The first time the mafia boss’s baby reached for me, I thought he wanted the silver necklace around my throat.

Within three weeks, the rhythm of my life had transformed completely.

I moved into the east wing of the Moretti estate. The blood had been scrubbed from the nursery, the broken oak doors replaced with solid steel reinforced by biometric locks, and the security detail doubled.

Every morning started at six. Leo would wake up not with screams, but with quiet babbling, pulling on my hair until I opened my eyes. He was eating solid food now—mashed avocados and sweet potatoes that I prepared myself in the massive industrial kitchen, ignoring the protests of the chef, who was terrified of offending me.

"The boss said she gets whatever she wants," Chef Antonio had grumbled on day four. "If she wants to peel her own carrots, give her the damn peeler."

Luca was rarely there during the day. He was waging an invisible war across the city, methodically dismantling the Castiglione family's supply lines, squeezing their businesses until they suffocated. But every evening at seven, without fail, the heavy front doors would open, and Luca would appear.

He always showered and changed before entering the nursery—no smoke, no blood, no smell of the street.

Tonight, he found me sitting on the living room rug, building a tower out of soft foam blocks while Leo gleefully knocked them down, giggling uncontrollably.

"He laughed today," I said, without looking up as Luca stepped into the room.

Luca stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"Around two o'clock. The golden retriever from the guard kennel walked past the patio doors, and Leo laughed. A real, belly laugh."

Luca walked over slowly, sinking down onto the rug across from us. He wore dark jeans and a simple black cashmere sweater, looking less like a mafia prince and more like an impossibly handsome, exhausted father.

Leo saw him and immediately crawled across the rug on all fours, slapping his tiny hands onto Luca’s knee.

"Dada," Leo muttered, blowing a raspberry.

Luca went completely rigid. His eyes widened, glittering with sudden, unshed moisture. Very carefully, as if handling spun glass, he lifted the boy into his lap.

"What did you say?" Luca whispered.

"Dada," Leo repeated, grabbing Luca's nose with a sticky hand.

A choked sound left Luca’s chest. He pulled his son against his neck, closing his eyes tightly. Leo patted his father's broad back with one hand, completely at peace.

Watching them, my throat tightened. The cold, ruthless monster that Philadelphia whispered about didn't exist in this room. Here, he was just a man trying to rebuild a shattered universe with his bare hands.

When Luca finally opened his eyes, he looked directly at me. The vulnerability in his expression was so raw, so stripped of pretense, that it felt like an intrusion to witness it.

"Thank you," he said, his voice thick.

"He loves you, Luca," I said softly. "He was just waiting for the smoke to clear."

"You cleared it," Luca said. He shifted Leo into the crook of one arm and reached out with the other, his rough fingers catching a stray lock of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. His thumb lingered on the soft skin of my jaw, a slow, electric caress that sent a shockwave down my spine. "You saved us both, Avery."

My breath caught in my throat. The air between us grew impossibly heavy, charged with a magnetic heat that had been building with every shared late-night bottle, every quiet glance in the hallway, every whispered conversation over a sleeping child.

"Luca," I whispered, warning him, or maybe warning myself.

"I know," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips. "I know who I am. And I know what you deserve."

Before he could pull away, the double doors of the living room swung open. Dante stood in the doorway, his face pale, his hand hovering over his holster.

"Boss," Dante said, his voice urgent. "We have a problem. Matteo Castiglione just called an emergency sit-down with the Commission. He’s claiming you violated the treaty by executing his lieutenants without a vote."

Luca’s hand dropped from my face. The warmth vanished from his eyes, replaced instantly by the terrifying, diamond-hard chill of the don.

"When?" Luca asked, rising to his feet and handing Leo back to me.

"Tomorrow night," Dante replied. "At the Bellevue Hotel. All five families will be there. And Castiglione demanded you bring your household to prove you're stable enough to keep your seat."

Luca’s jaw set into an iron line. "He wants to see if the rumors of my collapse are true."

He turned back to look at me, his eyes dark with an apology he would never voice out loud.