By the time I aimed my gun at the young maid holding my dying son against her bare chest, Leo had already done what twenty doctors, three private clinics, and millions of dollars could not make him do.

The air in the subterranean passage was damp and smelled of old concrete and earth. We walked in silence, the beam of my flashlight cutting through the heavy darkness. I kept my gun raised, my ears tuning to every drip of water and distant creak of the house above us.

Behind me, Hunter walked with steady, careful steps. I could hear her soft breathing, and occasionally, the sweet, milky sigh of Leo. It was a sound I had never heard before. It gave me a strange, foreign feeling in my chest—hope.

"Why did you do it, Hunter?" I asked quietly as we navigated a sharp turn in the tunnel. "You knew the rules. You knew what I do. If I had been a second faster with my trigger finger, you would be dead."

She was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely louder than the wind rustling through the vents. "I lost my daughter, Mr. Rossi. Her name was Lily. When she died... my heart felt like it had been scooped out of my chest. But my body didn't know. Every morning I woke up in pain, my breasts leaking, a reminder of what I couldn't save."

She paused, taking a shaky breath. "When I heard Leo crying tonight... it wasn't just a baby crying. It was a scream that answered my own. I couldn't let another baby starve while I had the one thing that could save him. It felt like... like maybe Lily sent him to me. Or me to him."

I felt a lump form in my throat, a physical tightness I hadn't felt since I stood over Sophia’s casket. I had spent two months drowning in my own anger, thinking I was the only person in the world who knew the agony of losing a child. Yet, here was this girl, working for pennies in my home, carrying a grief just as heavy, and she had risked her life to save my son.

"I'm sorry," I said. It was a simple word, but from a man like me, it carried the weight of an anchor. "For your loss. And for putting you in this danger."

"We're not safe yet, Mr. Rossi," she countered gently. "Save the apologies for when we can breathe."

She was right.

The tunnel led to an old boathouse on the edge of the estate, bordering the Long Island Sound. The water was rough tonight, waves slamming against the wooden pilings. Inside the boathouse, a black, high-powered speedboat sat docked, ready for an escape I had hoped I would never have to make.

But as we stepped onto the wooden dock inside the boathouse, the overhead lights suddenly flashed on.

"Lorenzo," a smooth, familiar voice called out from the shadows. "I must admit, I didn't expect you to use Sophia's little escape hatch. You always did look down on her anxieties."

Victor Marcconi stepped out from behind a stack of shipping crates. He was dressed in a bespoke Italian suit, looking every bit the elegant businessman, completely out of place in the damp boathouse. Behind him stood four of my personal security guards—men I had trusted, now holding their rifles aimed directly at my chest.

"Victor," I said, my voice dangerously calm. I didn't raise my gun; doing so would get us shot instantly. Instead, I stepped slightly in front of Hunter, shielding her and Leo with my body. "You blew up my car. You killed Sophia."

"An unfortunate necessity," Victor sighed, brushing a speck of dust off his lapel. "Sophia was too smart for her own good. She found the discrepancies in the offshore accounts. She was going to tell you. And you... you are too sentimental, Lorenzo. You would have killed me to protect her honor. I couldn't let that happen."

"And Leo?" I growled, my hands clenching into fists. "An infant? You poisoned my son?"

"Leo was the heir," Victor said coldly. "If you died and he lived, the board would hold the assets in trust for him. But if the poor, grieving father loses his mind, and then his sickly son tragically passes away... well, the empire falls to the next of kin. To me. It was a perfect plan, Lorenzo. Until this... trash decided to play wet nurse."

He sneered at Hunter, who stood trembling but defiant behind me.

"Kill them," Victor said to the guards, turning his back to walk toward his waiting car outside. "Make it look like a tragic murder-suicide. The grieving mob boss finally snapped."