Prologue

Little Polly McMahon grabbed her blonde Barbie from the nightstand. She quickly brushed the dolls hair with the short blue brush and then rushed to meet her father standing in the doorway. He smiled down at her and asked what took her so long.

“I couldn’t forget Lucy!” She held up the doll and straightened its skirt.

“Of course not!” he agreed, picking her up. “But we need to hurry up or you’ll be late for preschool.”

Daddy buckled her into her seatbelt securely and moved to the front of the car. Polly picked up Lucy and brushed her hair ten times. Actually, it was more than ten times, but right now, ten was the farthest she could get into her numbers. Daddy smiled at her from the mirror in the front.

“What’s after ten, Polly Pocket?” he asked her.

“Ummm,” she crinkled her face as she seriously thought about the question. “Eleven?”

“That’s right! And after that?”

They continued this all the way to her preschool. By the time she entered the classroom, she could almost count to fifteen. She kept on missing thirteen, but that was okay, her daddy said.

After he left his little Polly at her preschool, Daddy went to work at the body shop his own father owned. It wasn’t much of a living, but it helped him provide for Polly and that was well enough for him. She was his world right now, and that’s all he wanted to worry about.

Polly’s father was a young man of twenty-two now. He didn’t know about Polly until Brenda, the girl’s mother, called him up and told him that she was pregnant. He immediately went to her side and helped her through the rest of the pregnancy. After the little girl had been born, he took her in while Brenda went out to California. Brenda was an older woman, who had been in town for a family reunion when they hooked up. Now though, three years later, he hadn’t heard from her and didn’t think he would ago.

That was a terribly wrong assumption.

When he went to pick up his daughter from preschool, she wasn’t there. The woman at the preschool told him that a Brenda Renaldi had picked up his little girl. She had shown proof that she was Polly’s mother, and that he had never said anything about her not being allowed to pick Polly up. And he had, after all, filled out information about Brenda on the paperwork he filled out.

He drove directly over to the police station to report his missing daughter. He told them her name, her age, gave them a very detailed description of what she looked like, and even gave them a picture. But the officers insisted that he wait about twenty-four hours before making such a claim. He explained that Polly’s mother did not want the title, and left after she had been born. The police, however, continued to tell him to calm down and if his daughter hadn’t been returned by the next morning, to come back.

Upset, he stormed out of the police department and down the street. He drove home, his mind filled of worry and confusion and hope that Brenda was taking proper care of his little girl. It seemed to take forever before he got to his empty house.

Where in the world would Brenda keep Polly? She had sold her apartment and hadn’t kept any contact with her old girlfriends. Half the time they came up to him, asking how she was, and how little Polly was doing. She never really told him anything about family in Texas. As far as he knew, her father was a business man completely involved in his work to notice anything more, and she had no real brothers or sister to speak of. If she did, they obviously didn’t talk to each other much. So where could she go?

Someone came from behind him suddenly as he pulled his keys out of his pocket. His mouth was covered by a large hand that smelled strongly of soap. Another pair of hands grabbed his wrists and handcuffed him.

“Don’t you say a word,” a deep, scratchy voice said in his ear. “Or we’ll cut your throat.”

He made no movement to acknowledge the threat. His kidnappers pushed him in the darkness to a white van. They climbed inside and rode in silence. The windows of the van were covered in black, so he had no clue where they were taking him.

When they arrived to his destination, he was pushed out of the van and into a humongous home. They entered a rich room with a warm fire blazing and dark woods. A rather large man with gray hair sat back in a leather chair with several men behind him. The men that held him captive stood on either side, not allowing him to move an inch more.

“Why, hello,” the man greeted him, his accent slightly Italian. A glass of wine sat on the small table next to him. In his hand was a cigar he took small puffs out of. “It’s nice to see you for once.”

“Who are you?” He asked this strange man.

“Ah, yes, I probably should have introduced myself. You see, son, my name is Renaldi. Dario Renaldi. I believe you know my daughter Brenda. I believe you know her very well.”

He held his breath in for a quick second. “Dante Renaldi?”

“That’s me,” the man grinned and puffed on his cigar. “Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve brought you to my home.”

“Just a little,” he replied.

“Now, you see, my little Brenda got pregnant about three years ago. She never told me about the father of the child, or that she even had it for that matter. I know, of course. We keep a close eye on her. And we knew that you kept the baby girl. After Brenda left for California, she never talked about that baby she left behind. But recently, she came to me with the simple request of custody for the child.”

“Custody!” he shouted, outraged. “She never gave a damn about Polly!”

“Yes, but things do change, don’t they? After all, you were only nineteen when she got pregnant, weren’t you? You weren’t ready for a child. Now look at you! You’ve got her in preschool, she knows how to dress herself properly, and I hear you’re teaching her to tie her shoes!”

“How do you know these things?”

“I told you, we keep our eyes on family. Now, this is my proposition. You and I both don’t believe Brenda is a suitable mother.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” Dante told him. “I don’t. The reason she wants custody of the little girl is for the child support you will be sending her. Several deals in California went bad, and she also lost several thousand dollars in Las Vegas. So, for the next twelve months, your little Polly will be in our custody.”

“What?!” He tried desperately to move, but the men were quick and had a hold of him before he could even put one foot in front of the other.

“Calm down, my boy. You’ll get the girl back afterwards. That is, if you can round up about five thousand dollars.”

“Five thousand!”

“If you cannot round up the money, well, then we’ll be in a custody battle won’t we? And if you try to tell them about this little meeting and what will happen within the next year, well, you do know what business I’m in, don’t you?”

He didn’t know, but he could make a very good assumption. This house was beautiful, all the men guarding him, the cigar, and the fat Italian guy. It all added up to one stereotypical thing: this man was the ringleader of an Italian mob.

“You’re Polly’s sole care-giver. I would pay off Polly’s debts, and I am, but I think that you should help out a little bit. Five thousand isn’t as bad as one hundred thousand, don’t you think? That’s what we were going to charge you, but we decided to lift the pressure off a bit. After all, you have cared for Polly for three years, so much more than Brenda ever did in her lifetime.

“Now, after we get the money, you get Polly back. When we don’t, we’ll be spending quite a bit of time in court. And to be nice, I won’t even try to persuade you as we both know I can.”

“Dante, we were drunk the night Polly was conceived. Our relationship was nothing more than a night stand until she told me she was pregnant. Brenda wanted to get an abortion, to get rid of my daughter. I had to beg her to keep it. Please, Dante, don’t do this. All I want to do is be a father. I want nothing to do with this part of her life.”

“But you see boy, we are a part of Polly’s life. Our blood races through her stronger than yours ever will. You cannot escape family, no matter how hard you try.” With that said, Dante nodded to one of the goons holding him captive, and he was thrown into a world of darkness.