THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME CLEAN BLOOD FROM HIS SON’S KNEE WHILE HIDING A CUT ON MY OWN PALM—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE CAUSED THE ACCIDENT,” BEFORE THE BOY WHISPERED, “NO, SHE SAVED ME.”

The silence that settled over the sunroom was heavy, suffocating, and absolute.

Isabella didn’t move. Her posture remained regal, her chin tilted at that practiced, untouchable angle, but the color had completely drained from her lips. She looked at Mateo as if the four-year-old boy had suddenly spoken in a foreign language.

“Mateo,” Isabella began, her voice pitching slightly higher, sweet as poisoned honey. “Darling, you’re confused. You had a terrible scare, and—”

“He isn’t confused,” Luca said.

He hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to. The low baritone vibrated through the floorboards, cold enough to freeze water.

Luca rose to his full height. Standing six-foot-two in his tailored charcoal wool suit, he cast a shadow that eclipsed both of us. His hands, broad and scarred across the knuckles, hung casually at his sides, but there was nothing relaxed about the set of his broad shoulders.

He didn’t look at Isabella. His gaze stayed fixed on me.

“Stand up, Emma,” he commanded gently.

I tried to swallow past the knot of dread lodged in my throat. My legs felt hollow, trembling beneath the hem of my simple navy uniform dress. I rose slowly, cradling my right hand against my stomach, trying to keep the blood from dripping onto the Italian marble tiles.

Luca took two deliberate steps toward me.

Before I could back away, his fingers circled my wrist. His grip wasn’t rough, but it was unyielding, warm, and firm against my chilled skin. He pulled my hand away from my apron and turned it palm up.

The cut was jagged, nearly three inches long, welling with dark crimson that dripped lazily off the side of my hand and splattered against the white stone. The fragment of white porcelain gleamed ominously inside the laceration.

A muscle ticked along Luca’s jaw.

“Marco,” Luca called out.

The shadow in the hallway moved. Marco, Luca’s head of security and shadow for over a decade, appeared in the doorway instantly. He had been standing just out of sight, silent as smoke.

“Take Mateo to the kitchen,” Luca ordered without breaking eye contact with my wound. “Have Mrs. Higgins make him hot chocolate. Extra marshmallows. Stay with him.”

Mateo didn’t want to go. He reached his little arms toward me, tears finally spilling over his dark lashes. “Emma hand hurts! Daddy, fix Emma!”

“I will, Mateo,” Luca promised. His thumb brushed lightly over my pulse point—racing, terrified, fluttering like a trapped sparrow. “Daddy will fix it. Go with Marco.”

Marco gently lifted the little boy into his arms. Mateo buried his tear-stained face in the security chief’s neck, and the heavy doors clicked shut behind them.

Now, it was just the three of us.

The air felt thin, stripped of oxygen.

Luca reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a monogrammed silk handkerchief, and pressed it firmly against my palm. The pressure sent a blinding spike of agony up my arm, and a sharp gasp escaped my lips.

“Breathe,” Luca murmured, his voice dipping into that dangerous, velvety register. “Hold it there with your other hand.”

I obeyed instantly, pressing down with my left hand, my knuckles turning white.

Only then did Luca turn around to face his fiancée.

Isabella tried to recover her ground. She adjusted the diamond tennis bracelet on her slender wrist, smoothing the pleats of her cream designer dress. “Luca, this is ridiculous. You’re letting the word of a frightened toddler dictate how you look at me? She is a hired girl. A girl who was irresponsible enough to let your only son run out toward the terrace during a downpour.”

“The terrace,” Luca repeated softly. He stepped toward her. With every step he took, Isabella took half a step back until the mahogany credenza caught the back of her thighs. “Tell me about the terrace, Isabella.”

“I told you,” she stammered, her flawless veneer cracking further. “We were talking. Mateo got unruly. He dashed outside. Emma wasn’t paying attention, and when she tried to grab him, she knocked the heavy ceramic planter off its pedestal.”

“Interesting,” Luca said. He stopped mere inches from her. He towered over her, his eyes dark, unreadable pools of cold intent. “Because the planters on the terrace are reinforced terracotta, weighed down with fifty pounds of wet soil. Even a grown man would struggle to push one over by accident.”

Isabella blinked. “Well... she must have slammed into it.”

“And you were watching all of this?”

“Of course I was! I was right there!”

Luca stared down at her for three agonizing seconds. Then, he tilted his head toward the ceiling. In the discreet corner above the French doors leading to the garden, a small, black dome rested flush against the molding.

A high-definition security camera.

Isabella’s breath caught in her throat. She looked at the lens, and for the first time, raw panic flashed in her pale blue eyes.

“You forgot,” Luca whispered. “You’ve lived in this house for six months, Isabella, and you forgot that every square foot of this property is monitored. Every inch. Every conversation. Every single step.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Would you like me to pull the feed on my phone?” Luca asked. His tone was almost polite. That was what made it terrifying. Luca Moretti was never more dangerous than when he spoke politely. “Should we watch the replay together? Should we see who frightened my son? Should we see who backed him toward the stairs? And should we see who threw her body between Mateo and a six-foot drop onto jagged flagstones?”

Isabella’s throat bobbed. “Luca... I was only trying to teach him manners. He was being defiant. He embarrassed me in front of the Senator’s wife!”

“I don’t give a damn about the Senator’s wife,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “I care about my blood. And I care about the truth.”

He turned back toward me. The fury that had darkened his features smoothed away, replaced by an unsettling, laser-focused intensity.

“You didn’t say a word,” Luca observed, studying my pale face. “You stood there and let her blame you. Why?”

My voice shook, barely audible above the drumming of the rain against the glass roof. “I... I know my place here, Mr. Moretti. Servants don’t contradict future mistresses.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed, something dark and unreadable flaring in their depths.

“She is not the mistress of this house yet,” Luca said, the words falling like lead weights into the silence. “And after today, she may never be.”

Isabella gasped. “Luca! You wouldn’t dare! My father has investments tied directly to your harbor expansion! You cannot insult me over a common nanny!”

Luca didn’t even glance back at her. He took my uninjured elbow, his grip steady and unyielding.