Instead, he went unnaturally still.
His stormy gray eyes flicked from Titan to the little girl, then traced upward along the carpet until they locked directly onto me.
For three terrifying seconds, the air in the study grew so heavy I felt as though I were drowning in dry ice. Those eyes—cold, analytical, carrying the crushing weight of a man who owned judges, senators, and executioners—stripped away my dignity, my fears, and my social standing in a single, merciless glance.
“Who,” Adrian’s voice was a gravelly, sand-paper rasp from disuse, “authorized a child in my private quarters?”
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Dante stepped forward immediately, taking the bullet for my employment. “My fault, Mr. Moretti. The babysitter canceled. Mrs. Castillo had nowhere else to leave her daughter today. We didn't expect... well, none of us expected that.”
Dante gestured subtly toward Titan, who let out a low, protective huff, shifting his massive body slightly closer to Sophia as if sensing the tension in Adrian’s voice.
Adrian slowly pushed himself up onto one elbow, wincing as a wave of dizziness hit him. He reached up with long, pale fingers, rubbing his bruised temple where a dark purple contusion was already blooming against his skin.
He stared at Sophia.
Sophia didn't cower. She didn't hide behind my skirt this time. Instead, she tilted her head, looked at the powerful mafia boss sprawled on the floor, and reached into the pocket of her dress.
“You fell down,” Sophia announced matter-of-factly.
Adrian froze, his hand dropping from his temple. “Excuse me?”
“You fell down really hard,” Sophia repeated, her tone entirely conversational. “My daddy used to fall down like that when he was extra tired from his truck driving. He had a headache too.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Dante closed his eyes for a second, silently praying for a sudden sinkhole to open up and swallow us all. Mentioning family, let alone a deceased or absent father, in front of Adrian Moretti—a man whose own family history was a graveyard of betrayals and assassinations—was practically a suicidal offense.
I scrambled forward, frantically pulling Sophia back by her shoulders. “I am so sorry, Mr. Moretti! Please, she’s only five, she doesn't understand—I’ll take her out of your sight immediately, I swear to God—”
“Wait,” Adrian said.
His single word stopped me dead.
Adrian pushed himself up into a full sitting position, ignoring Dr. Reynolds’s muttered protests about spinal alignment. He leaned back against the base of his heavy mahogany desk, his dark suit jacket wrinkled, his white shirt collar unbuttoned, revealing the strong, corded muscles of his throat.
He stared at Sophia with an intensity that bordered on clinical fascination.
“What is your name?” Adrian asked, his voice low and devoid of its usual lethal inflection.
Sophia blinked her big brown eyes. “Sophia.”
“Sophia,” Adrian repeated, tasting the syllables on his tongue. He looked down at the dog sitting patiently beside her. Then he looked back at my trembling hands gripping my daughter’s shoulders.
“Titan,” Adrian murmured, speaking to the beast without looking at him.
The massive dog’s ears flicked forward at the sound of his master’s voice. He didn't stand up; he simply gave a short, rhythmic thump of his heavy tail against the wooden floorboards—a gesture of absolute submission that Dante and the other guards had never witnessed the animal display toward anyone else in the five years he had lived in the mansion.
Dante looked as though someone had struck him across the face with a wet fish. “Boss... the dog hasn't let anyone touch him since the shooting in Charlestown. If anyone besides you walked within three feet of him—even to give him water—he bared his teeth.”
“He didn't bare his teeth at her,” Adrian noted quietly.
He slowly extended a hand toward Sophia—not a threatening, sudden gesture, but a slow, deliberate movement, palm upward.
My heart hammered against my ribs. “Mr. Moretti, please—”
“Quiet, Mrs. Castillo,” Adrian said softly, his gray eyes never leaving Sophia.
Sophia looked at his outstretched hand. Without a shred of hesitation, she crawled across the Persian rug, ignoring my frantic grip, and placed her small, warm hand directly into the center of Adrian’s massive, scarred palm.
Adrian’s fingers closed around her tiny hand—not tightly, but with a strange, hesitant carefulness, as if he were holding a delicate glass ornament that might shatter at the slightest miscalculation.
A shadow passed over his face—a brief, agonizing flicker of raw vulnerability that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced once more by the mask of the untouchable crime lord.
“Dr. Reynolds,” Adrian said, turning his attention to the physician while releasing Sophia’s hand with measured slowness. “What happened?”
“Vasovagal syncope brought on by acute exhaustion, dehydration, and a sharp spike in cranial blood pressure,” the doctor replied, packing his stethoscope back into his bag. “You’ve been working twenty-hour days for the past month, Adrian. Your body finally staged a mutiny. If you don't take a mandatory week of bed rest, the next time you hit that floor, you might not wake up.”
Adrian let out a dry, humorless chuckle, wincing as he shifted his weight. “Bed rest is for corpses, Ethan. I have a port delivery arriving from Palermo on Thursday.”
“The port delivery can wait, or I’ll personally tell your capos that their boss died because he was too stubborn to drink a glass of water,” Dr. Reynolds retorted, snapping his bag shut with a decisive click. He stood up, dusted off his knees, and looked down at me. “Mrs. Castillo, help me get him into the armchair. And bring some cold water and sugar.”
“Right away, Doctor,” I stammered, scrambling to my feet and pulling Sophia along with me.
As Dante and the doctor hauled Adrian Moretti to his feet and guided him toward the plush leather armchair by the fireplace, the mafia boss paused, looking back over his shoulder.
His stormy eyes locked onto Sophia one last time.
“She stays,” Adrian said flatly, his voice echoing in the quiet study.
Dante blinked. “Boss?”
“The girl stays in this wing while I recover,” Adrian commanded, his tone brook-no-argument absolute. “And make sure Mrs. Bellini brings extra lunch up to the study. Tell her the young lady is dining with me.”