Chapter 3 - SHADOWS IN THE MARBLE
Within forty-eight hours, the third floor of the Rossi estate was transformed. The medical monitors remained, but their clinical glare was softened by new, thick wool rugs, warm lamps, and a rocking chair imported from Italy that Lorenzo had ordered delivered by flatbed truck in the middle of the night.
Hunter no longer wore the black-and-white uniform of the domestic staff. She wore soft, cashmere sweaters and loose linen trousers provided by a personal shopper who arrived with three racks of clothes and left without speaking a single word.
Leo’s progress was nothing short of miraculous.
Dr. Halloran returned a week after Hunter took over. He spent two hours checking Leo’s reflexes, listening to his lungs, and examining the chart. When he was done, he walked into the small sitting room where Lorenzo sat with a glass of scotch, Hunter sitting across from him with Leo in her lap.
"It's... extraordinary," the doctor stammered, looking from the baby to Hunter with a mixture of professional embarrassment and awe. "The metabolic rejection has completely reversed. His weight is up fourteen ounces. His skin elasticity is normal. Whatever formula you're using, Mr. Rossi, it's—"
"She isn't using formula, Doctor," Lorenzo said, not breaking eye contact with the man. "She's using what God gave her. And if you ever mention her presence in this house to anyone outside this room, your medical license will be the least of your concerns."
Halloran swallowed hard, bowed his head, and left the room within two minutes.
The Tense PeaceAs the days turned into weeks, a strange, quiet routine settled between the mafia Don and the former maid. Lorenzo spent his days in his study downstairs, orchestrating the violent, complex logistics of his family’s empire, but every evening at exactly eight o'clock, the heavy mahogany door of the nursery would open.
He would walk in, take off his shoulder holster, place his weapon on the high shelf near the door—well out of reach—and sit in the leather chair across from Hunter.
He didn't talk much. He would just watch his son.
"He looks like her," Lorenzo said one night, his voice unusually soft. The wind was howling outside, throwing salt spray from the ocean against the glass. "Sophia had that same shape to her nose. A bit sharp. Like she was always about to argue with you."
Hunter adjusted the blanket around Leo, who was burping softly against her shoulder. "He has your eyes, Mr. Rossi. They're dark. They look like they're trying to figure out if everyone in the room is a friend or an enemy."
Lorenzo let out a short, humorless bark of a laugh. "In my world, that's the only way to stay alive."
"It's a lonely way to live," Hunter said.
Lorenzo looked at her—really looked at her—not just as a source of food for his heir, but as a person. He saw the faint, fading yellowish bruise along her jawline where Tommy Vance’s fist had caught her before she fell.
"My men found him," Lorenzo said casually, as if talking about a missing shipment of olive oil.
Hunter froze. Her heart skipped a beat. "Tommy?"
"He's been hanging around the old neighborhood, asking questions about where the agency sent you. He owes sixteen thousand dollars to a crew in Brooklyn. They were getting ready to break his knees when my people intervened." Lorenzo leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "I can make him disappear, Hunter. One word from you, and he goes into the Atlantic with a pair of concrete boots. It costs me nothing."
Hunter looked down at Leo. For a second, a dark, primal surge of anger rose in her throat. She thought of Lily. She thought of the cold, silent weight of her daughter in her arms. Tommy deserved to die. He deserved to feel the absolute terror he had inflicted on her.
But then she looked at Lorenzo’s eyes—the cold, dead vacuum behind his pupils—and she realized that if she said yes, she would be letting the darkness of this house swallow her whole.
"No," Hunter said, her voice trembling slightly but firm. "If you kill him, you do it for your own reasons, not mine. I don't want his blood on the milk I give your son."
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Lorenzo stared at her for a long time, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth twitched into something resembling respect.
"You're a strange woman, Hunter Higgins," he said, standing up and putting his holster back on. "Most people who come into this house want someone dead. You're the first one who just wants to keep someone alive."
