I will never forget the moment I walked into that nursery and saw a billionaire’s dying son do something no doctor, no specialist, and no amount of money had been able to make him do. Minutes later, his father was pointing a gun straight at my head. He believed I was stealing his child. He had no idea I was the only reason his son was still alive.

I kicked open the nursery door, my SIG Sauer raised, my heart slamming against my ribs.

The room was bathed in moonlight. Near the French doors leading to the balcony, a silver tray lay on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and a spilled pitcher of water.

Hannah was standing in front of Leo’s crib, holding a heavy brass candlestick like a weapon, her body trembling with fury and terror.

“Lorenzo!” she gasped, her voice shaking.

I swept the room, my barrel tracking across the shadows. The balcony door was unlocked, swinging open in the cold ocean breeze.

“What happened?” I demanded, rushing to the balcony and scanning the dark gardens below. My security team was already running across the lawn, spotlights cutting through the fog.

“Someone was in here,” Hannah whispered, her knuckles white around the candlestick. “I woke up to feed Leo. A man in a dark jacket was standing over his crib. He had a syringe.”

My blood ran instantly cold. “Did he touch him?”

“No!” Hannah cried, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “I grabbed the water pitcher from the nightstand and threw it at his head. It hit the door frame and shattered, and he ran out onto the balcony and jumped over the railing!”

I rushed to the crib. Leo was awake, squirming and sniffling, but unharmed.

Two minutes later, my head of security, Marco, burst into the room with four guards.

“Boss! We searched the perimeter. The intruder cleared the south wall—he had an insider’s access code to disable the silent alarm on the balcony door.”

An insider access code.

I turned around slowly, looking at the broken glass on the floor. My mansion was a fortress. The security system cost three million dollars. The only people who possessed the master bypass codes were myself, Marco, Dr. Halloran... and Victor.

“Marco,” I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. “Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. Nobody enters. Bring Dr. Halloran back here immediately.”

“Sir?” Marco blinked. “Dr. Halloran left hours ago—”

“Bring him back!” I roared.

Thirty minutes later, Dr. Halloran was brought into the study, looking confused and disheveled in his overcoat.

I didn't offer him a seat. I stood behind my desk, holding a small glass vial that Marco’s team had recovered from the balcony floor—the syringe the intruder had dropped when Hannah threw the pitcher.

“What is this, Julian?” I asked, setting the vial on the mahogany desk.

Dr. Halloran picked up the vial with trembling hands, holding it to the light. His eyes widened behind his glasses.

“This... this is a synthetic neuro-inhibitor,” he stammered, his voice laced with horror. “It depresses the central nervous system. In an adult, it causes mild sedation. In a premature infant...”

“It stops the heart,” I finished for him. “It makes it look like sudden infant death syndrome. Or failure to thrive.”

Julian dropped the vial as if it had burned his skin. “Lorenzo, I swear to God, I had no part in this!”

“I know you didn't, Julian,” I said, stepping around the desk. “Because if I thought you did, you wouldn't be breathing right now. But someone hired that intruder. And someone has been feeding my son micro-doses of this toxin since the day he was born.”

Julian gasped, putting a hand over his mouth. “The donor milk... the formula... that’s why his body was rejecting it! It wasn't a natural digestive failure! Someone was poisoning his food!”

The horrifying truth settled into the room like a suffocating fog.

Leo hadn't been dying of a medical anomaly. He was being systematically murdered inside my own home.

And the only reason he was still alive was because Hannah Hayes had broken the rules, snuck into the nursery, and fed him natural milk directly from her body—bypassing every poisoned bottle and tainted batch of formula in the house.

Hannah, who had been sitting quietly in the corner clutching Leo to her chest, let out a choked sob.

“They were trying to kill him,” she whispered, looking up at me with raw terror. “Why would anyone want to kill a baby?”

“Because as long as Leo lives,” I said, turning to look at the rain pouring against the windowpane, “he inherits everything my father built. If Leo dies, the entire Rossi estate passes to the next in line.”

Hannah’s breath hitched. “Your brother.”

I didn't answer. I didn't have to.

I walked over to Hannah, dropping to one knee beside her chair. I reached out and gently rested my hand over hers, feeling the frantic pulse in her slender wrist.

“You saved his life twice now, Hannah,” I said softly, looking deeply into her green eyes. “First from starvation. Now from a assassin.”

“I won't let them hurt him, Lorenzo,” she said, her voice turning fiercely protective despite her tears. “I lost my baby girl. I won't lose him too.”

I looked at this fragile, heartbroken woman who possessed the courage of a lioness. Something inside my cold, battered chest—something that had been dead since the night the car bomb took Sophia—stirred back to life.