The first time the Mafia boss’s baby reached for me, I thought he wanted the silver necklace around my throat. The second time, I realized he wanted me—and by the third, his father had stopped looking irritated and started looking genuinely afraid.

The first three weeks at the Moretti estate unfolded in a strange, hypnotic rhythm of intense domesticity set against a backdrop of lethal vigilance.

By day, my world was small, bright, and innocent. Leo blossomed. With a consistent routine, warm oatmeal in the mornings, and hours spent exploring the estate’s walled private gardens, the terror that had shadowed his first ten months began to recede. His cheeks grew rosy. He learned to laugh—a bright, bubbling sound that echoed through the marble hallways like music in a mausoleum.

By night, however, the house belonged to the syndicate.

From the bay window of my suite, I would watch the silent, coordinated dance of security teams patrolling the grounds with Belgian Malinois on short leashes. Black sedans arrived at all hours, disgorging men with hard jaws and concealed weapons who met with Luca in his subterranean offices.

And then there was Luca himself.

No matter how late his meetings ran, no matter how much blood or business clung to his name by midnight, his footsteps always echoed softly outside the nursery door between two and three in the morning.

On a rainy Tuesday night, I woke to the sound of soft movement.

I slipped out of my bed, wearing an oversized gray cashmere sweater and leggings, and padded silently across the plush carpet into Leo’s room.

Luca was there.

He hadn't turned on the lights. He was standing beside the crib, illuminated only by the faint silver wash of the storm outside. He was still wearing his tailored trousers, but his shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, the geometric black tattoos curling over his collarbones like armor.

He was holding Leo’s tiny, discarded blue sock in one hand, his head bowed, his broad shoulders slumped in absolute, crushing stillness.

“He rolled over onto his stomach for the first time today,” I whispered from the doorway.

Luca didn't flinch. He had known I was there the moment my bare foot touched the threshold. Slowly, he turned his head, his profile carved from stone against the windowpane.

“Did he?”

“Around noon,” I said, walking slowly toward the crib, keeping my movements deliberate. “He got stuck for a second and looked like he was going to cry, but then he realized he could see the garden from that angle, and he just started babbling at the birds.”

Luca looked down at his sleeping son. Slowly, with a gentleness that seemed impossible for hands that could snap a man's neck, he reached into the crib and brushed a stray lock of dark hair from Leo’s forehead.

“His mother hated Philadelphia,” Luca murmured, his voice laced with the heavy cadence of old ghosts. “Sofia grew up in Palermo. She hated the cold. She hated the rain. She spent two years telling me that this city would kill her.” He let out a low, bitter sound that wasn't quite a laugh. “She was right.”

My chest tightened. It was the first time he had spoken of his late wife without anger or absolute detachment.

“It wasn't your fault, Luca,” the words slipped out before I could stop them. Using his first name felt like crossing an invisible boundary, stepping onto thin ice over deep, freezing water.

Luca’s head snapped toward me, his gray-blue eyes pinning me in the shadows. He took a single, deliberate step closer. The air between us contracted, suddenly thick with static electricity.

“You don't know what you’re talking about, Avery,” he said, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that made my pulse jump. “You know how to soothe a crying infant and how to pour a bottle of Barolo. You know nothing of the blood that paid for this roof over your head.”

“I know that guilt looks the same on a mafia boss as it does on a kid from Fishtown,” I said, refusing to drop my eyes, holding his gaze even as my heart hammered against my ribs. “You look at him, and you don't just see your son. You see everything you couldn't save.”

Luca took another step. Now he was entirely in my space. He stood so close I could feel the radiant heat radiating from his chest, could smell the dark bourbon on his breath, the clean, crisp scent of rain on his skin. He looked down at me, his eyes dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before dragging back up to lock with mine.

“You speak your mind too easily,” he warned, but there was no threat in his voice—only a raw, magnetic tension that left me breathless.

“You’re paying me ten thousand a week, Mr. Moretti,” I breathed, our faces mere inches apart. “You might as well get my honest opinion.”

His hand lifted. For a suspended, terrifying heartbeat, I thought he was going to touch me. His long, calloused fingers hovered near my jaw, the warmth of his skin radiating against my cheek. I saw the struggle warring behind his eyes—the ruthless warlord battling the starved, isolated man beneath the armor.

Then, his fingers curled into a fist, dropping back to his side.

“Julian Romano is back in the city,” Luca said, his voice suddenly hard, shifting back into the cold reality of his war.

The shift gave me whiplash. “Romano?”

“The family responsible for the car on the expressway,” Luca said flatly, the warmth vanishing from the room as if a window had shattered. “He’s testing the borders. Probing our supply lines. Tomorrow night is the annual St. Jude Children’s Hospital Gala at the Bellevue. The entire elite of Pennsylvania will be there. The politicians, the judges, the families.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because we are going,” Luca said, his eyes drilling into mine. “All three of us.”

I stared at him, bewildered. “To a public gala? With Leo? Luca, you just said the man who murdered your wife is back in town!”

“Romano wants to see if I am weak,” Luca explained, his voice chillingly calm. “He wants to see if the loss of Sofia broke the Moretti family. If I hide my son behind three-foot stone walls and armed sentries, I confirm his suspicions. I show him fear.”

Luca reached out, and this time, his thumb did touch my skin. His calloused pad brushed against my cheekbone, slow and possessive, sending a shiver directly to the pit of my stomach.

“I do not show fear, Avery,” he whispered. “Tomorrow night, the city sees that the Moretti family is unbroken. And they will see that my son has a protector who doesn't flinch.”

“I’m a nanny, Luca,” I whispered back, my voice trembling from the touch of his hand. “Not your soldier.”

Luca’s thumb traced down to the corner of my lips, his eyes burning with an intensity that made the room spin.