The mafia prince bit every nanny who entered the mansion, until the poor maid he hit with a wooden train made him cry for his mother

Leo picked up a sticky bite, sniffed it, then glanced toward the doorway.

Vincent stood there.

He did that often now. Appeared silently. Watched without interrupting. At first, Ruby thought he was checking her work. After a week, she realized he was watching Leo laugh because he was afraid the sound might disappear if he got too close.

Leo held up a bite.

“Daddy.”

Vincent stiffened.

Ruby saw it happen. One word, and the man who could stare down union bosses and federal agents looked undone.

He crossed the kitchen, lowered himself into the chair beside his son, and accepted the sticky bite from Leo’s fingers.

“Thank you,” he said, voice rough.

Leo grinned.

Ruby turned away before either of them saw her cry.

Days gathered gently after that.

Ruby learned that Leo hated peas but would eat them if they were “green moon rocks.” He refused baths unless Ruby let him name the bubbles. He slept better if someone hummed “You Are My Sunshine,” but only the first verse, never the second, because the word sunshine made him remember his mother.

Her name had been Elena.

Vincent never spoke of her at first. The staff did, in whispers. Beautiful Elena with the warm laugh. Elena who used to dance barefoot in the kitchen with Leo on her hip. Elena who had died when a car bomb meant for Vincent tore through her SUV outside a charity event in River North.

After that, the mansion had become a museum of pain.

Vincent buried his wife and disappeared into work.

Leo stopped speaking for weeks.

Every nanny who came after Elena tried to manage him, discipline him, survive him. None of them knew how to sit with him in the wreckage.

Ruby did.

Not because she was trained.

Because loss had trained her.

One night, after a thunderstorm scared Leo awake, Ruby sat on the nursery floor with him wrapped in a blanket. Vincent stood in the shadows outside the door, unseen by his son but not by Ruby.

“My mama went away,” Leo whispered.

Ruby brushed curls off his forehead.

“I know.”

“Your mama?”

“My mama left when I was little,” Ruby said carefully. “But my daddy stayed. He was my whole world.”

Leo looked at her.

“He went away too?”

Ruby’s throat tightened.

“Last winter.”

Leo touched her hand.

“You cry?”

“Sometimes.”

“I scream.”

Ruby nodded.

“That’s crying when your heart doesn’t know how to use tears yet.”

In the hallway, Vincent closed his eyes.

Later, when Leo was asleep, Ruby found Vincent in the kitchen. He was standing by the sink, tie loosened, looking out at the dark lawn.

“You heard,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

“You didn’t.”

Ruby folded the dish towel in her hands.

“He needs to know sadness isn’t bad,” she said. “It’s just heavy.”

Vincent turned to her. “And who told you that?”

Ruby gave a small smile.

“No one. I had to figure it out myself.”

He studied her for a long moment. His gaze no longer made her feel inspected. It made her feel seen, which was worse and better at the same time.

Mrs. Hastings had sent over new uniforms, but Vincent rejected them after one glance.

“She is not a servant,” he told Marco.

The next day, boxes arrived from a boutique in the city. Dresses in soft cotton, warm cardigans, comfortable shoes, a winter coat that actually closed across Ruby’s chest without pulling. Ruby stared at them spread across her bed and felt panic rise.

She found Vincent in his office.

“I can’t accept these.”

He looked up from a file.

“Why not?”

“Because they’re expensive.”

“Yes.”

“And I didn’t earn them.”

His expression hardened slightly, not at her, but at the idea.

“You care for my son. You sleep with one ear open. You turn his nightmares into mornings. You have earned more than clothes.”

Ruby’s face heated.

“People like me don’t wear things like that.”

Vincent stood and walked around the desk.

“People like you?”

Ruby laughed once, small and bitter.

“Poor girls. Big girls. Girls people look through until they need their floors scrubbed.”

The office went quiet.

Vincent stopped in front of her. He did not touch her, though his hands seemed to want to.

“Ruby,” he said, “anyone who looked through you was blind.”

She lowered her eyes quickly, because if she let herself believe him, even for a second, she might not survive it when he changed his mind.

And men always changed their minds.

Especially men like Vincent Romana.

Her past came back on a Tuesday in the rain.

Vincent had insisted she take the afternoon off to visit her father’s grave at Rosehill Cemetery. Ruby refused twice, but he had arranged a driver, flowers, and enough privacy that she could kneel in the wet grass and speak to the headstone without feeling foolish.

“I got a good job, Daddy,” she whispered, placing white lilies against the stone. “A strange one. Maybe dangerous. But there’s a little boy there, and he needs me.”

Rain tapped against her umbrella.

“And his father…” She stopped, embarrassed even in front of the dead. “His father looks at me like I’m not invisible.”

A voice behind her said, “Well, look at you.”

Ruby’s blood turned cold.

Mickey Sullivan stood ten feet away with two men behind him.

He wore a cheap leather jacket, a gold chain, and the same mean grin he had worn the night Ruby signed the loan papers to keep her father in hospice care.

“Mickey,” she whispered.

He spread his arms.

“Ruby Jenkins. Fancy coat. Private car. Flowers. You moving up in the world?”

She stood too fast, nearly slipping.

“I have your money,” she said. “I can pay you back. All of it. I get paid weekly now.”

Mickey stepped closer.

One of his men closed her umbrella.

Rain hit Ruby’s hair and face.

“I don’t want your little payments anymore,” Mickey said. “I found out where you work.”

Ruby’s hands shook.

“I’m just the nanny.”

“That’s exactly why you’re useful.” Mickey smiled. “The Amalfi crew wants Romana’s security layout. Gate codes. Guard rotations. Camera blind spots. You get close enough to hear things.”

“No.”

His smile vanished.

Ruby surprised herself with how quickly the word came. No hesitation. No calculation.

Mickey grabbed her wrist hard enough to bruise.

“You still owe me.”

“I’ll pay money. Not that.”

He leaned close, his breath sour with cigarettes.

“You think Romana cares about you? You’re a hired pair of hands. A soft pillow for his brat to cry on. Don’t confuse a rich man’s convenience with love.”

Ruby’s eyes burned.

Mickey saw the wound and pressed harder.

“Friday night. Old meatpacking warehouse on Halsted. Bring the codes, or I tell Amalfi exactly when that little prince is easiest to reach.”

Ruby could not breathe.

“You stay away from Leo.”

“Then do what you’re told.”

He shoved her. She fell to one knee in the mud beside her father’s grave.

By the time Vincent’s driver returned, Mickey was gone.

Ruby said she had slipped.

For three days, she became a ghost.

She still fed Leo, bathed him, read to him, held him when he woke. But the songs stopped. The baking stopped. She flinched when doors opened. She checked locks twice. Then three times. Then again.

Vincent noticed everything.

He noticed the bruise on her wrist.

He noticed the way she stood between Leo and windows.

He noticed the suitcase hidden under her bed.

Thursday night, Ruby sat beside Leo’s crib, watching him sleep with one hand pressed over her mouth to keep from sobbing. Her plan was simple and stupid. She would leave before dawn. Disappear. If Mickey could not find her, he could not use her. If Vincent hated her for vanishing, at least Leo would be safe.

The nursery door opened.

Vincent stepped inside.

Ruby wiped her cheeks quickly.

“Mr. Romana—”

“Who hurt you?”

His voice was quiet.

That was what frightened her.

“Nothing happened.”

He crossed the room, knelt in front of her chair, and took her bruised wrist with impossible gentleness.

“This is not nothing.”

Ruby shook her head.

“Please don’t ask me.”

His eyes lifted to hers.

“You are under my roof. You are under my protection. More than that, you are the reason my son wakes up smiling.” His jaw tightened. “Tell me who put his hands on you.”

The wall inside Ruby cracked.

She told him everything.

The hospice bills. The loan. Mickey. The cemetery. The demand for security codes. The threat against Leo. Her plan to leave before she could endanger them.

By the end, she was crying so hard she could barely speak.

“I would never betray you,” she said. “I swear on my father’s grave. I would rather die than help anyone hurt that child.”

Vincent’s face went still.

Not blank.

Still.

Like the air before lightning strikes.

He reached up and cupped her face in both hands. His thumbs caught her tears.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You are not leaving.”

“Vincent—”

“No.” His voice broke on the single word. “You think removing yourself protects us. It doesn’t. It destroys us.”

Ruby stared at him.

He looked toward the crib where Leo slept, one fist curled around a stuffed bear Ruby had sewn after the old one ripped.

“My son lost his mother,” Vincent said. “I lost my wife. Then we lost ourselves. You brought us back.” His eyes returned to her. “Nobody uses you against me. Nobody threatens my child. And nobody makes you believe you are disposable ever again.”

Ruby whispered, “What are you going to do?”

For the first time since she had met him, Vincent looked ashamed of the answer that came naturally to him.

Then he looked at Leo.

See more on the next page