Chapter 1 - The Request
The dining room of Aurelia was silent enough that I could hear the faint hiss of the kitchen exhaust twenty feet away.
Dozens of wealthy patrons were staring at Table Twelve, their forks hovering, their conversations abandoned. At the center of it all stood Luca Moretti, a man rumored to control half the docks and half the councilmen in the tri-state area, looking completely undone by a ten-month-old infant.
“Would you hold him?” Luca asked again.
His dark eyes were fixed on mine, stripped of arrogance, holding a strange, raw urgency that made my chest tighten.
“I’m on the clock, Mr. Moretti,” I managed to say, my voice barely above a whisper. “My manager—”
“Screw your manager,” Luca said evenly. “Please.”
The word *please* from a man like him sounded like a rusted key turning in an iron lock.
Leo whimpered again, his tiny sneakers kicking against Luca’s crisp charcoal suit. His pudgy fingers stretched across the gap between us, clutching the air until his knuckles turned pale. He was trembling from head to toe, his wet lashes glued together by tears.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
Setting my leather order pad on the edge of the tablecloth, I stepped forward and slid my hands under the boy’s arms.
The moment I lifted Leo from his father’s lap, the boy let out a ragged, shuddering sigh. He buried his damp face straight into the curve of my neck, his little mouth hot against my collarbone. His tiny fists knotted into the cheap polyester fabric of my uniform vest, clutching with a strength that shocked me.
“Shh,” I murmured, instinctively swaying side to side, rubbing small circles into his back. “I’ve got you. You’re okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
The weeping stopped instantly.
Not a whimper. Not a hiccup. Just heavy, quiet breathing against my throat.
At the table, the older man in the dark gray suit let out a slow exhale, making the sign of the cross beneath his lapel. The younger guard simply stared, his jaw slack.
Luca remained frozen, his hands still hovering in the empty space where his son had been a second earlier. He stared at me—at the way Leo had practically glued himself to my chest—with an expression so complex it bordered on pain.
“He hasn’t slept more than forty minutes at a stretch in two weeks,” Luca said, his voice quiet, gravelly, and uncomfortably intimate. “He screams until he chokes if anyone else touches him. The nurses. The doctors. My sister.”
“He’s just overwhelmed,” I said softly, continuing to rock the baby. “Babies feel everything. If you’re carrying the weight of the world, he knows it.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened. For a second, the dangerous edge returned, calculating and cold. Then he looked at Leo, whose eyes were already fluttering shut against my skin, and the hardness cracked.
“What’s your last name, Avery?”
“Chen,” I answered automatically. “Avery Chen.”
“You’re leaving with us.”
The room seemed to drop another ten degrees. Behind me, I heard the faint scuffle of Greg’s dress shoes approaching, no doubt intending to intervene.
“Excuse me?” I blurted out.
“Not like that,” Luca said, standing up. He towered over me, broad-shouldered and imposing, carrying the faint scent of cedarwood, expensive tobacco, and clean rain. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a sleek leather wallet. He didn’t offer a stack of twenties. He pulled out a black business card with embossed gold lettering and a blank personal check.
“My driver is outside. My son needs sleep, and clearly, he needs you to get it. Come to my home in Chestnut Hill tonight. Keep him calm until morning.”
“I have a job, Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, panic suddenly spiking through the adrenaline. “I have rent. I have a life.”
Luca scribbled a single figure onto the check with a heavy gold pen, tore it cleanly from the book, and tucked it into my apron pocket.
“That covers your rent for the next two years,” he said, his voice dropping low enough that only I could hear. “Your shift ends right now. If you say no, I won’t force you. But look at him, Avery.”
I looked down. Leo had let out a tiny, milky breath against my neck, his eyelashes resting peacefully against his flushed cheeks. His little fingers were still anchored in my shirt, as if he knew that letting go meant returning to a cold, loud world.
My heart betrayed my common sense with a sickening thud.
“One night,” I whispered, looking up into the dangerous, beautiful face of Philadelphia’s most feared man. “Just until he sleeps through the morning.”
A ghost of a smile touched Luca’s lips, sharp and entirely without mercy.
May you like
“We’ll see,” he said.
***
