I thought escaping my ex-husband would keep my unborn child safe. Instead, one glance at my eight-month pregnant belly exposed the secret I'd risked everything to protect, and the woman standing beside the most feared mafia boss in New York unknowingly set off a storm that made every armed guard in the room reach for their weapons.

Thirty minutes. That was all the time I had.

Panic superseded fear, replacing my paralysis with a desperate, frantic energy. I didn't bother packing suitcases. I grabbed my emergency go-bag from the top of the closet—cash, fake identification papers, a passport under my maiden name, and a handful of baby clothes I had bought at a thrift shop in Queens.

I rushed to the front window, peering cautiously through the blinds.

Parked directly beneath the flickering streetlamp outside my brownstone was a matte-black Maybach with tinted windows. Two armed men in tailored suits stood on either side of the passenger doors, scanning the quiet residential street with cold, professional vigilance.

He hadn't wasted a single second.

I backed away from the window, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I needed to get to the back fire escape, down into the alleyway, and—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three slow, deliberate raps on the front door.

There was no sound of shouting, no demanding police orders. Just the quiet, terrifying knock of a man who knew he owned the building, the street, and everyone on it.

“Isabella,” Luca’s voice drifted through the heavy oak door, rich, calm, and utterly inescapable. “I know you’re in there. You can throw the locks, you can break the windows, but my men have this entire block surrounded. Open the door before I let my men open it for you.”

I stood frozen in the center of the living room, my hand pressed hard against my swollen belly as if trying to shield the baby from his very voice.

“Go away, Luca!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Leave us alone!”

“Us,” he repeated softly from the other side of the wood. A bitter, dangerous edge crept into his tone. “So you admit it. There is an us now. Open the door, Isabella. We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about! You have Vanessa! Go back to your high-society girlfriend and pretend I’m dead, like you did before!”

A heavy silence stretched across the hallway. Then, a low, ominous click echoed through the room.

The sound of a skeleton key turning in the deadbolt.

My eyes widened in horror. Luca hadn't just tracked me down; he had brought master keys for every brownstone in this zip code.

With a smooth, effortless shove, the heavy oak door swung inward, scraping against the hardwood floor.

Luca stepped across the threshold, shedding his damp black overcoat and tossing it onto the accent chair as if he were walking into his own weekend penthouse. He looked devastatingly handsome, terrifyingly composed, and completely immovable.

He locked eyes with me, his gaze dropping slowly to my swollen belly before rising back to my face.

“Vanessa is nothing,” Luca said quietly, taking a slow step toward me. “She was a business arrangement for a gala. You, Isabella... you are my wife. And that child behind your ribs is a Moretti.”

“I’ll never let you raise my child in that world of blood and slaughter!” I shouted, backing away until my back hit the kitchen island, trapping me.

Luca stopped five feet away. The air between us crackled with a volatile mix of unresolved passion and lethal danger.

“You think I want this life for my child?” Luca whispered, a raw, unexpected flash of pain crossing his iron-clad features for a fraction of a second. “You think I enjoy sleeping in a fortress with targets painted on my back? I built this empire so that my family would never have to bow to anyone. And nobody—nobody—takes my child away from me.”