The Pregnant Maid Was Forced to Feed a Forgotten Old Man Scraps—Until the Mafia Boss Came Home and Asked One Question

Lorenzo refused to surrender Nora. He moved her and Giovanni to the reinforced medical suite while Marco directed the security team to secure the building and coordinate with police and firefighters.

Smoke appeared in the service corridor minutes later. Someone had opened a side entrance from inside.

Emily, the kitchen assistant, reported seeing the assistant groundskeeper carrying a gasoline can toward the boiler room. Security detained him as he tried to flee. He confessed that Vincent had threatened his brother unless he sabotaged the house.

Nora was breathing too quickly. The doctor traveling with her checked her pulse and called for an ambulance to wait beyond the gates. Stress had triggered contractions again.

“Not now,” Nora whispered to her daughter. “Please, Lily. Just a little longer.”

Lorenzo knelt beside her. “Look at me. We're getting you out.”

“You can't carry both of us.”

“I don't have to. I have people whose job is to help, and this time I'm going to let them.”

He turned to Giovanni. “Father, I should have come home sooner.”

The old man looked at him steadily. His answer, through the board, was simple.

COME BACK TOMORROW TOO.

The words nearly undid him.

Firefighters contained the blaze before it reached the east wing. Police arrested two intruders near the service entrance. A third escaped through the woods, but his abandoned phone contained messages connecting him to Vincent's clinic.

At the hospital, Nora was told the baby was still doing well, though she would need close monitoring and might deliver early. Lorenzo remained outside the examination room until she asked him in.

“I don't know how to trust you,” she admitted.

“You don't have to decide tonight.”

“You make everything sound simple.”

“No. I spent years making everything complicated because I thought control was the same as love.”

She studied him. “And now?”

“Now I think love means letting someone tell you no.”

For the first time, she smiled without forcing it.

Marco interrupted with news from the investigation. Vincent had been arrested at a private airfield. Mrs. Gable had been found in the passenger terminal carrying cash and counterfeit passports. Both demanded attorneys and refused to cooperate.

Lorenzo exhaled. It should have felt like victory.

Then Marco showed him a recent photograph recovered from Vincent's phone. A silver-haired woman stood at a seaside window, holding a newspaper dated the previous week.