Chapter 1
Shattering glass seemed to echo through the sterile corridors of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital with the arrival of Alessandro Romano.
He had not truly slept in 7 months.
He tore through the private maternity ward searching for the wife who had vanished from his life, only to stop when a piercing scream cut through the corridor.
She was there.
And she was in labor.
Cold November winds howled off the East River and battered the reinforced glass of the Greenberg Pavilion. Inside the exclusive VIP maternity wing of NewYork-Presbyterian, the atmosphere was normally defined by quiet privilege and precise medical calm.
That night, the serenity was gone.
Alessandro strode through the sliding doors of the 4th floor, his cashmere overcoat trailing behind him.
6 men in tailored suits moved with him. Their postures were rigid, their eyes continuously scanning the floor.
They did not resemble concerned fathers or exhausted relatives.
They were the highest-ranking members of the Romano crime syndicate, moving through the hospital with the force of an approaching disaster.
For 214 days, Alessandro had lived inside a suffocating nightmare.
His wife, Genevieve, had disappeared from their heavily guarded Hamptons estate without leaving a single trace.
There had been no ransom demand.
There had been no sign of a struggle.
Only a cold bed, an empty safe, and the lingering scent of her Tom Ford Black Orchid perfume.
During the months that followed, Alessandro tore the Eastern Seaboard apart looking for her.
He burned rival warehouses.
He interrogated associates until they broke down.
He searched through the most violent corners of the criminal underworld because he was convinced that the Costa family had taken Genevieve to destroy him.
It never occurred to him that she might have run voluntarily.
That changed 2 hours earlier.
A large payment to an underground data broker finally produced a result.
Genevieve’s Social Security number, concealed beneath encryption and dummy corporations, had been used to authorize a premium health-insurance claim under the name Abigail Mercer.
The claim came from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
“Lock down the elevators,” Alessandro ordered.
His voice was low and rough.
“Nobody comes onto this floor. Nobody leaves.”
He continued walking.
“Cut the hard lines to the security desk downstairs.”
“Already done, boss,” Mateo replied.
Alessandro’s right-hand man slipped a suppressed pistol beneath his jacket.
A security guard at the reception desk rose uncertainly, 1 hand hovering near his radio.
“Sir, you cannot be here. Visiting hours are over, and this is a secured floor.”
Alessandro did not slow down.
Mateo stepped toward the guard, caught him by the front of his uniform, lifted him slightly from the floor, and pushed him back into the chair.
“Sit down. Keep quiet, and you go home to your family tomorrow.”
The guard immediately nodded.
Color disappeared from his face.
Alessandro approached the nurses’ station.
The head nurse, a stern woman whose badge identified her as Helen, stared at him with frightened eyes.
She had worked in the VIP maternity ward for 15 years.
Politicians, celebrities, and billionaires were familiar to her.
Alessandro Romano was different.
Violence seemed to surround him even while he stood perfectly still.
His jaw was rigid with tension.
Exhaustion had hollowed his dark eyes, but beneath it burned a frantic intensity.
“Abigail Mercer.”
Alessandro leaned his knuckles against the polished mahogany counter.
“What room is she in?”
Helen swallowed.
Her hands moved instinctively over the patient records.
“I cannot disclose patient information. HIPAA regulations—”
Alessandro moved across the counter before she could finish.
His hand closed around the back of her neck.
The grip was controlled rather than painful, but it was impossible to escape.
“Helen.”
He read the name on her badge.
“My wife has been missing for 7 months.”
His face was inches from hers.
“I have dismantled half this city looking for her.”
His voice dropped further.
“I have done things that would make the devil sick.”
Helen stopped breathing.
“Do not speak to me about regulations. Point to the room, or my men will search every bed on this floor.”
His eyes hardened.
“And they will not be polite about it.”
Before Helen could answer, a scream tore through the corridor.
It was raw and agonizing, the kind of sound produced when a body had reached the limit of endurance.
Alessandro froze.
His grip on Helen loosened.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it whisper his name in darkness.
He had heard it laugh beneath the Tuscan sun.
For 214 nights, he had listened to old recordings of it simply to stop himself from losing his mind.
Genevieve.
Without another word, Alessandro turned and ran down the corridor.
His expensive leather shoes slid slightly against the polished linoleum.
The smells of iodine and bleach filled the air, but some irrational part of him believed he could smell her perfume beneath them.
He stopped outside delivery room 4.
The heavy door was closed.
A red light above it indicated that a procedure was underway.
Through the small glass panel, Alessandro saw medical personnel in blue scrubs moving rapidly around the room.
“Boss,” Mateo said as he reached him. His hand moved toward his holster. “We do not know what is inside. It could be a Costa trap.”
“Stand down.”
Alessandro struck the automatic release.
The door opened.
He entered the delivery room.
The staff reacted immediately.
Monitors sounded from every direction.
The rapid rhythm of the fetal heart monitor dominated the room.
“Hey, you cannot be in here,” a young resident shouted.
The doctor stepped into Alessandro’s path.
Alessandro moved him aside with 1 arm.
His attention had already fixed on the center of the room.
Genevieve lay in the mechanical hospital bed beneath harsh surgical lighting.
She looked nothing like the impeccably groomed woman who had vanished in the spring.
Her dark hair was wet with sweat and pressed against her forehead.
Her skin was pale.
Pain had transformed her expression.
Multiple IV lines ran from her arms.
Her hands were white around the bed rails.
Beneath the hospital sheet, her abdomen rose in a heavy, unmistakable curve.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
The room seemed to tilt around him.
Every ounce of rage he had cultivated during the previous 7 months disappeared within a single heartbeat.
Genevieve was pregnant.
She was giving birth to his child.
“Genevieve.”
Her name left his mouth like a prayer.
Her eyes opened.
Through the exhaustion and pain, she focused on the man standing at the foot of the bed.
Her already pale face lost what little color remained.
Terror flooded her features.
“No.”
She tried to push herself backward against the pillows, tangling the monitor wires.
“No. No, no. How did you find me?”
Her breathing became frantic.
“Get him out. Somebody get him out of here.”
Her reaction struck Alessandro harder than any weapon could have.
He had imagined relief.
He had imagined tears.
He had never imagined Genevieve looking at him as though death itself had entered the room.
“Evie.”
He took 1 hesitant step forward and raised his empty hands.
“It’s me.”
His voice cracked.
“You’re safe. I’m here. I have you.”
“Stay away from me!”
The heart-rate monitor spiked.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t let him touch the baby.”
“Security has been called.”
The calm interruption came from Dr. Nathaniel Hayes.
He stood near the monitors and removed a pair of bloody surgical gloves.
He was older, silver-haired, and possessed the steady gaze of a surgeon who had witnessed enough death to remain unimpressed by an armed criminal.
“I do not care who you are,” Dr. Hayes said.
He moved between Alessandro and the bed.
“My patient’s blood pressure is reaching critical levels, and her baby’s heart rate is falling.”
His expression hardened.
“She is in complicated, high-risk labor. You are causing acute distress.”
The doctor pointed toward the door.
“Leave immediately, or you may be responsible for the death of this child.”
The syndicate boss returned instantly to Alessandro’s face.
“If you try to remove me from this room, doctor, I will put a bullet through your kneecap and deliver the child myself.”
He stepped forward.
“Move.”
“Sandro, stop.”
Genevieve cried out as another contraction crossed her abdomen.
Her body arched from the mattress.
A guttural groan escaped her before she began sobbing into the pillow.
The sight destroyed Alessandro’s anger.
He rushed to her bedside and dropped to his knees.
His hands trembled as he reached toward her.
For a moment, they hovered above her skin.
Then he gently took her hand.
“Why, Evie?”
His voice broke.
The feared Don of the Romano family had become a desperate husband.
“Why did you run?”
His grip tightened around her fingers.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?”
His eyes filled.
“I thought you were dead.”
He swallowed.
“I thought they took you.”
Genevieve turned her face toward him.
Tears ran across her flushed cheeks.
Hatred and grief burned together in her eyes.
“Because of what you did to Leo.”
She struggled through the fading contraction.
“I know what you did, Sandro.”
Alessandro frowned.
“I found the burner phones.”
Her voice shook.
“I heard the recordings.”
“Leo?”
Alessandro stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
Confusion replaced everything else.
“Your brother was murdered by the Costas.”
He shook his head.
“I brought you his ashes.”
His voice rose.
“I avenged him.”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“Evie, I swear to God—”
“Liar.”
Genevieve tried to pull her hand free.
Alessandro refused to release it.
“Vincenzo told me everything.”
She sobbed.
“He played the recording of you giving the order.”
Alessandro went still.
“You had my brother killed because he was stealing from the union accounts.”
She looked at him with devastation.
“You smiled at me while his blood was on your hands.”
Her free hand moved toward her abdomen.
“I could not let you raise our child.”
Her voice broke.
“I could not let my baby become a monster like you.”
For Alessandro, the room fell silent.
1 name remained.
Vincenzo.
His most trusted consigliere.
His mentor.
A man who had eaten at Alessandro’s table.
A man who had comforted him after Genevieve disappeared.
A man who had spent the previous 6 months aggressively urging Alessandro to begin a full-scale war against the Costa family.
The truth came together with brutal clarity.
Vincenzo had arranged Leo’s murder.
He had fabricated the recordings.
He had driven Genevieve away.
Then he had used Alessandro’s grief to push the Romano syndicate toward a war that could weaken the organization enough for Vincenzo to seize control.
“Evie.”
Alessandro’s voice became terrifyingly calm.
“I did not kill Leo.”
Genevieve stared at him.
“Vincenzo framed me.”
His eyes hardened.
“He wanted my position.”
He looked back at her.
“He wanted me blinded by grief.”
Genevieve searched his face.
For the 1st time, uncertainty entered her expression.
Before she could respond, her body seized.
The monitors erupted into continuous alarms.
“Her pressure is dropping,” Dr. Hayes shouted.
He moved rapidly between the monitors.
“The umbilical cord is compressed.”
His voice sharpened.
“The baby is not getting enough oxygen.”
He turned.
“We need an emergency C-section immediately.”
“Do it.”
Alessandro rose.
“Save them.”
He moved away from the bed as nurses rushed forward.
“Save both of them.”
“We need to move her to the OR,” Dr. Hayes said, assessing the monitors again. “There is no time.”
He grabbed a scalpel from the sterile tray.
“Prepare the abdomen.”
His orders came rapidly.
“Give me 50 mg of propofol. We are doing it here.”
Genevieve began to sob.
Fear overwhelmed every other thought.
“Sandro.”
Alessandro was beside her head immediately.
He cupped her face in both hands.
Their foreheads touched.
“I’m here.”
His voice was fierce.
“I am not leaving you.”
He ignored the people moving around them.
He ignored the blood already beginning to mark the floor.
“You are going to be all right.”
He pressed his forehead harder against hers.
“The baby is going to be all right.”
Dr. Hayes made the 1st incision.
At that exact moment, the hospital door burst open.
It was not another medical team.
Mateo stood in the doorway.
Blood ran from a shallow wound across his cheek.
His pistol was already drawn.
“Boss.”
He looked back toward the corridor.
“Vincenzo just came out of the elevator.”
May you like
Mateo’s face was pale.
“He brought 20 men.”
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