Chapter 3

VICENZO’S POV  

The moment Rosa’s bare feet ghosted across my penthouse floor, I knew she was running.  

I heard the door click shut behind her, the softest sound against the silence of the night. If I hadn’t been waiting for it, expecting it, I might have let her go.  

But I had learned my lesson a long time ago.  

Rosalinda Amato ran when things got hard.  

She had run from us once. She had run from me. From our love.  

She thought she could do it again.  

I pressed the bell that signaled Matteo, my right-hand man, to enter the room. Then I walked to the bar and carefully poured myself a glass of whiskey.  

I let the ice clink against the glass, watching the city through the massive window. I took a slow sip, allowing the burn to settle in my chest before I spoke.  

“She left.” My voice was calm, measured. It didn’t betray my feelings.  

Matteo, standing by the doorway, didn’t look surprised. “Do you want us to bring her back?”  

I tilted the glass in my hand, watching the amber liquid swirl, before setting it down on the bar with a soft clink.  

“No. Not yet.”  

Matteo understood without me explaining. He nodded once, already reaching for his phone.  

“Follow her.”  

He left without another word.  

I exhaled slowly, flexing my fingers as I turned back to the skyline. The city stretched beneath me, endless and cold. Every street, every dark alley, every bloodstained corner, I owned it all.  

Men bowed when I passed, whispering my name like a death sentence. Women watched with wide, hungry eyes, drawn to the power, the money, the danger that rolled off me in waves. I consumed most of them, desperately, hungrily, and tossed them back into the streets.  

None of them mattered.  

Not one of them was her.  

I leaned against the glass, my reflection staring back at me. My beard was neatly trimmed, my features sharp, handsome in a way that should have been a gift but had always felt like a curse.  

My father had once told me my looks would make me soft.  

“You are too pretty, Vincenzo.” I could still hear his voice, thick with disdain, the smell of whiskey and blood clinging to him like a second skin. “A man with a face like yours doesn’t go far in our world.”  

I had been younger then. Heartbroken. Reckless. The object of every woman’s darkest desire.  

He had seen it in my eyes; the pain of losing Rosa, the grief I hadn’t known how to bury.  

“Do you know what makes a man strong?” my father had sneered, gripping my jaw in his rough hands. “Not this face. Not your mother’s green eyes. No woman will save you, Vincenzo. You are a Moretti. Blood makes you strong. Power makes you untouchable. Softness gets you killed.”  

I had let those words carve themselves into me, hardening into stone over the years.  

And he had been right.  

Love had made me weak.  

I had built an empire after that. Turned my name into something feared in every corner of the underworld. When men crossed me, they disappeared. When they betrayed me, they begged for death long before I granted it.  

I was the Mafia Lord now.  

Power. Wealth. Control.  

I had it all.  

But none of it meant a goddamn thing if I didn’t have her.  

The door opened behind me. I didn’t turn.  

“She went to the hospital,” Matteo said simply.  

My grip tightened on the glass.  

I kept my voice calm. “Why?”  

Matteo hesitated. Just for a second.  

But it was enough.  

I turned, my entire body going still. “Tell me.”  

Matteo didn’t flinch under my stare. He was used to my rage, knew how to avoid it. But now, there was something else in his eyes, something cautious.  

“There’s a child,” he said.  

The words hit me harder than any bullet ever could.  

A child.  

Her child.  

My child?  

I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as something sharp and brutal lodged itself inside my chest.  

“How old?” My voice was low, but the threat in it was unmistakable.  

Matteo held my gaze. “Three.”  

Three.  

The number slammed into me, twisting in my gut like a blade.  

Three years ago, Rosa had been mine. Three years ago, she had been in my bed, in my arms, in my life, until she wasn’t. She had left without a word, vanished like a ghost, and now, suddenly, she had a child. A three-year-old.  

The timeline fit.  

Everything fucking fit.  

My hands tightened into fists, blood dripping from where the shattered glass had cut into my palm. The pain was dull, insignificant compared to the fury roaring through me.  

I should have known.  

I should have fucking known.  

“The hospital,” I said, my voice cold. “Why is the child there?”  

Matteo hesitated.  

“Why?” I snapped.  

“Heart condition,” he finally said. “Something she was born with. The girl has been in and out of the hospital since she was an infant. Rosa was there tonight, sitting by her bed.”  

Something dark and dangerous unfurled inside me, sinking its claws into my ribs.  

A girl.  

A sick little girl.  

My daughter?  

I thought back to Rosa tonight,the way she had trembled when I touched her, the way she had looked at me like she was drowning in secrets. The way she had run.  

Was that why she was stripping?  

The guilt in her eyes.  

The fucking fear.  

She had been hiding this from me.  

She had been hiding her from me!

Rage simmered beneath my skin, slow and deadly.  

She had run from me once.  

She wouldn’t run again.  

Because if that child was mine…  

Nothing would stop me from taking back what belonged to me.  

I would confront her. Not tomorrow. Not when she was ready.  

Now.

The sound of glass shattering echoed through the room.  

For a moment, I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.  

Then, slowly, I looked down. The shattered whiskey glass was on the floor, amber liquid pooling at my feet. My hand dripped with blood where the shards had cut into my skin, but I barely felt it.  

My thoughts were already with her.  

With the woman who had stolen my heart.  

With the child who might carry my blood…