CHAPTER 3

          Understand? Of course, she understood! Loud and clear!

“You want to know if they were Sicilian…” Hailee said almost choking. “I lived with you for so long, I understand Italian and most of the accents, I visited your family in Italy, and I can spot a Sicilian accent a mile away. So, yes! They were Sicilian… like your family!” she added accusingly. “I recognized the accent, filled with arrogance and contempt… like you are the superior race and we all are the dirt under your shoes.”

          Alessandro ignored her last part of the reply and kept his composure.  

“Male or female?” he persisted.

“M-male,” she breathed.

“Old or young? Were you able to notice that? Or even to recognize it?”

          Hailee shook her head.

“No, I wasn’t… I j-just know it was a man’s voice. But it was kinda m-muffled by something held over the m-mouthpiece, I think.”

          Then she gagged, her hand whipping up to cover her quivering mouth. Again, quite ruthlessly, Alessandro reached up to catch the hand, removed it, held it trapped in his own in a firm command for attention.

“Don’t do it! Stay focused, Hailee! Did this man say something in English? Or did he talk only in Italian?”

          She shook her head strongly.

“He talked only in English, but with a Sicilian accent. Now, let go of me...”

          Again, Alessandro ignored her complaint.

“And what did he say? The exact words, Hailee,” he insisted. “What did this man say exactly?”

          Hailee began to shake all over… A violent shake… She closed her eyes as she locked herself onto that terrible conversation that had confirmed her worst fears.

“T-the man said… ‘We h-have your child’,” Hailee quoted those numbing words.

          Her fingers were icy cold and trembling so badly that he began gently rubbing them with his own.

“H-he also said… ‘S-she is s-safe for now. Get B-Baroni. He will know w-what to do. We w-will contact you again at seventh-thirty...’”

          Numbly, Hailee glanced around the room.

“What time is it?” she asked jerkily.

“Calm down. It’s not even six,” he replied calmingly. “Try to focus again, Hailee… Did he say anything else? Did you hear anything else? Any background noises, other voices, a plane, a car… Anything?”

          Quite sure of her answer, she shook her head.

“No… Nothing else.”

          No sound… Only the man’s voice. Not even the sound of a child crying…

“Oh, God.”

          Hailee yanked her hand from between his to cover her eyes.

“My sweet angel…” she whispered. “My poor baby... I want her here! I need to have her here…”

          She turned on him, holding out her arms and looking lost and tormented.

“I need to hold my baby in my arms...”

          Her arms folded and closed around her slender body, hugging, hugging as if her sweet little girl was already there, safe and sound.

“Please… Oh, God, please…” Hailee groaned. “Oh, God… Alessandro… Do something! Please, do something!”

“Okay,” he muttered. “Alright. It will be done. But I want to know why the hell I was not informed of this phone conversation. Was it taped?”

          He was frowning blackly.

“The police have a trace on this line. It must have been taped!”

          ‘Was he afraid someone may recognize the man’s voice?' she frowned at him scathingly.

          His golden eyes withered her with a look then Alessandro rose from the couch. Panic shot through her.

“Where are you going?” Hailee bit out shrilly.

          Glancing down at her, Alessandro’s gaze almost froze the blood in her veins.

“To do something about this, as you requested,” Alessandro replied. “In the meantime, I suggest you go to your room and try to get some rest. I can’t risk having you hospitalized.”  

          His stare flicked impassively over her.

“I will keep you informed of any developments.”

“Leave it all to you, you mean…” Hailee gathered.

          His cool nod confirmed her deduction.

“Isn’t this why I’m here, Hailee?”

          ‘Yes, this is the only reason why you’re here,’ she added mentally. Still, a thought made its way through her foggy brain.

“Where were you, Alessandro?” she asked him suddenly. I mean… When they told you, where were you?”

“I was in New York.”

          The answer took her by surprise. Hailee frowned.

“New York? But it's been only six hours since…”

“I took my private jet,” Alessandro drawled. “Still suspecting me of stealing your child, Hailee?” he added tauntingly.

          Her chin came up, bitterness turning her blue eyes as cold as his golden ones.

“Everything points out in your direction. And we both know you're quite capable of it,” she replied.

“What do I possibly have to gain from it?” Alessandro quite sensibly pointed out. “She’s no threat to me…”

“Really? Are you sure?” Hailee questioned that statement. “Let’s see… Until you get rid of me as your wife and get a new one, Ariana is your legitimate heir, Alessandro Baroni. Although you say she’s not… Although you deny conceiving her.”

          She knew she took this speech one step too far. Hailee knew it even as his eyes flashed, and he was suddenly leaning over her, his white teeth glinting dangerously between tightened lips, the alluring scent of his aftershave completely overlaid by the stark scent of danger.

“Take care… wife,” he gritted. “Watch out what you say to me!”

“And you take care… husband,” she threw shakily back. “Hand my baby back to me in one whole and hearty piece. Or so help me, Alessandro,” she vowed, “I will drag the Baroni name through the gutters of every tabloid in the universe!”

          The eyes flashed again, black spiraling into gold as they burned into the blue.

“And tell them what exactly?” Alessandro demanded thinly. “What vile crime are you accusing me of, eh? Have I not given you and your child everything you could wish for? My home, my money. And, not least, my name!” he listed.

          ‘This was what a father supposed to do for his child,’ she thought looking straight into his eyes.

“You had to do it, but… for whose sake, Alessandro?” Hailee derided him. “Your own sake,” she added, giving the answer for him. “To protect your own… Italian… no, sorry… Sicilian pride!”

“What pride are you talking about?”

          Abruptly, Alessandro straightened and turned away.

“You, dear wife, killed my pride when you opened your legs for another man.”

          Her heart squeezed in a moment's pained sympathy for this man who had lived with that belief for the last three years. And he was right… Even if what he was saying was wrong, simply believing it to be true must’ve dealt a lethal blow to his monumental pride.

“Ah!”

          In a typical Italian gesture of distaste, she saw so many times, Alessandro’s hand flew out, long, sculptured fingers.

‘I will not discuss this with you any further. You make me sick. I make myself sick for even bothering to talk to you.”

          He turned, striding angrily to the door.

“Alessandro!”

          Forcing her stiff and aching limbs to propel her to her feet again, Hailee stopped him as he went to leave the room. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, his long body lean and lithe and pulsing with contempt.

          Alessandro didn’t turn back to face her, and tears, weak tears which came from that deep, dark well where she now kept the love she'd once felt for him, burned suddenly in her eyes.

“Alessandro, please...” she begged him. “Whatever you believe about me, Ariana has no guilt in it!”

“I know that,” he answered impersonally.

          The wretched sound of her anxiety wrenched from her in a sob.

“Then… Please… Please bring my little angel safely back to me!”

          Her plea stiffened his spine, made the muscles in the side of his neck stand out in response as he turned slightly to face her. His eyes, those hard, cold, angry eyes, fixed on the way she was standing there, with her long hair pushed back from her small face by a padded velvet band.

          She wasn't tall, and the simple style of her clothes accentuated her fine-boned slenderness. Hailee was such a delicate creature. Always appearing as though the slightest puff of wind might blow her over. That a harsh word would cast her into despair. Yet… His eyes fixed on her, hardened even more.

“The child was taken because… she has my name,” Alessandro stated coldly. “So, I will do my best to return her to you. Safe and sound.”

          The door closed, leaving Hailee staring angrily at the point where his stiff body had last been.

          'The child', she thought bitterly. ‘He refers to Ariana as the child, as if she’s a doll without a soul! An object which had been stolen. Since he suspects that Ariana’s kidnapping was planned by someone he knows quite well, the great Baroni took full responsibility for it and decided to find my baby and bring her home. How kind!’

          Hailee continued her reasoning as her trembling legs forced her to drop into a nearby chair.

          ‘How generous of him!’

          Would he be that detached if he truly believed Ariana was his own daughter? Would he be the one requiring the glass of brandy he forced her to drink or the sleeping pills the doctor tried to pump into her?

          What ruthless, evil monster took her sweet angel away from her? She didn’t know, but it was a monster prepared to stop at nothing to get what he wanted from them! 

“Oh, God,” she choked, burying her face in her hands in an effort to block out her thoughts because they were so unbearable.

          Her baby was in the hands of a madman… Her baby, frightened and confused as to what was happening to her… Her baby, wanting her mummy and not understanding why she wasn’t there when she had always been there for her before… Always!

“What kind of unfeeling monster would take a small child away from her mom?” Hailee said slowly. “What made a person that bad inside? That cruel? That…?”

          Hailee stopped, dragging her hands from her face as a sudden thought leaped into her head. There really was only one person she knew who was capable of doing something like this… Guido Baroni, the Sicilian patriarch, ten times more ruthless than his son, Alessandro, could ever learn to be.

          Guido hated Hailee, hated her for daring to think herself good enough for his wonderful, precious heir. He was the man who had vowed to… punish her for luring his son away from the high-powered Sicilian marriage he'd had mapped out for him, which had then made the father look a fool in the eyes of his peers. If Guido Baroni accepted anyone as his peer, that was.

          If Alessandro saw himself as omnipotent, then the father considered himself the same… even more so. So, since Guido thought himself God on earth, he did everything possible to make Alessandro hurt her, hate her. So, since he already had his revenge the moment he’d destroyed her marriage, then why…?

          Hailee frowned. No… he wouldn’t… or… Suddenly she was on her feet again still trembling, not with weakness this time but with a persistent fear that made it a struggle even to keep upright as she stumbled across the living-room floor and out into the hall.