There were shelves of wooden toys, plush animals, soft rugs, a rocking chair, sunlight, music. And in the center of it all, Lily sat stacking blocks, perfectly unharmed.
Beside her, kneeling on the floor in an immaculate suit, was Dominic Romano.
He looked up as Sophie entered.
Lily squealed and slapped a block against his knee.
Dominic placed one large hand against the baby’s back, gentle and protective in a way that did not match the danger in his face.
“Mine now,” he said quietly.
Sophie felt the words like a blow.
She crossed the room so fast the maid behind her gasped. “Touch my daughter again and I swear to God, I don’t care who you are.”
Dominic did not move away from Lily, but something flickered in his eyes. Respect, maybe. Or regret.
“You fainted,” he said.
“You changed my clothes.”
“My housekeeper did.”
“You took my baby.”
“I protected her.”
Sophie laughed once, sharp and broken. “From what? Me?”
“From the life closing in around you.”
The insult landed exactly where he meant it to. Poverty. Exhaustion. The eviction notice she had folded and hidden like shame.
“You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I know enough, Sophie Collins.”
Her name in his mouth sounded intimate, and that frightened her more than the security guards, more than the locked gates, more than the fact that he had Lily’s rabbit beside his knee.
“How do you know my name?”
Dominic rose slowly. He was taller than she expected up close, broad enough to block the sunlight. Yet he did not crowd her. He moved to a leather portfolio on a side table and opened it.
Photographs spilled across the polished wood.
Sophie saw her brother first.
Michael.
Younger. Alive. Grinning in desert fatigues with one arm slung around the shoulders of a man Sophie recognized only after her knees almost buckled.
Dominic Romano.
“My brother knew you?” she whispered.
“Knew me. Saved me. Trusted me.”
The room blurred. Sophie touched the edge of one photograph with trembling fingers. Michael had died overseas two years ago, leaving behind a folded flag, a box of medals, and too many unfinished promises.
Dominic’s voice lowered. “Before he died, Michael made me swear that if anything happened to him, I would look after you and Lily.”
Sophie looked from the photo to the man who had kidnapped her child and called it protection.
“My brother would never ask you to do this.”
“No,” Dominic said, and for the first time, the steel in his voice cracked. “He asked me to do better. I failed. Then I saw the eviction notice.”
Sophie went cold.
“How do you know about that?”
His silence answered before his mouth did.
She stepped back. “You had me watched.”
“I had you guarded.”
“You stalked me.”
“I kept distance until distance became dangerous.”
Rage rose hot enough to burn through fear. “You lured me here with a fake job. You put my baby in a room prepared for her. You let me sign papers I didn’t understand.”
“One of those papers gives me temporary guardianship authority in the event you were medically incapacitated on my property.”
“That’s not legal.”
“It is contestable,” he said, almost gently. “Not useless.”
Sophie stared at him, horrified.
Lily, oblivious, crawled toward her mother with a blue block in one hand. Sophie scooped her up and held her so tightly the baby squirmed.
Dominic watched them, and the strange ache in his expression unsettled her.
“You are not separating me from my daughter,” Sophie said.
“No.”
“Then open the gates.”
“Not yet.”
The words emptied the air from the room.
Sophie backed toward the doorway, Lily pressed against her chest. Two guards appeared in the hall, silent as shadows.
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “You can hate me, but listen before you run. Michael left more than photographs. He left a letter. A promise. A warning.”
“I don’t want your warnings.”
“You will,” he said, his voice low. “Because the men coming for me already know your name.”
Single Mom Collapsed at the Mafia Boss’s Glittering Party
