She's Not Really Pregnant, Sir,_ the Maid's Toddler Whispered — Mafia Boss Demanded Proof

Vincent went completely rigid.

For a second, no one moved. Marco stared at me with wide eyes, and Paulie froze mid-step, holding a bloodied handkerchief to his forehead. A domestic servant hugging the Don of the Moretti crime family in the middle of his grand foyer was an unheard-of breach of protocol.

I realized what I was doing a second too late. Horrified at my own impulsiveness, I began to pull back, my face burning with embarrassment. "I... I'm sorry, Mr. Moretti, I shouldn't have—"

Before I could step away, Vincent’s long, powerful arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me tightly back against his chest.

He buried his face into the side of my neck, taking a deep, ragged breath of my rose-scented hair. I could feel the heat radiating off his body, the heavy, fast beat of his heart against my ribs, and the distinct smell of gunpowder, copper, and cold rain lingering on his clothes.

"You're safe," he murmured, his voice a low, rough rasp against my skin. "The pier is clear."

He slowly loosened his grip, stepping back just enough to look down at my face. His hands remained on my hips, strong and grounding.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, my fingers involuntarily rising to brush near the bloody cut on his cheekbone. "Vincent... you're bleeding."

Using his first name felt natural now, stripped of the corporate titles and servant formalities by the sheer terror of the night.

A faint, tired shadow of a smile touched his lips at the sound of his name on my tongue. "It's not my blood, Nora."

Marco cleared his throat awkwardly behind us. "Boss... we need to secure the northern perimeter. Dominic’s surviving guys scattered into the marshes."

Vincent didn't take his eyes off me. "Handle it, Marco. Put extra men on the gates. Double the watch on the third floor. I don't want a stray rat from North Jersey getting within a mile of this house."

"Understood, Boss," Marco said, motioning for Paulie and the rest of the armed guards to follow him down the corridor.

Within seconds, the grand foyer was empty again, leaving only the two of us under the warm light of the crystal chandelier.

Vincent let out a long exhale, his shoulders slumping slightly as the adrenaline of battle finally began to fade from his system. He winced, holding his left rib cage.

"Come with me," I said gently, taking his right hand into mine. "You need to be cleaned up."

"Nora, I can call Dr. Evans—"

"Dr. Evans is an hour away," I said, my tone firmer than it had ever been. "I spent two years volunteering at an urgent care clinic in Queens before I took this job. I know how to clean a cut. Come."

I led him up the grand staircase, not to the third-floor staff quarters, but to his private master suite on the east wing—a room I had cleaned a hundred times as a maid, but had never entered as an equal.

The master bedroom was dark, masculine, and vast, featuring a king-sized four-poster bed, a stone fireplace, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson.

I led Vincent into the adjoining master bathroom—a room lined with black marble, gold fixtures, and a massive glass walk-in shower.

"Sit," I instructed, pointing to the leather bench near the marble vanity.

Vincent sat down silently, watching me with an intense, unwavering focus as I moved around the room, opening cabinets, pulling out antiseptic, gauze, white towels, and a butterfly needle kit.

I dragged a small stool in front of him and sat down, bringing myself eye-to-eye with him.

"Hold still," I murmured, dipping a cotton pad into iodine.

I gently touched the pad to the cut on his cheekbone. Vincent didn't flinch, didn't make a sound, though I could see the jaw muscle in his cheek tighten.

"Dominic?" I asked softly, carefully wiping away the dark, crusted blood from his skin.

"Dead," Vincent said flatly. "He refused to surrender the pier. He tried to pull a weapon while we were discussing terms."

I shivered slightly at the cold finality in his voice, but I didn't stop my work. "And the shipping containers?"

"Secured. The Bellini family’s reign in North Jersey ended at one o'clock this morning," Vincent explained. "Arthur Bellini signed over his remaining shares from his airfield in Colombia before his phone was taken away. The Bellini empire no longer exists."

I finished dressing his cheek with a small white bandage, then looked down at his shirt. The white cotton was soaked through with blood around his left shoulder and upper chest.

"I need to take your shirt off," I said, my cheeks heating up.

Vincent didn't say a word. He unbuttoned his cuffs, then slowly unbuttoned the front of his shirt, slipping his arms out of the sleeves and dropping the blood-stained garment onto the black marble floor.

My breath hitched.

His chest was broad, covered in lean, sculpted muscle, but crisscrossed with old white scars—reminders of a lifetime lived in a brutal world. Near his left ribs was a deep, purple bruise that was already swelling.

"Rib’s bruised, not broken," I diagnosed softly, pressing my fingertips lightly against his skin to test the bone. "You were hit with something blunt."

"A lead pipe," Vincent said quietly. "Dominic was desperate."

I prepared a cold compress and held it gently against the bruised skin over his ribs.

Vincent stared down at me. His face was inches from mine. I could smell the faint scent of leather, tobacco, and his expensive woodsy cologne beneath the smell of copper.

"You shouldn't be here, Nora," he whispered, his voice deep and dark.

My hand froze on his chest. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," he said, reaching out and grasping my wrist—not tightly, but with a lingering warmth. "I mean you shouldn't be in this world. You are good, Nora. You're soft. You raise a sweet child, you fix missing shoe buckles, you mend wound without asking questions. You don't belong in a house that smells of gunpowder."

I looked up into his gray eyes, feeling a lump form in my throat.

"I spent three years working in this house, Vincent," I murmured, my voice trembling slightly. "I saw how the other mob bosses treated their women. I saw how Arthur Bellini talked to his daughter, how Dominic treated his associates. You are a violent man, yes... but you are a good man to the people you protect."

Vincent’s chest rose and fell in a heavy breath. "I am not a good man, Nora."

"You protected my daughter," I insisted, my thumb gently caressing his wrist. "You gave her a safe place to sleep, you brought her toys, you fought a war tonight so a four-year-old girl wouldn't be threatened by monsters. To me... that makes you the only good man I've met in a very long time."

Vincent stared at me, his eyes searching my face as if looking for any sign of lie or manipulation. He found none.

Slowly, deliberately, his hand moved from my wrist up to the back of my neck. His long fingers entangled in my dark hair, pulling me gently toward him.

"Nora," he breathed against my lips.

"Vincent," I whispered back.

He pulled me into a kiss.

It wasn't gentle, but it wasn't harsh either. It was deep, desperate, and filled with the raw, pent-up passion of two people who had spent days walking on the edge of a knife. His lips were warm, tasting faintly of whiskey, and as his other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me off the stool and onto his lap, I let out a soft sigh, melting completely into his touch.

I wrapped my arms around his broad, bare shoulders, careful of his bruised ribs, burying my hands in his dark, thick hair. For the first time in four years, since my husband died, I felt completely safe, completely desired, and completely alive.

When he finally pulled back, both of us were breathing heavily, our foreheads resting against each other in the quiet luxury of the black marble bathroom.

Vincent looked down at me, his gray eyes burning with a dark, fierce promise.

"Tomorrow," he whispered, his thumb caressing my lower lip. "The Commission calls an emergency meeting in Manhattan to review the Bellini fallout."

"Will there be trouble?" I asked softly.

"There will be questions," Vincent corrected, a cold smile touching his lips. "They will want to know who is going to stand beside me as the lady of the Moretti house now that Sophia is gone."

I blinked, my heart dropping into my stomach. "Vincent... I'm a maid. They'll never accept me."