HIDDEN

Chapter Six

As Luca entered the room, Mia’s eyes darted towards him. The confused and panicked look on her face slowly disappeared and was replaced by a soft smile as her body slowly started to relax. Mia was fighting to stay awake, the older man had given her something which was making her drowsy and she felt like her eyes wanted to close. She was falling asleep but she didn’t want to sleep anymore, she wanted answers. She didn’t have a clue where she was, who those people were, what are they doing with her, and the worst thing she couldn’t remember who she was. At those thoughts her heart started to beat faster and she started to panic again. Mia looked at those people in the room trying to keep her eyes opened and then she looked towards Luca.

“ Help me”, she whispered in an extra soft tone before her eyes closed.

“ Glad you are here. I had to give her a sedative to calm her down. She will sleep for a while now”, Dr. Morello said as they stood there and watched Mia.

“ What did she say when she woke up?”, Luca asked as he walked towards Mia’s bedside and checked the heart monitor. He asked the nurse if she had changed the dressing on Mia’s wound and she informed him that she did and there was no fresh blood on the dressing.

Dr. Morello asked the nurse to leave them alone for a moment. She excused herself, walked out of the room, and closed the door behind her. To answer his question about what Mia had said when she woke up, Doctor Morello informed them that she was in total confusion when she woke up. She started to be anxious and had asked about where is the young man that was with her several times. She had tried to pull the IV tube off her hand and had kicked at the nurse as she had tried to give her, her medicine. Luca looked at Mia and shook his head, he didn’t expect anything else from her, a spoiled rich brat.

“ I checked her head like you asked me and I found a bump on the side of her head”, Dr. Morello said showing Luca the big bump on the left side of Mia’s head.

“ And that’s not the only thing. What you told me it’s true, she doesn’t know who she is. It was confirmed when I called her by her name and she kept asking me who is Mia”, Dr. Morello said and Lorenzo put a hand over his mouth and narrowed his eyebrows. It looked like the news had bothered him a bit.

“ We need to take her in for a proper scan”, Luca said and then he added that the fall and the whole traumatic experience could have caused the memory loss.

Lorenzo looked at the two Doctors, he could barely hear what they were saying as he was digesting the news that his old friend had just told them. What will he do now? He asked himself as he wondered with Mia losing her memories, how will he get those documents from Elena? He couldn’t just call her and say I have your daughter hand me those documents. In the first place he shouldn’t be aware of the existence of those documents, as the conversation about its contents was discussed in a meeting held between Elena and the people she trusted with her life. If she ever finds out that there was a mole among them, that person will lose his life and his whole family will be killed as well. So he needed to think about this properly and carefully.

“ How do we get her out of here?”, Luca asked his father for the second time and he turned and looked at his son blankly.

“ Sorry, what did you say?”, Lorenzo asked.

Luca repeated himself for the third time. Lorenzo didn’t think it was a good idea to take her to the hospital now. He asked them to excuse him as he walked out of the room, he needed a few minutes on his own to think about what will be the next step now, since things had drastically changed and most importantly how to keep Mia quiet as well. She had lost her memory, she was afraid, she could easily try to escape so that she could get help. He knew the daughter of Elena and Marcos Conti wasn’t just a pretty face, she has a strong character as well. He had gathered enough information about her, luckily she wasn’t married and didn’t have any children but what they have on their hands is a qualified criminal attorney. He shook his head and sighed, everything seemed messed up. Lorenzo walked towards the bottle of cognac and poured himself a glass. He held the glass in the palm of his hand and swirled the amber-colored liquid as he desperately racked his brain. He was sure that Elena will move mountains to find out what had happened to her daughter and if she ever founds out that he was the one who was responsible, then he could say goodbye to his new life. He will be in prison and his loved ones will be killed one by one. He squeezed his eyes as that awful thought. Lorenzo didn’t want anything to happen to his wife and children. If there was a price to pay he will pay it by himself, but not in the Mafia world. In that world they don’t take pity on anyone, he knows it very well especially because of some of his past decisions and actions. He wasn’t proud of who he was back then, but that was the story of his life, he cannot change anything, and deep down inside there are things that he didn’t regret doing.

One thing that he was glad about was that up to now, none of his three sons had taken the same path as him. But he knew that Luca had this dark side of him. His son had studied and learned martial arts, specifically with one of the greatest masters in Ninjutsu, Chan Chi. He traveled to China in between his studies just to master this art. Chan Chi had become like a second father to his son and Luca respected that old man so much that he kept his promise to never used his skills to hurt anyone, but Lorenzo had often wondered what if Luca was faced in a serious situation if he will break that promise he made to his old master. He wondered if Luca somehow felt insecure and that was the reason why he took up a martial art. His phone vibrating in his pocket brought him back to reality and he realized that he was standing there holding the glass in his hands and he had not even taken a sip of the drink.

Placing his glass down on his desk, Lorenzo removed his phone from his pocket and checked the caller ID. He grabbed on to the edge of the table when he noticed the caller was none other than Elena Conti. He placed the phone on his desk and stood there looking at it vibrating.

Why is she calling me? Could she know anything? Did she find the mole? , Lorenzo anxiously asked himself. The phone stopped vibrating and he looked at the screen, he was waiting to see if she will send a message.

“ Are you ok?”, the sound of his son’s voice startled him.

Luca took a seat on the leather couch and stared at his father.

“ I am”, Lorenzo answered clearing his throat.

He didn’t want Luca to see that he was worried. He needed to think fast, they will have to move Mia from this place. He needed to put her in a place where no one will look for her, she needed to stay with someone she could trust and someone who could earn her trust and if she could remember something about a document that she put away for her mother then that person will inform him straight away. That document has to be found and then destroy along with any other documents which could have his past written all over it.

Who could I entrust her to? What can we do to make her believe that she is safe with us… Lorenzo said looking blankly towards the photograph of his sons on his desk and then an idea came across his mind and he smiled as he turned and looked towards Luca.

Luca looked at his father looking at him with a smile and he wondered what he was thinking about. When he had stepped into his father’s office he had quietly stood there in the doorway observing him. He had this worried look on his face as he stared at his phone vibrating on his desk and he had wondered who could be calling him that got him looking like that and the name of Elena Conti crossed his mind, but he didn’t ask his father anything instead when he had said he was ok, he didn’t pursue on the subject of that woman.

“ Share the happiness. I want to know what is making you so happy through this storm that we are facing”, Luca said at the same time Dr. Morello walked into the office as well.

“ Lorenzo isn’t it a little bit too early for that”, he said pointing towards the glass on his desk.

“ I need this, the only thing that could calm a restless mind”, Lorenzo said picking his glass up, he swirled the cognac around and then took a sip of the fruity liquid.

“ Have you figure out what are we going to do?”, Dr. Morello asked.

“ Please don’t involve me in the “ we” part”, Luca said standing up, checking his watch.

“ I figured out what we will do”, Lorenzo said and the two men in the room focused their attention on him.

“ We will have to take her out of here whilst she is sedated so that she doesn’t remember this place … she will stay with someone she could trust, well someone with whom she will feel comfortable with. Well, the bigger picture is, she will believe that she’s married and the man next to her is her husband. That this house is her home, it’s just that she couldn’t remember anything…”, Lorenzo said and Dr. Morello narrowed his eyebrows as he looked at Lorenzo.

“ And where will get someone who will be a good actor for this role. You will need someone whom you can trust so that if she started to remember things then you will be informed straight away. We don’t know how long it will be before she gets her memory back”, Dr. Morello said.

“ I have found this person, he fits perfectly in this husband role. He is a handsome young man who doesn’t like to make big commitments with women , and this will only be for a short while.I just hope that he could understand the reason why this is important and he agrees to do it”, Lorenzo said.

“ Who?”, Dr. Morello and Luca both asked at the same time.

“ You”, Lorenzo said pointing towards Luca.