"MAFIA BOSS'S DYING BABY REFUSED EVERY BOTTLE — UNTIL A GRIEVING MAID DID THE UNTHINKABLE

The heavy oak door swung open with a slow, agonizing creak.

Standing in the doorway, framed by the dim hallway light, was Lorenzo Rossi.

He didn't look like a grieving father. He looked like an executioner. His dark silk shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up over forearm tattoos that depicted the blood-soaked history of his family. In his right hand, held loosely at his side, was a customized black Beretta.

Beside him stood Mateo, his chief of security, whose hand was already on his own sidearm.

The nurse in the corner jolted awake, her eyes wide with sudden, breathless terror. “Mr. Rossi—I—I fell asleep for a second—”

Lorenzo ignored her. His dark, unreadable eyes were locked on the window seat, where a maid in a faded grey uniform sat in the dark with her top unbuttoned, holding his dying son to her bare chest.

“What,” Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a register so dangerously low it made the glass windows vibrate, “is she doing?”

Mateo stepped forward, lifting his weapon. “Step away from the child, girl. Put him back in the crib. Now.”

Hunter didn't flinch. She didn't drop her gaze, and she didn't cover herself up. The pain of the past three weeks—the hollow, phantom ache in her womb, the heavy pressure in her chest—was melting away into something warm and pure.

In her arms, two-month-old Leo was no longer limp. His tiny, bruised fingers were clutched tightly into the fabric of her open shirt. His pink, fragile lips were locked onto her breast, and he was swallowing greedily, making soft, rhythmic gulping sounds that hadn't been heard in that room since the day he was born.

Beep... beep... beep...

The frantic, screeching tone of the heart monitor began to slow down. The red warning light on the oxygen sensor shifted from flashing scarlet to a steady, glowing green.

The nurse gasped, stumbling out of her chair. “His oxygen levels... they’re rising. His heart rate is stabilizing!”

Lorenzo froze. The gun in his right hand lowered an inch, then two.

He walked into the room, his heavy leather shoes making no sound against the thick Persian rug. He stopped right in front of Hunter, looking down at her.

Up close, Lorenzo was overwhelming. He smelled of cedarwood, costly tobacco, and the faint, copper tang of crushed glass. The scar along his jawline twitched as he stared down at his son.

Leo was drinking. He wasn't vomiting. He wasn't screaming. His small face, usually pinched in agony, was smooth and relaxed, flushed with a healthy, warm pink.

“Look at me,” Lorenzo commanded softly.

Hunter lifted her chin. Her eyes were swollen red, streaked with tears, but behind the exhaustion was an unflinching, maternal fierce light.

“What is your name?” Lorenzo asked.

“Hunter,” she whispered, her voice rough from hours of silence. “Hunter Vance.”

“How is this possible?” Lorenzo’s eyes flicked to her chest, then back to her face. “The doctors said his gut couldn't process human milk. They tried three different wet nurses from the private clinics in Manhattan. He rejected all of them.”

“Because their milk didn't come from grief,” Hunter said, a single tear slipping down her pale cheek. “He’s starving for a mother who lost everything, Mr. Rossi. And I’m full of milk for a baby who never got to take a single breath.”

Lorenzo’s breath hitched in his throat. For a fraction of a second, the cold, impenetrable wall around the mafia boss cracked open, revealing a man drowning in the exact same ocean of sorrow.

He slowly knelt on the stone floor in front of her. The feared Don of New York, a man worth billions, lowered himself until his eyes were level with a maid who earned eighteen dollars an hour.

He reached out a huge, calloused hand, trembling slightly as his thumb stroked his son’s soft, wet cheek.

“He’s keeping it down,” Lorenzo whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion he hadn't allowed himself to feel since the bomb exploded in Manhattan. “He’s actually keeping it down.”

“He was just lonely,” Hunter murmured, gently smoothing back Leo’s fine dark hair. “He didn't want a formula. He wanted a heartbeat.”

Lorenzo looked up from his son and locked his dark, piercing eyes onto Hunter’s face.

“Mateo,” Lorenzo said without turning his head.

“Yes, Boss?”

“Call Dr. Gallagher. Tell him to burn his medical degrees.”

Lorenzo stood up, pulling a heavy silver key from his pocket and tossing it to his chief of security.

“Then go to the basement. Pack every item this woman owns and move her into the master guest suite adjoining this nursery.”

Hunter’s eyes widened in shock. “Mr. Rossi, no—I can just stay in the servants’ quarters. I can come up when he’s hungry—”

“You are not stepping foot in the basement ever again, Hunter,” Lorenzo interrupted, his tone leaving zero room for argument. “From this second on, your only job in this house is to keep my son alive. You will eat what I eat. You will sleep where I can see you. And if anyone in this mansion so much as looks at you the wrong way, I will personally throw them off the cliff.”