The Mafia's Doctor

<-23->

<-I-L-A-<<<
"Give me an hour," Marcella said as we walked into the dining room.

I grabbed another one of the finger sandwiches. "Sounds good."

Marcella was whisked away by people who need to talk to her and I took the chance to head to my room. As I waited in the elevator to take me up to my floor, I unlocked my phone to check my notifications.

I found it odd that I didn't receive one text message. I expected at least Charlotte was going to be my biggest problem. It was her that I was planning to meet on the day Matteo basically kidnapped me. She would have seen my car and noticed I wasn't around and probably would have freaked out if I didn't answer my phone. I thought if I were ever to get my phone back that it would be filled by unread text messages and missed calls from Charlotte and I would have needed to come up with a crazy explanation to cover up the fact that I'm now in organized crime.

I made it to my room by the time I went into the message app. I laid down on my bed when I went to Charlotte's chat. My jaw dropped as I read the lengthy conversation.

Charlotte: I see your car but I don't see you. Where are you?

Charlotte: Ila, are you okay? Where are you?

Charlotte: Is it because you don't want to pay?

Charlotte: I already ordered and paid for your drink. You can come out now.

Charlotte: Ila Emmie Archer, this is not funny.

Me (Ila): Hey, sorry. My phone was on silent and in my purse.

Charlotte: Where are you?

Me (Ila): Just when I got into the donut shop, I got a call from my mother. It was urgent and I had to go but there wasn't enough gas in my car to take me so I called a cab.

Charlotte: You're going to California??? What happened?? Is she alright??

Me (Ila): She is, but my dad isn't. He's in the hospital and the doctors don't know why.

I frowned. It looks like I didn't need a cover-up story since Aurelio got it covered. I scrolled down reading the newest of the message, from three days ago.

Charlotte: PROSTATE CANCER?!?

Me (Ila): I know! I can't believe it! What am I going to do?

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I sighed. Aurelio's creativity took it too far. His excuse as to why he couldn't pick up her phone calls was that he, pretending to be me, had caught a case of a sore throat when accidentally taking a drink of water that belonged to the passenger next to me on the plane ride to California.

Seeing the Aurelio was meddling with my phone, I decided to look through my phone log. It showed that I had declined calls from my mother. Was Aurelio trying to get me killed? It's one thing to miss a call from my mom but it's another when I decline them.

I went back to my text messages and went to my mom's chat, hoping that he had given her a reason.

Mom: Why aren't you answering my calls?

Me (Ila): My phone is glitching. It won't let me answer any calls.

Mom: What is glitching?

Me (Ila): It's kind of like a malfunction.

Mom: Have you tried telling Siri to make it stop?

I chuckled. I bet Aurelio, being the savvy tech he is, got a laugh out of that.

I got out of messages and went to my emails. Other than subscriptions, most of my unread emails were about the Walking Patient incident.