Chapter 1
The city’s most feared mafia boss knelt in the rain… because my little boy called him Dad.
The SUV headlights flooded the hotel parking lot like a firing line.
I squeezed Milo’s small hand so tight my knuckles turned white.
I tried to step back.
To run.
Then the rear door opened.
Damian Stone stepped out.
The most feared man in the entire city.
His cold eyes locked straight onto my son.
Milo flinched.
He lifted his hand to his chest, nervous.
The silver chain around his neck slipped out of his shirt.
Hanging from it was the black signet ring.
The one I’d hidden from the world for five years.
Damian froze.
His breath caught.
“That ring…” he whispered.
My throat closed up.
That ring had been in his family for generations.
No one else on earth had one like it.
Milo looked up at him, confused.
“Mom said my real dad gave it to me,” he said softly.
The rain picked up.
Damian’s legs gave out.
He dropped to his knees in the wet asphalt right in front of us.
Every one of his bodyguards looked away.
He lifted both hands toward Milo.
They were shaking so bad I could see it from three feet away.
“My son,” he breathed.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe.
Five years.
Five years of running.
Five years of lying.
Five years of telling myself I’d done the right thing.
And now it was all over in ten seconds.
Damian’s eyes never left Milo.
The rain plastered his dark hair to his forehead.
His expensive suit was ruined.
He didn’t care.
“Come here,” he said, his voice cracking.
Milo looked up at me.
“Mommy?”
I didn’t know what to say.
I’d spent half a decade teaching him to be careful around strangers.
To never go with anyone he didn’t know.
And now the most dangerous stranger in the city was on his knees, calling him his son.
“Is he really my daddy?” Milo asked.
Damian flinched like I’d slapped him.
His eyes snapped to mine.
Rage.
Pain.
Betrayal.
All of it burned in those dark eyes.
“You didn’t tell him,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
“You hid him from me,” he said, standing up slowly.
The bodyguards tensed.
Damian held up a hand without looking at them.
They relaxed.
Just barely.
“Five years,” he said, stepping closer.
I flinched.
He stopped immediately.
Held up both hands like I was a skittish animal.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
“Or him. Ever.”
He looked back at Milo.
His entire face softened.
Like the monster everyone feared had never existed.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, kneeling again.
This time slower.
Careful not to scare us.
“I’m Damian.”
Milo stared at him.
“Like the name on my teddy bear?”
Damian’s eyes glistened.
He nodded.
“Exactly like that.”
I’d forgotten.
The teddy bear.
The only thing I’d kept from that night.
Damian had given it to me the morning after.
Said if we ever had a son, his name would be Damian too.
I’d named him Milo.
But I’d written Damian on the bear’s tag anyway.
Stupid.
Sentimental.
And now it was just one more thing that proved he was telling the truth.
“Can I see the ring again?” Damian asked.
Milo pulled it out from his shirt.
Held it up.
Damian touched it with one trembling finger.
“It’s mine,” he whispered.
“I gave it to your mother the night before she left.”
He looked at me again.
This time there was no anger.
Just a hollow, broken kind of pain.
“Why, Elena?”
I’d imagined this moment a thousand times.
Wondered what I’d say.
If I’d scream.
If I’d run.
If I’d finally tell him the truth.
Now that it was here, I had nothing.
“I was scared,” I said.
It was the truth.
Just not all of it.
“Scared of what?” he asked.
“Of me?”
I nodded.
Because it was easier than the real answer.
Easier than telling him his own brother had put a gun to my stomach and told me to disappear or he’d cut our baby out of me.
Damian closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were hard again.
Calculating.
The mafia boss was back.
“Get in the car,” he said.
It wasn’t a request.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, pulling Milo closer.
Damian sighed.
“Elena, think.
If I wanted to take him by force, do you think you could stop me?”
I couldn’t.
We both knew it.
“Then why ask?” I said.
“Because he’s my son,” he said quietly.
“And I want his first memory of me to be that I didn’t hurt his mother.”
He held out his hand.
“Come with me.
Somewhere safe.
We’ll talk.
And if you still want to leave after that… I’ll let you go.”
I stared at his hand.
Big.
Calloused.
The same hand that had held me through the worst night of my life.
The same hand that had signed death warrants for men twice his size.
“Mommy, my feet are wet,” Milo said.
I looked down.
His sneakers were soaked through.
He was shivering.
We’d been walking for an hour before the cars found us.
I had no money.
No phone.
Nowhere to go.
I looked back at Damian.
“Swear it,” I said.
“Swear if I get in that car, you won’t hurt us.”
He pressed his hand over his heart.
Right over the same tattoo I’d traced a hundred times in the dark.
“On my life.
On my father’s grave.
On this boy right here.”
He nodded at Milo.
“I will never let anything happen to either of you again.”
May you like
I took a deep breath.
And I put my hand in his.
