Chapter 1: The Woman in the Nursery
Hunter pushed the nursery door open with trembling fingertips.
The room smelled of antiseptic, expensive candles, and fading hope.
Soft blue lights glowed beneath the carved ceiling while machines whispered around the tiny crib. Every monitor displayed numbers that seemed too fragile to belong to a living child.
Inside the crib lay Leo Rossi.
He looked impossibly small.
His skin was almost transparent beneath the thin hospital blanket. Tiny fists rested against his chest, barely moving as each shallow breath fought its way into his lungs.
Hunter's heart shattered.
She had held another baby that small only three weeks ago.
Only Lily had never taken a breath.
The weak cry came again.
It wasn't loud anymore. It sounded like surrender.
The night nurse remained asleep in the leather chair, her empty wineglass tilted dangerously close to the edge of the table.
Hunter stared in disbelief.
"How could you..." she whispered.
Her body answered before her mind did.
A painful rush spread through her chest.
Milk soaked through the bandages beneath her uniform.
Leo turned his head instinctively, his tiny mouth opening and closing as if searching for something he couldn't find.
Hunter backed toward the door.
No.
If anyone found her here, she would lose her job.
Maybe her life.
This was Lorenzo Rossi's son.
One wrong move inside this house could disappear a person forever.
Then Leo made a sound she knew too well.
It wasn't crying.
It was the exhausted gasp of a baby who no longer had the strength to ask for help.
Hunter covered her mouth.
"I can't leave you," she whispered, tears filling her eyes.
With shaking hands, she locked the nursery door.
She carefully lifted the fragile infant from the crib, terrified that he might break in her arms.
He weighed almost nothing.
His body felt frighteningly cold.
Hunter sat in the rocking chair beside the window.
Hands trembling, she loosened the tight bandages that had become both a prison and a reminder of everything she had lost.
Fresh tears slid down her cheeks.
"This was supposed to be for Lily."
For one heartbreaking moment, nothing happened.
Leo's head rested weakly against her arm.
Then instinct took over.
His tiny lips searched.
Found her.
And latched.
Hunter froze.
One weak swallow.
Then another.
Then another.
The heart monitor beside the crib changed its rhythm.
The slow, uneven beeping became stronger.
Steadier.
Healthier.
Hunter looked down in disbelief as the starving child drank with quiet determination.
Across the hallway, a security camera silently recorded everything.
Deep inside the mansion, an alert flashed across the private security system.
UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY — NURSERY LEVEL THREE.
Three floors below, Lorenzo Rossi slowly raised his head.
The whiskey glass slipped from his hand and shattered across the marble floor.
May you like
Without saying a word, he reached inside his jacket.
And pulled out his pistol.
