Page 102 of Marcus

“Ma.”

Tiffany’s whisper had Cella’s panic rising higher. Like her daughter could just tell something was wrong here, and her mother was two seconds away from snapping. It had all been just a little too much. The day had started out beautifully but ended horribly. From the fire to the fucking hospital, and now these cops.

It was all just too much.

And with the way her daughter fisted her shirt as though she didn’t want to let her mother go, the tiny tremble of Tiffany’s hands obvious to Cella, all she wanted to do was protect her child. Take her away from this, and let her breathe.

“But she might have seen something,” the female cop replied, “and that’s another phone call and a few signatures away from getting her pulled into the station for a proper interview. So, would you like to talk now, or later?”

“Are you threatening me?” Cella demanded.

“Oh, I’m sure you know how this game is played, Cella. Your father—Lucian. How many times was he arrested during your childhood?”

Fuck you.

“My official statement for you is no comment,” Cella hissed.

The woman’s threats were useless, albeit scary. If only because Cella knew it would take her an hour to get to Marcus’s place, get in her car, and then drive two hours to be back on American soil where this bitch couldn’t do fuck all.

“How about—”

“No comment,” Cella repeated.

That time, she stood from the chair as she spoke. She’d said what she said, and she had nothing more to add. Grabbing her bag from the chair, and keeping her daughter on her hip who was way too heavy to be carried, she headed for the exit of the emergency’s waiting room with the cop still calling her name at her back.

She didn’t turn around.

The only thing she needed to do right then was to protect her child.

Tiffany came first.

Always.

“Ma, what did that woman want?”

Cella dragged in a hard breath, remembering the interviews she’d been forced to go through with police after her husband’s death. Hours and hours of interviews while someone else held and cared for her baby because the police just wouldn’t accept that her husband had been an easy target, and not murdered for any other reason than his connection to her.

She wouldn’t do that again.

Couldn’t.

And there was no fucking way in hell Tiffany would experience it.

Cella would make sure of it.

“Hey, hey, where are you going? Are you leaving?”

Cella had barely made it out of the hospital before someone else decided to take her for another round like she was up for it today. This time, it was a familiar face.

Chris Guzzi.

“I have to go,” Cella said, her tone short and her words angry when he stepped in her path to stop her from leaving. “Get out of my way.”

“Where in the hell are you even going?”

“Away from here, now move.”

Not that she expected him to understand.