about babies,” he mumbled, dragging a hand over his stubbled chin.

“You’ll…learn. All new…fathers do.”

“But I’m not his father.”

“If…I die—”

Ice sluiced through his veins. “Don’t talk that way! You can’t die. You have a baby to raise.”

“Raise him…for me.”

A cold ball of fear lodged in his throat. He’d tried the family-man thing once.

And failed. Miserably.

He was all wrong for the job of raising a child.

Another tear escaped his sister’s eyelashes. Hell!

“How am I supposed to get the baby out of the hospital without Joe’s family knowing? They’ve hovered around the nursery like a pack of wolves since he was born.”

That news seemed to suck the spirit from Emily. The hope in her eyes dimmed, and pain sliced Max’s chest. If she gave up hope and quit fighting for her life…

He had to do something. But what she asked of him was daunting. A baby! Memories of his failed marriage rose to haunt him. Emily’s need battled the demons of his past.

Finally, Emily’s desperate, tormented expression swayed him. He leaned close and whispered fiercely in her ear. “Emily, listen to me. For once in your life, do what I’m telling you. I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”

She met his gaze, hope lighting her eyes.

“I’ll find a way to get your son out of here, to hide him from Joe’s family and keep him safe for you, if…” He wagged a finger in her face to punctuate his point. Already the hurdles of getting the baby past the Rialtos loomed in his mind. “Swear to me, promise me now, you will fight. You cannot give up hope. You have to get well, so that you can take care of your baby yourself. Like I tell my Pee Wee football kids—no quitters on my team. Understand?”

A flicker of warmth lit her eyes, and Max knew he’d made the only choice he could. If his promise would give Emily the hope she needed to survive, he’d promise her the moon and figure out how to get it. Despite his track record.

Maybe helping Emily would redeem him in some small way for his failures in the past. He refused to let her down.

“I’ll keep your son safe for you.”

The next afternoon, Max backed out of his sister’s hospital room and closed the door. Tucked to his chest, he carried the duffel bag he’d used to bring her clean pajamas and a pillow from home. The police detective, having gotten a few minutes alone with Emily earlier in the day, had finally left the hospital. Only one hurdle remained.

Max cast a wry grin to the beefy-armed thug standing guard at her door. “She’s nursing the baby and doesn’t want her big brother watching,” he lied.

The Rialtos’ lackey, obviously assigned as watchdog while the family attended Joe’s funeral, shifted his bulky weight and cut a nervous glance toward Emily’s door. Max’s ploy worked as he’d hoped. The guard seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a breast-feeding mother and didn’t enter the room to check on them.

Max aimed a finger at the duffel bag. “I’m gonna drop her dirty clothes at the laundry and get a bite to eat. Want anything from the snack bar?”

The Rialtos’ man glowered at Max and shook his head.

“Whatever.” Max turned and headed for the elevator, praying that the baby hidden in the duffel continued to sleep until he got out of the hospital. He hoped no one looked too closely through the large gap in the duffel’s zipper he’d left open for air.

After he’d promised to take care of her son, Emily’s mood and condition had improved enough that her doctor and the baby’s pediatrician had both agreed to let her see her son. And Max’s sketchy plan began to take shape. He spoke to the pediatrician privately and convinced the man to sign for the baby’s discharge while the Rialtos attended Joe’s funeral.

During Emily’s visit with the discharged baby, they waited for his nephew to fall asleep. Now, careful not to jostle the boy in the vented bag, Max exited the medical center New Orleans natives fondly called Charity Hospital. He made his way across the divided street to the visitors’ parking garage.

Phase one of his mission complete, Max buckled his nephew in the car seat he’d bought on the way to the hospital that afternoon. When he slid behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee and cranked the engine, the radio blared from the rear speakers. Mick Jagger woke the sleeping baby, who tuned up and added his vocals to the Stones.