Chapter 5 - The Midnight VisitorThe digital clock on the bedside table read 2:14 AM.
The mansion was completely silent, wrapped in the deep, heavy stillness of a rural estate surrounded by acres of private woods and iron security fences. Mia was fast asleep in her small crib in the adjoining room, her soft, rhythmic breathing the only sound piercing the quiet dark of the suite.
Elena lay awake staring at the intricate plaster molding on the high ceiling, her mind racing at a thousand miles an hour. Sleep was impossible. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Isabella’s predatory smile, heard the echoes of Lorenzo’s threats, and felt the suffocating walls of the Moretti estate closing in around her once again.
A faint, metallic click echoed from the hallway outside their door.
Elena’s body went rigid in an instant. She sat up in bed, throwing off the heavy silk duvet, her bare feet touching the cold hardwood floor without a sound. She crept toward the door of the suite, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The door was locked—Lorenzo had insisted on personally inspecting the deadbolts before leaving for his downstairs study earlier that evening. But the sound she had heard wasn't a door opening. It was the whisper of a gloved hand sliding across the brass handle from the outside, followed by the muffled scratching of a lockpick.
Someone is trying to break in.
Panic seized her throat. Was it an assassin? A rival faction sent by the Rossi remnants to test the new vulnerability in the Moretti bloodline?
Without stopping to think, Elena slipped quietly into the adjoining nursery. Mia was still fast asleep, clutching a small stuffed rabbit. Elena’s eyes darted around the room for a weapon—anything to protect her daughter. A heavy brass lamp sat on the nightstand. She grabbed it with both hands, stepping back into the shadows beside the door connecting the nursery to the hallway.
The lockpick gave a soft click.
The heavy oak door slowly swung inward, an inch at a time, cutting a sliver of yellow hallway light across the dark carpet.
A dark figure stepped silently into the room. Tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the practiced, soundless grace of an elite hitman. The intruder paused, scanning the dark bedroom, then took a slow step toward the connecting door of the nursery.
Elena raised the heavy brass lamp above her head, her muscles trembling with adrenaline, waiting for the exact second the intruder crossed the threshold to strike.
As the figure stepped through the nursery door, bathed in the faint moonlight filtering through the high windows, Elena swung with all her might.
"Elena, stop!"
A strong hand caught her wrist mid-swing with iron force, stopping the heavy brass lamp inches from his face.
Elena gasped, the breath rushing out of her lungs. It wasn't an assassin. It was Lorenzo.
He was dressed in a dark tactical turtleneck and black trousers, a heavy holster strapped across his chest. His pale grey eyes widened slightly in surprise as he looked down at the lamp, then up at Elena’s terrified, flushed face.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lorenzo whispered harshly, gently prying the heavy lamp from her trembling fingers and setting it down on a nearby table.
"I heard the lockpick!" Elena whispered back, her chest heaving as adrenaline still pumped through her veins. "Someone was picking the door! I thought—I thought it was an intruder!"
A grim, humorless shadow crossed Lorenzo’s face. He reached out, his hand cupping the back of her neck, pulling her close against his chest so she wouldn't raise her voice and wake the child.
"It was me," Lorenzo muttered against her hair. "I picked the lock."
Elena froze, pulling back slightly to stare up at him in sheer disbelief. "You? You broke into your own guest suite in the middle of the night?"
"I wanted to check on you both without waking the household," Lorenzo explained, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly hum. "And I wanted to test the security of this wing. Evidently, my night-shift guards need to be retrained, because not a single one of them stopped me, and you were about to cave my skull in with a brass lamp."
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A hysterical, breathless laugh bubbled up in Elena’s throat, though she choked it back immediately so as not to wake Mia. "You're insane. You're completely, recklessly insane, Lorenzo."
"Maybe," he admitted softly, his hand lingering on the back of her neck, his thumb tracing the line of her jawline. The proximity was intoxicating, dangerous, and entirely overwhelming. In the dim moonlight, the hard edges of the ruthless mafia boss seemed to melt away, leaving only the man she had loved and lost three years ago. "Or maybe I'm just a man who realized that the only things worth protecting in this world are currently sleeping in this room."
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