The Pregnant Maid Treated the Ignored Old Man Like Royalty—Unaware He Was the Mafia Boss’s Father

Lorenzo descended the back stairwell four steps at a time, moving through the shadows of the mansion like an avenging wraith. Behind him came two armed guards, their tactical boots thudding against the stone steps.

The air grew progressively colder as they reached the basement level. Lorenzo didn't need to ask where the flooded cellar was; the heavy padlock hanging from the iron latch of the bulkhead door told him everything.

“Key,” Lorenzo demanded, holding out his hand without looking back.

One of the guards stepped forward, pulling a heavy crowbar from his tactical vest. “No key, Boss. Gable keeps them on her personal ring.”

“Break it,” Lorenzo ordered.

The guard wedged the iron bar into the hasp and threw his full weight against it. With a violent screech of tearing metal and splintering oak, the lock snapped free.

Lorenzo kicked the heavy door open.

A blast of freezing, damp air rushed up to meet them, carrying the faint, sickening metallic smell of blood and stagnant water.

Lorenzo drew a high-powered tactical flashlight from his coat and swept the beam down the darkness of the wooden staircase.

The light stopped at the base of the steps.

Lying in a crumpled heap, her head resting against the lower riser, was Nora.

Her face was translucent, blue-white from hypothermia. Her lips were cracked and violet. Her sodden uniform was plastered to her trembling body, and around her on the freezing flagstones was a puddle of water tainted with thin ribbons of blood.

Lorenzo felt a sensation in his chest he had not experienced since his mother died—a sharp, suffocating dread.

He was down the stairs in three leaps, falling to his knees in the freezing slush without a second thought for his bespoke suit. He reached down and gathered Nora’s limp form into his arms.

She weighed almost nothing. Aside from the heavy, fragile curve of her belly, she was skin and bone. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her skin as cold as marble.

Lorenzo placed two fingers against her neck.

For five agonizing seconds, there was nothing. Then, beneath his fingertips, he felt it: a faint, fluttering, erratic pulse.

“She’s alive,” Lorenzo breathed, though his voice shook with uncharacteristic panic. He looked down at her face, seeing the dried tear tracks on her pale cheeks and the horrific bruises on her wrists.

He stripped off his heavy cashmere coat, wrapping it tightly around her shivering frame, and lifted her into his arms. As he stood up, he felt the faint, spasmodic tightening of her abdomen beneath the fabric of the coat.

“She’s in labor,” Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper that terrified the guards behind him. “Marco! Get the house medical suite unlocked! Move the emergency surgical unit from the garage!”

He carried Nora up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Her head rested against his chest, her shallow, ragged breaths brushing against his neck like the wings of a dying bird.

As he reached the ground floor corridor, Mrs. Gable was being dragged down the hall by two of Marco’s men.

Her hair was disheveled, and she was screaming about her rights and her years of faithful service. But when she saw Lorenzo emerge from the cellar shadows, carrying the dying maid in his arms, the words died in her throat.

Lorenzo did not stop. He walked straight toward her, his gray eyes burning with an unholy fire.

As he passed the housekeeper, he leaned close to her ear, his voice quiet, calm, and utterly terrifying.