Six hours of screaming had pushed Dominic Moretti to the edge, and everyone inside the Chicago restaurant knew better than to go near him. Then I crossed the dining room, looked the most feared mafia boss in the city straight in the eye, and told him, “You’re hurting your own baby.”

The silence in the dining room of Bellavita didn't sound like relief; it sounded like an engine seizing up at eighty miles an hour.

The baby’s head, damp with sweat and dark peach fuzz, dropped heavily against the crook of my elbow. His chest gave one last, shallow shudder, then stopped moving altogether. His lips, which had been bright red and swollen from six hours of frantic screaming, turned the dull, blue-grey shade of wet slate.

“He stopped,” Dominic said. His voice wasn't loud. It was a flat, terrifying line, devoid of any pitch, the kind of tone a man uses right before he decides whether someone lives or dies. “Why did he stop?”

The four bodyguards behind him didn't draw weapons, but their posture shifted. The air in the room grew dense, heavy with the metallic tang of unspent violence. Across the room, my manager, Frank, stepped back into the shadows of the waiter’s station, his knuckles white against the dark mahogany frame.

My own heart was pounding so hard against my ribs I thought it would crack them, but my hands didn't shake. Nursing school had failed me when Leo’s heart gave out, but the instincts—the deep, cold muscle memory of pediatric emergency care—didn't ask for permission to come back. They just flooded in.

“Clear the table,” I said.

Nobody moved.

“Clear the damn table!” I yelled, stepping closer to Dominic. My voice wasn't that of a waitress carrying plates of osso buco; it was the sharp, unyielding tone of a charge nurse in a trauma bay. “He’s suffocating on his own mucus! Clear the table now!”

One of the younger guards—a kid no older than twenty-two with a fresh scar across his jawline—looked at Dominic. Dominic didn't nod, but his eyes stayed fixed on mine.

“Do what she says,” Dominic said quietly.

In half a second, the guard swept his heavy arm across the linen table. Crystal wine glasses smashed against the floor, spilling deep red Cabernet over the white tablecloth like fresh blood. A brass candle holder rolled across the floorboards and slammed into the mahogany wainscoting.

I laid the baby down immediately on the white cloth, ignoring the shattered glass dusting the edges.

“He’s cyanotic,” I muttered, my fingers moving on instinct. “His airway is obstructed.”

I didn't have a bulb syringe. I didn't have a suction tube. I had a dining room full of mobsters and a dying child.

I reached down, wiped my index finger against the clean cotton of my apron, and hooked it gently inside the baby’s tiny mouth, sweeping out a thick knot of swallowed milk and mucus that had cleared his stomach during his frantic gasping.

Then, I turned him onto his stomach across my thigh, supported his chest with the palm of my left hand, and gave three firm, controlled slaps directly between his shoulder blades with the heel of my right hand.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

“What the hell are you doing to him?!” the scarred guard roared, taking a step forward.

Dominic’s arm shot out like a iron bar, catching the guard across his chest and pinning him against the leather booth. “Don't move.”

On the third slap, the baby’s chest heaved.

A harsh, wet gasp tore through the little throat, followed by a thin, reedy cry that rose into a full, ragged scream. The colour flooded back into his cheeks—first pink, then deep crimson, then the healthy, furious red of a child who was thoroughly miserable, but entirely alive.

The air rushed back into my own lungs so fast my head spun.

I lifted him back up, tucking his head under my chin, rocking my upper body in a slow, rhythmic sway that I hadn't used in four long years. My eyes stung, but I squeezed them shut, burying my face in the soft, warm scent of baby powder and sour milk.

He’s alive. He’s breathing. Leo, he’s breathing.

When I opened my eyes, Dominic Moretti was standing six inches away from me.

He was tall—far taller than he looked sitting in the booth—and his shoulders filled out the dark wool of his bespoke jacket with an intimidating, effortless presence. His dark hair was silvering at the temples, and his eyes were the shade of dark amber, sharp enough to cut glass. But up close, the tight lines around his mouth weren't just made of cruelty; they were carved by pure, unadulterated terror.

He looked at his son, whose small fingers had tangled themselves tightly into the lace collar of my work shirt.

“You saved him,” Dominic said.

“He was choking on air and phlegm,” I replied, my voice steady now, though my legs felt like water. “He screamed until his stomach seized, brought up milk, and inhaled it. If I hadn't cleared it, his throat would have closed completely in another minute.”

Dominic looked at the shattered glass on the floor, then down at my hands, which were covered in thin red scratches from the rim of a broken wine glass I had brushed against.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Claire,” I said. “Claire Sterling.”

“Claire,” he repeated, as if trying the word out against his teeth. “You’re not a waitress.”

“I am tonight.”

“You were a nurse.” It wasn't a question.

“I was,” I said, shifting the baby’s weight to my other hip. He was calming down now, his frantic screams subsiding into rhythmic, heavy hiccups against my chest. “Until I wasn't.”

Dominic reached out. His fingers—huge, calloused, with a heavy gold signet ring on the right pinky—hovered an inch above his son’s cheek. He didn't touch him, as if afraid he might break the delicate spell that had finally brought peace to the room.

“He hasn't been quiet for three days,” Dominic said softly. His voice sounded raw, stripped of the terrifying authority he had carried all evening. “His mother... she left three weeks ago. Packed her bags, took two million in cash, and went back to Milan. She said she couldn't take the noise.”

A cold anger flared in my chest. “She left a newborn?”

“She left a Moretti,” Dominic corrected coldly. “She thought the child was defective because he wouldn't stop crying. She thought he was broken.”

“He isn't broken,” I said, looking down at the baby’s tiny face. His dark eyelashes were wet with tears, stuck to his skin like tiny pine needles. “He’s three weeks old. His digestive system doesn't know how to handle food yet. He’s scared, he’s in pain, and you’re surrounding him with four men who look like they’re waiting for a bank vault to explode.”

One of the bodyguards shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

Dominic didn't look back at them. His eyes stayed on me.

“He needs a nurse,” Dominic said.

“Then hire one from an agency,” I said, turning to walk toward the kitchen doors to get a damp cloth to clean the baby’s face.

Dominic’s voice stopped me before I took two steps.

“I tried,” he said. “Three of them left before midnight yesterday. One of them tried to give him sedative drops. I threw her out the front door.”