The Crime Boss’s Toddler Bit Every Nanny Until a Broke, Curvy Woman Did the One Thing His Father Couldn’t
Instead, she said, “My mother has kidney failure. Her medical expenses are more than we can manage. I’m behind on rent, and I’ve been living on peanut butter sandwiches for almost two weeks.”
Dominic looked at her borrowed dress.
“And you’re willing to put yourself in danger for money?”
“I’m willing to do honest work for money.”
“Even when the work involves my son?”
“Especially if your son needs help.”
He looked away.
At that exact moment, something crashed upstairs.
A small voice screamed, “NO!”
Then came rapid footsteps.
The sitting room door slammed open.
A little boy with messy black curls stood in the doorway.
He wore blue pajamas decorated with dinosaurs. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes swollen from crying, and one sock had slipped halfway off his foot.
He was clutching a ceramic bowl.
Behind him, a frightened young maid appeared.
“Mr. Ferrara, I’m so sorry. He wouldn’t let me—”
Matteo threw the bowl.
It struck the edge of the sofa and shattered across the hardwood floor.
The maid screamed.
Dominic stepped forward.
“MATTEO!”
The boy flinched.
That single movement told Delia more than the entire interview had.
Matteo wasn’t simply angry.
He was terrified.
And he was exhausted.
“Enough!” Dominic commanded.
Matteo’s little fists curled.
“No!”
“You do not throw things at people.”
“No!”
“Come here.”
Matteo grabbed a wooden toy truck from a nearby table.
The maid immediately retreated.
Dominic’s face darkened.
“Put it down.”
Matteo raised his arm.
Before he could throw it, Delia spoke.
“That’s a pretty good truck.”
Both father and son turned toward her.
Delia slowly took off her borrowed heels.
Dominic frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“These shoes are killing me.”
She set them beside the sofa.
Then she lowered herself onto the carpet.
It took effort. Her knees complained, and her dress pulled uncomfortably across her hips.
She didn’t care.
She settled herself several feet away from Matteo, legs folded beneath her, hands resting openly on her knees.
The boy stared at her.
“Hi,” she said.
He said nothing.
“I’m Delia.”
Silence.
“I used to have a truck like yours. Mine was red.”
Matteo tightened his grip.
“Mine.”
“Absolutely. Yours.”
She glanced at the broken bowl.
“Looks like you’re having a pretty terrible day.”
His mouth trembled.
“Go.”
“You want me to leave?”
“GO!”
“Okay. I can move farther away.”
She shifted back a few inches.
Matteo blinked.
For the first time, someone had listened to him without trying to overpower him.
Delia glanced at the little truck.
“You’re allowed to be angry, buddy. But I’m not going to let you hurt anybody. If you need to throw something, maybe we can find a pillow instead.”
The boy looked confused.
Dominic stood motionless near the fireplace.
Delia continued softly.
“Sometimes when I get really sad, I get mad instead.”
Matteo’s grip loosened.
“Mad?”
“Really mad.”
He stared at her.
“Why?”
She swallowed.
“Because somebody I loved went away, and I couldn’t make them come back.”
Something changed in the child’s face.
His eyes filled instantly.
“Mama?”
The word was barely audible.
Delia felt her heart squeeze.
“Your mama?”
Matteo nodded.
Then he pointed toward the hallway.
“Mama go.”
Delia didn’t tell him his mother was in heaven.
She didn’t say everything happened for a reason.
She didn’t promise his mother would somehow return.
She simply said, “You miss her.”
His lower lip quivered.
“Want Mama.”
“I know.”
“Want Mama NOW!”
His voice broke on the last word.
He dropped the truck.
Then he stood there, shaking with a grief far too enormous for his little body.
Delia opened her arms.
Not reaching.
Not demanding.
Just offering.
“If you want a hug, I’m right here.”
For three long seconds, nothing happened.
Then Matteo ran.
He crossed the carpet and threw himself against her chest with such force that she nearly lost her balance.
His small fists grabbed her dress.
And he screamed.
Not angrily.
Heartbreakingly.
“MAMA!”
Delia wrapped her arms around him.
He began sobbing so violently that his entire body shook.
“I know, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I know.”
She held him close, one hand supporting his back, the other stroking his curls.
She didn’t try to stop his tears.
She didn’t tell him to be a big boy.
She simply let him cry.
Across the room, Dominic Ferrara stopped breathing.
For fourteen months, his son had refused to be held by anyone except him.
Even with Dominic, Matteo often struggled and screamed.
But now the same child who had bitten four nannies was curled against a complete stranger.
And for the first time since his mother’s funeral, he was crying like a child instead of fighting like someone cornered.
Delia rocked him gently.
“You’re safe.”
Matteo buried his face deeper against her chest.
“She gone.”
“Yes, baby.”
“She coming?”
Delia closed her eyes.
There were no gentle answers to a question like that.
“No, sweetheart. She can’t come back.”
His sobs grew louder.
“But you can miss her. And you can talk about her. And nobody should make you feel bad for loving her.”
For a long time, the only sounds in the room were Matteo’s crying and Delia’s quiet humming.
Eventually, his breathing slowed.
His fingers relaxed.
And he fell asleep against her.
Dominic remained standing in the exact same place.
When Delia finally looked up, she saw something she hadn’t expected.
Tears.
The most feared man in Pittsburgh was staring at his sleeping son with tears running silently down his face.
He wiped them away before anyone could mention them.
Then he turned to the housekeeper.
“Cancel the interviews.”
“Sir?”
“All of them.”
He looked at Delia.
“You’re hired.”
She blinked.
“We haven’t discussed the salary.”
“Whatever the agency offered, I’ll double it.”
“That’s very generous.”
“You’ll move into the guest suite beside Matteo’s room.”
“I’ll need scheduled time off.”
“You’ll have it.”
“And I want a written contract.”
“Fine.”
“And someone qualified to help Matteo with his grief. A child therapist. I’m not trained for that.”
Dominic studied her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
“Done.”
Delia glanced down at the sleeping boy.
“One more thing.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
“You’re negotiating with me while sitting on my floor?”
“Apparently.”
“What?”
“Don’t yell at him for crying.”
The room went completely silent.
Dominic looked toward the little boy curled in her arms.
Something tightened in his face.
Finally, he said, “I won’t.”
He crouched beside them.
Very carefully, he brushed a dark curl away from Matteo’s forehead.
His voice was almost unrecognizable.
“Thank you.”
Delia smiled faintly.
“You’re welcome.”
She didn’t know then that Dominic Ferrara was a man with enemies everywhere.
She didn’t know that one of those enemies already knew her mother’s address.
And she certainly didn’t know that the small boy sleeping peacefully against her chest would soon become the reason she risked everything.
But that evening, as she helped Matteo into bed, he opened his sleepy eyes and caught her wrist.
“Dee?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Stay?”
She pulled a chair beside his bed.
“For tonight, I’m right here.”
He nodded and fell asleep.
Delia remained beside him until his breathing became deep and even.
Downstairs, Dominic stood alone in his office, looking at a photograph of his late wife.
Her name was Caroline.
She had died on a freezing January night when her car slid off a highway outside Pittsburgh.
He remembered their last argument.
He remembered telling her that she didn’t understand his business.
And he remembered refusing to leave an important meeting when she called him three times.
He had built an empire that frightened thousands of people.
But he hadn’t been there when the person he loved most needed him.
Now his son was growing up in a house built from fear.
And the only person who seemed capable of reaching him was a broke woman who had walked through the front door wearing secondhand shoes.
Dominic picked up his phone.
“Gabriel,” he said when his head of security answered.
“Yes, boss?”
“I want everything checked concerning Miss Hart’s background.”
“Of course.”
Dominic paused.
“And Gabriel?”
“Sir?”
“Find out which medical bills her mother owes. Quietly.”
He ended the call and looked once more at Caroline’s photograph.
For the first time in fourteen months, the house upstairs was silent.
Not the terrible silence of grief.
The peaceful silence of a sleeping child.
He was so relieved that it frightened him.
Over the next six weeks, Delia Hart accomplished something that Dominic Ferrara’s money, security, and influence had failed to achieve.
She made his house feel like a home.
It started with the smallest things.
She moved Matteo’s toys off the expensive shelves and onto the floor where he could actually reach them.
She replaced the stiff decorative pillows in the family room with colorful cushions that could survive being thrown.
She discovered that he hated oatmeal but loved scrambled eggs shaped into ridiculous little faces.
She learned that he slept better when the hallway light stayed on.
And she found something else.
Matteo wasn’t afraid of the dark.
He was afraid of waking up alone.
One night, after his third nightmare, he whispered, “Mama went bye-bye when I sleep.”
Delia sat beside him, holding his hand.
“Did you wake up and she wasn’t there?”
He nodded.
Caroline had left the house early on the morning of the accident, before Matteo woke.
He had kissed her goodnight the previous evening.
And afterward, every adult who came into his life eventually disappeared again.
Nannies quit.
Relatives visited and left.
Even his father vanished into his office for hours.
Matteo had learned that loving someone meant waiting for them to disappear.
Delia understood.
The next morning, she bought a small magnetic calendar with her own money.
She attached it to the refrigerator and marked the days she would be working with blue stars.
On her days off, she placed a yellow sun beside her name.
“This means I’m going to visit my mom,” she explained. “And this means I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
Matteo studied it seriously.
“Back?”
“That’s the plan. And if plans change, I’ll tell you.”
She never promised forever.
She had learned that children deserved promises adults could actually keep.
Two weeks later, Matteo began sleeping through the night.
A month later, he let his father tuck him into bed without screaming.
And one Sunday morning, Dominic walked into the kitchen and discovered something he hadn’t heard in more than a year.
His son’s laughter.
Delia stood at the counter wearing an apron dusted with flour.
Matteo sat safely at a low children’s table, enthusiastically flattening biscuit dough with a miniature rolling pin.
His face was covered in flour.
So was the table.
So was the floor.
Dominic stared.
“What happened to my kitchen?”
Delia looked up.
“Breakfast.”
“It looks like a bakery exploded.”
“That would explain why the biscuits are so fluffy.”
Matteo held up a misshapen piece of dough.
“Daddy! I made a dinosaur!”
Dominic examined it.
“That’s a dinosaur?”
“It’s a T-Rex.”
“It looks like a potato.”
Matteo shrieked with laughter.
Delia gave Dominic a disapproving look.
“You’re crushing the artist’s confidence.”
Dominic raised both hands.
“My apologies.”
He approached his son.
“That’s an excellent dinosaur.”
Matteo grinned.
For a moment, Dominic simply stared at him.
Delia noticed.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Dominic shook his head.
“He hasn’t laughed like that since Caroline.”
Delia softened.
“Maybe he remembers how.”
Dominic looked at the child again.
“Maybe.”
Later that morning, after Matteo had gone upstairs with the housekeeper to change his flour-covered clothes, Dominic returned to the kitchen.
Delia was washing dishes.
“You didn’t need to clean up,” he said.
“Somebody has to.”
“We employ people for that.”
“Then somebody should give them a Sunday off occasionally.”
He leaned against the counter.
“You have a habit of criticizing the way I run this house.”
“You have a habit of running it like a corporate headquarters.”
“I am used to control.”
“I noticed.”
He almost smiled.
Then his expression grew serious.
“Matteo asked about his mother yesterday.”
Delia stopped washing.
“What did you tell him?”
“That she loved him.”
“Good.”
“He wanted to see photographs.”
“And?”
Dominic looked down.
“I put them away after she died.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because every time he saw her face, he screamed.”
Delia dried her hands.
“Dominic, he’s going to miss her whether the pictures are there or not.”
His jaw tightened.
“I couldn’t keep watching him suffer.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?”
“More than you think.”
She paused.
“But hiding her photographs doesn’t take away the loss. It just means he has to remember her alone.”
Dominic looked toward the staircase.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Finally, he said, “There’s a box in my bedroom.”
“Of photographs?”
“Photographs. Letters. A few things she wore.”
“Maybe you could show him something.”
Dominic’s eyes darkened.
“What if it makes him cry?”
Delia stepped closer.
“Then you hold him.”
He looked at her.
“Like you did?”
“Exactly like I did.”
That afternoon, father and son sat together on the carpet of Matteo’s bedroom.
Between them was a cardboard box.
Inside were photographs, a pale-blue scarf, a small silver bracelet, and a birthday card Caroline had written for her son’s second birthday.
Matteo picked up the scarf.
“Mama.”
Dominic swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Smell Mama.”
He pressed the fabric against his cheek.
Then he began crying.
Dominic froze.
For one terrible second, Delia thought he might close the box.
Instead, he gathered his son into his arms.
“I miss her too, buddy.”
Matteo looked up.
“Daddy sad?”
“Yes.”
“Big sad?”
Dominic’s face crumpled.
“Very big sad.”
Matteo touched his cheek.
Then the little boy wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.
“It’s okay, Daddy.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
And for the first time since the funeral, he allowed himself to cry in front of his son.
Delia quietly left the room.
She shut the door behind her and leaned against the hallway wall.
Her own eyes were wet.
She had come to the Ferrara estate for money.
She was beginning to care about the people inside it.
And that terrified her more than Dominic’s reputation ever had.
Because people who needed you could break your heart.
And people with power could destroy your life.
Delia had experience with both.
The first threatening phone call came on a Thursday afternoon.
Delia was sitting on the back patio, watching Matteo chase soap bubbles across the grass, when her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
“Delia Hart.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Who’s calling?”
“Wallace Pike. You remember me, sweetheart?”
She stood immediately.
Wallace Pike operated a lending business from a shabby office above a pawnshop in Homestead.
Eight months earlier, when Delia’s mother needed emergency medical care and their savings had disappeared, Delia had borrowed twenty-two hundred dollars from him.
She had already repaid almost the entire original amount.
But Pike’s fees kept multiplying.
According to his latest demand, she now owed seven thousand four hundred dollars.
“How did you get this number?” she asked.
“Don’t sound so unfriendly. I’m calling about a financial obligation.”
“I made the last payment.”
“You missed two after that.”
“I’ve been working.”
“At a beautiful mansion, apparently.”
Delia went cold.
Pike laughed softly.
“Funny thing about rich people. They pay good money for their children’s safety.”
Her eyes flew toward Matteo.
He was still running across the grass, laughing as bubbles floated above his head.
“Don’t you dare talk about that child.”
“Then don’t make me come looking for you.”
The line went dead.
Delia stood motionless.
“Dee!”
Matteo came running toward her.
“Big bubble!”
She forced a smile.
“That was a really big one.”
But when she picked him up, her arms tightened around him instinctively.
He touched her face.
“Dee scared?”
She kissed his forehead.
“Just worried about something.”
He frowned.
“Bad thing?”
“Something grown-ups need to handle.”
Matteo considered that answer.
Then he wrapped his little arms around her neck.
“I hug you.”
Delia nearly cried.
For the next several days, she tried to manage the problem alone.
She called Pike.
She offered a payment schedule.
She asked for an itemized statement showing how her debt had grown so dramatically.
He laughed.
Then he sent a photograph of her mother’s apartment building.
Another showed Delia’s old grocery store.
A third showed the entrance to Dominic’s estate.
That was when she understood.
This wasn’t ordinary debt collection.
Pike wanted something beyond money.
And he believed Delia was the easiest way to reach it.
On Monday evening, Gabriel Voss found her sitting on the back steps.
Gabriel was Dominic’s oldest friend and head of security, a broad, heavily scarred man who spoke rarely but noticed everything.
He sat beside her without invitation.
“Something’s wrong.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
Delia stared into the darkness.
“Do you ever get tired of noticing things?”
“Occupational hazard.”
She almost smiled.
Then she handed him her phone.
Gabriel read the messages.
His expression changed.
“How long has this been happening?”
“A few days.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I was trying to protect Matteo.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“By keeping this from the people responsible for his security?”
Delia lowered her head.
“I thought if I left, Pike might leave everyone here alone.”
Gabriel was quiet for a moment.
Then he said something she would never forget.
“That little boy finally sleeps at night because he trusts you’ll come back in the morning. Don’t let a criminal decide when you disappear.”
An hour later, Delia stood inside Dominic’s office.
She told him everything.
The loan.
The threats.
The photographs.
The impossible interest charges.
She expected him to become angry.
She didn’t expect the terrifying silence that followed.
Dominic examined the messages.
Then he picked up his phone.
“Gabriel. Find Pike.”
Delia immediately stepped forward.
“No.”
Dominic looked up.
“Excuse me?”
“No. I know what that tone means.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I know enough.”
His eyes hardened.
“He threatened my son.”
“And I’m not going to let protecting Matteo become an excuse for someone getting murdered.”
The word hung between them.
Dominic slowly set down the phone.
“Do you believe that’s what I am?”
Delia’s heart pounded.
“I believe you’re a man who’s used to solving problems by making other people afraid.”
He stared at her.
She continued.
“Maybe that’s how you’ve survived. But it’s also why your house has guards at every door and your son jumps whenever someone raises their voice.”
Dominic turned away.
“Be careful, Delia.”
“No. You asked me to help your child feel safe. I can’t do that while pretending the rest of his world doesn’t matter.”
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Dominic said quietly, “Pike used to work through one of my lending operations.”
Delia felt the floor shift beneath her.
“What?”
“Years ago, I provided funding to several private lenders. His was one of them. I stopped dealing with him after complaints about his collection practices.”
“Complaints?”
“Threats. Fraud. Extortion.”
“And you simply walked away?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
Delia stared at him.
“My mother nearly lost her apartment because of that man.”
“I didn’t know he had your loan.”
“But you knew what he was.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
She felt sudden, overwhelming disappointment.
He had been so gentle with Matteo.
So careful with her.
She had begun to imagine there was another Dominic Ferrara beneath the reputation.
Now she saw how complicated the truth really was.
“You can’t fix this by frightening him more than he frightened me,” she said.
“What would you have me do?”
“Tell the truth. Help me document everything. Get a lawyer who works for me, not for you. And if he’s breaking the law, let him answer for it.”
Dominic looked at her as though she had demanded he surrender his entire empire.
Perhaps she had.
“And the debt?” he asked.
“I’ll pay what I actually owe. From my salary.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent my entire life owing people things. I don’t want the price of feeling safe to be belonging to someone else.”
Something changed in his expression.
He walked around the desk.
“Delia.”
She stepped back.
He stopped immediately.
“I don’t want you to belong to me.”
“Then respect my choices.”
A long silence followed.
Finally, he nodded.
“All right.”
He called Gabriel again.
This time, his instructions were different.
“Arrange independent legal counsel for Miss Hart. Contact her mother’s building manager about the threats. Preserve every message and photograph Pike has sent.”
He paused.
“And start reviewing every lending operation that ever carried my money.”
When he ended the call, Delia saw the exhaustion in his face.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
Dominic looked toward a framed photograph of Caroline and Matteo.
“Because my son deserves a father he doesn’t have to be afraid of.”
Delia swallowed.
“That’s a good place to start.”
Two days later, an attorney named Mara Bennett reviewed Delia’s loan agreement.
Much of Pike’s claimed balance consisted of questionable charges and penalties.
Mara explained that challenging the agreement would take time, but Delia had strong evidence of harassment and extortion.
She helped Delia make a formal report.
Dominic also began turning over records relating to his former lending arrangements.
The process uncovered financial irregularities that reached into businesses he still owned.
For the first time in years, Dominic found himself facing consequences he could not simply purchase away.
Pike responded with another message.
This time, the photograph showed Matteo playing beside the estate’s greenhouse.
Underneath were six words.
You cannot guard him every second.
Delia carried the phone straight to Dominic.
He read the message once.
His expression became dangerously calm.
“Gabriel,” he called.
Within minutes, the estate was locked down.
Workers were questioned.
Deliveries were suspended.
Security footage was reviewed.
And a groundskeeping supervisor named Eric Nolan, who had recently received unexplained cash payments, was removed from duty.
Dominic immediately called the local police and provided the photographs, messages, and security information.
He had finally begun to understand that being feared was not the same as keeping people safe.
That evening, Delia found Matteo sitting on the floor beside his bed, clutching Caroline’s pale-blue scarf.
“Dee?”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
He looked up.
“People go?”
Delia sat beside him.
“Some people are leaving because the grown-ups need to make sure everyone is safe.”
His little face crumpled.
“You go?”
Her heart broke.
“I’m here now, buddy.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow too.”
He climbed into her lap.
“Stay always?”
She closed her eyes.
How easy it would have been to promise.
Instead, she whispered, “I care about you very much. And if something changes, I will tell you. I won’t just disappear.”
He rested his cheek against her.
After a while, he asked, “Daddy stay?”
Delia looked toward the doorway.
Dominic was standing there, listening.
He came into the room, lowered himself beside his son, and answered the question himself.
“Yes, buddy. Daddy’s staying.”
Matteo reached for his father.
Dominic held him close.
Across the child’s dark curls, his eyes met Delia’s.
There was an apology in them.
And something more dangerous.
Hope.
Neither of them spoke about it.
Not yet.
Because outside the estate walls, Wallace Pike was becoming desperate.
And desperate men often made their worst decisions when they realized their power was disappearing.
The following morning, Pittsburgh woke beneath its first heavy snowfall.
At 6:12 a.m., an alarm sounded from the east wing.
Delia ran into the hallway.
Gabriel was already moving toward the nursery.
Dominic emerged from his bedroom seconds later.
“What happened?”
Gabriel opened Matteo’s door.
The small bed was empty.
His red winter coat was missing.
And on the pillow lay Caroline’s pale-blue scarf.
Dominic’s face went white.
“Where is my son?”
No one answered.
For the first time in his adult life, Dominic Ferrara looked utterly helpless.
Then Delia noticed something on the nursery window.
A tiny handprint.
And beneath it, written clumsily in the condensation, one word.
MAMA.
Delia was the first to move.
She rushed into the nursery, searched beneath the bed, and pulled open the closet.
Nothing.
Then she saw the little blue boots were missing from their usual place beside the door.
“He’s outside,” she whispered.
Dominic turned sharply.
“What?”
“His boots are gone. His coat is gone. He’s outside.”
Gabriel spoke into his radio.
“Check every exit. Greenhouse, garage, service courtyard. Nobody leaves the property.”
Dominic was already running down the staircase.
Delia followed.
Outside, snow covered the gardens in a thick white blanket.
The cold struck her face.
She had forgotten her coat.
She didn’t care.
“MATTEO!”
Her voice disappeared into the wind.
Dominic raced across the driveway toward the garage.
Gabriel headed toward the security building.
Delia stood still for one precious second.
Think.
Matteo was three.
He was frightened.
He had taken his mother’s scarf from its box and left it on his pillow.
And he had written MAMA on the window.
She remembered something Caroline’s sister had told them during a visit.
Caroline loved gardening.
She had spent hours in the estate’s greenhouse, growing roses and herbs.
Sometimes she took baby Matteo with her.
He used to sit on a little wooden bench while she watered the flowers.
Delia turned toward the greenhouse.
Its glass roof was barely visible beyond the snow-covered hedges.
She ran.
Her shoes slipped across the icy path.
Branches scratched her arms.
Then she heard a sound.
A child’s voice.
“No.”
Delia stopped.
Beyond the greenhouse stood a small service courtyard.
The gate leading into it was partly open.
A man in a dark overcoat stood near the greenhouse entrance.
And in front of him was Matteo.
His red coat was covered in snow.
His cheeks were wet.
He was clutching a small gardening glove.
Delia recognized the glove immediately.
It had belonged to Caroline.
The stranger crouched in front of the boy.
“Come on, buddy. Your daddy sent me.”
Matteo backed away.
“No.”
“Don’t be difficult.”
The man reached toward him.
Delia stepped out from behind the hedge.
“Take your hands off him.”
The stranger turned.
Wallace Pike.
He was shorter than she had expected, with thinning blond hair and a crooked smile.
His expression changed when he recognized her.
“Well, look who showed up.”
Delia’s heart hammered.
But she forced herself to remain calm.
“Matteo,” she said gently. “Come here, sweetheart.”
The little boy turned.
“DEE!”
He ran toward her.
Pike caught his coat.
“Not so fast.”
Matteo screamed.
Something inside Delia snapped.
“LET HIM GO!”
She rushed forward.
Pike shoved her shoulder.
She stumbled against a stone planter but stayed on her feet.
Matteo began sobbing.
“Dee! Dee!”
Delia stepped between them and pulled the boy close.
Pike reached toward her.
“Give me the kid.”
“No.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
His face twisted.
“I gave you money when nobody else would.”
“You gave me twenty-two hundred dollars and tried to turn my desperation into a lifetime sentence.”
“That money came with terms.”
“Not a child.”
He stepped closer.
Delia backed toward the greenhouse wall, holding Matteo against her chest.
Pike looked beyond her, toward the estate.
“Ferrara thinks he can turn on everybody he’s worked with. Hand over records. Close businesses. Make himself look respectable.”
His voice grew bitter.
“He made millions while the rest of us took the risks.”
Delia understood.
Pike wasn’t there because of her debt anymore.
He was there because Dominic had begun turning over the financial records that could destroy him.
Matteo was leverage.
And Delia was the person Pike had assumed would be easiest to frighten.
“You came here to threaten a three-year-old?” she asked.
Pike’s expression hardened.
“I came here to make his father listen.”
“He isn’t a message. He’s a little boy.”
“You should have stayed a grocery clerk.”
He grabbed her arm.
Delia pulled away, twisting her body to shield Matteo.
The boy screamed again.
Then another voice cut through the snow.
“PIKE!”
Dominic Ferrara stood at the end of the path.
His shirt sleeves were rolled up.
His shoes were soaked.
His face was so pale that Delia barely recognized him.
Behind him, Gabriel and two security officers were approaching.
Pike pulled Delia closer by her sleeve.
“Tell your men to back off!”
Dominic stopped.
Every muscle in his body appeared ready to explode.
For one terrifying moment, Delia saw the man everyone in Pittsburgh feared.
The man who had built his reputation on making threats disappear.
Then she saw him look at Matteo.
His son’s tiny face was pressed against her shoulder.
His hands were shaking.
Dominic slowly raised his arms.
“Let them go.”
Pike laughed nervously.
“You’re going to listen to me now.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“You’re going to stop cooperating with those investigators.”
Dominic remained still.
“Let my son go.”
“And the records?”
“He’s three years old, Pike.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Dominic took one careful step forward.
“I’ve spent most of my life believing everything has a price. Every favor. Every person. Every problem.”
His voice trembled.
“You’re about to discover something I should have understood years ago.”
Pike frowned.
“What’s that?”
“My son is not a bargaining chip.”
Gabriel moved closer.
Pike glanced toward him.
That moment of distraction was enough.
Delia pulled Matteo against her and stepped away.
Pike reached for her coat.
Gabriel caught his arm before he could grab either of them.
The two security officers moved in.
Within seconds, Pike was restrained.
Dominic didn’t chase him.
He didn’t strike him.
He didn’t even look at him.
He ran straight to Delia.
“Matteo.”
The boy reached for his father.
“DADDY!”
Dominic gathered him into his arms.
He dropped to his knees in the snow, holding the child so tightly that Matteo squeaked.
“Daddy here.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“I’m here, buddy. I’m here.”
Matteo began crying again.
“Bad man.”
“I know.”
“Want Mama.”
Dominic’s face twisted with pain.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Want Dee.”
Delia knelt beside them.
“I’m right here.”
Matteo caught her hand and pressed it against his cheek.
“Don’t go.”
Her tears finally spilled over
