"""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 aftermath of the hospital ambush was swift, brutal, and orchestrated behind closed doors.

By the time the Philadelphia Police Department arrived on the scene, the bodies had already been removed by Luca’s cleanup logistics team, the security cameras wiped of all footage, and the incident officially logged as an electrical transformer explosion in the mechanical basement. Money, political influence, and fear smoothed over the carnage before the evening news could air a single speculative report.

Mateo was treated by private surgeons in the estate’s medical wing; the bullet had passed cleanly through his shoulder without severing major arteries.

Leo was physically unharmed, but the trauma of the sound and the chaos clung to him like a dark shadow. For three days following the attack, he refused to let me put him down. If I stepped two feet away from his crib, he would begin to hyperventilate, his tiny hands reaching frantically into the empty air until I gathered him back into my arms.

I didn't mind. I held him through every meal, rocked him through every restless hour of the night, and let his soft breaths against my neck ground me against my own nightmares.

I had shot a man.

Even though Luca assured me the round hadn't been fatal—that it was his own bullet that ended the threat—the phantom sensation of the recoil kicking through my wrists haunted my waking thoughts. I wasn't just a bystander anymore. The line dividing me from Luca Moretti’s world had been obliterated in that steam-filled mechanical room.

On the fourth evening, the estate grounds were entirely locked down.

A cold November rain drummed against the reinforced windows of the library. Leo had finally fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep in his nursery crib under the watchful eye of Maria.

I walked down the grand corridor toward Luca’s study. The double doors were slightly ajar, casting a warm sliver of amber light across the dark parquet floor.

Inside, Luca was standing by the large antique map table, staring down at satellite blueprints of an industrial shipping yard in South Jersey. He was dressed in a dark turtleneck and black trousers, a heavy shoulder holster strapped over his chest. His face looked leaner, harder, the scar along his jawline standing out starkly against his pale skin.

I pushed the door open. "Luca."

He looked up immediately. The severe, predatory line of his mouth softened the second he saw me. "Avery. He’s asleep?"

"Out cold," I said, stepping into the room and closing the doors behind me. "The pediatrician gave him a clean bill of health this morning. The ear trauma was minimal."

Luca let out a slow, heavy breath, resting both hands on the edge of the map table. "And you? Have you slept?"

"A few hours," I answered honestly, walking across the oriental rug to stand on the opposite side of the table. "Every time I close my eyes, I hear the gunfire."

Luca’s expression darkened with profound guilt. He looked down at his calloused hands, his knuckles still bearing the faint purple bruises of violence.

"I brought this onto you," he said quietly, his voice heavy with self-loathing. "I told myself I was hiring you to give my son a mother’s comfort. But the truth is... I was selfish. I saw someone pure, someone untouched by the filth I live in, and I dragged you into the center of the target."

"I pulled the trigger, Luca," I reminded him softly. "You didn't force my hands."

"Because I failed to protect the perimeter," he countered, his voice rising with suppressed rage. "The Tarasov family didn't act alone at the hospital. They had inside intelligence. Someone in my organization fed them the timing of Leo’s pediatric appointment."

My blood ran cold. "A traitor?"

Luca nodded slowly, his dark eyes turning to ice. "We found the financial trail this afternoon. A wire transfer originating from a shell corporation tied to Don Carmine in New York, routed into an account belonging to one of our logistics captains at the Delaware terminal."

"What are you going to do?"

Luca straightened to his full height, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that took my breath away. "I’m going to end it. Tonight."

"Luca, no—"

"If I don't eliminate the leadership in New York tonight, Avery, they will try again," he said, rounding the table with measured, deliberate steps until he stood directly in front of me. "Next time, it won't be a hospital hallway. It will be the front gates of this house. It will be while you are walking Leo in the garden. I cannot live with the knowledge that your life—or his—is hanging by a thread because I hesitated to be what I am."

He reached out, his warm, rough hands coming up to cup my face. His thumbs gently traced the hollows beneath my eyes, his touch so tender it contrasted sharply with the lethal intent burning in his gaze.

"I spent eight months dead inside," Luca whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion he could no longer conceal. "I was an empty shell moving through boardrooms and execution chambers, waiting for someone to put a bullet between my eyes so I could stop carrying the guilt of Elena’s death."

My breath caught in my throat. I looked up into his dark, tortured eyes, my hands instinctively rising to rest against his broad chest.

"And now?" I breathed.

"And now I want to live," Luca said, his forehead resting gently against mine, his hot breath washing over my lips. "I want to watch my son grow up. I want to sit on the floor of that nursery and build stupid wooden towers. And God help me, Avery... I want you."

The confession shattered whatever remaining defenses I had built around my heart.

I didn't wait for him to kiss me. I stepped forward, closing the distance, and pressed my mouth to his with all the fierce, desperate passion that had been building inside me for weeks.

Luca let out a low groan, wrapping his powerful arms around my waist, lifting me slightly off my feet as he crushed me against his chest. The kiss was deep, possessive, hungry with the knowledge that violence awaited him in the dark, but anchored in a love that was stronger than the fear of death.

When he finally broke the kiss, resting his cheek against my hair, his chest was heaving with ragged breaths.

"Stay in the south suite tonight," he murmured against my ear. "Lock the deadbolts. Mateo has twelve men stationed in the inner hallway. I will be back before sunrise."

"Promise me," I whispered, clutching the front of his shirt. "Promise me you’re coming back to us."

Luca looked into my eyes, reached up, and touched the platinum chain around my throat.