Chapter 5

Alessandro waited until the Ivanovas were gone before turning to his brother.

Giovanni was still in the armchair, ankle hooked over his knee, twirling Katerina’s abandoned teacup like a coin at Nonna’s table. Lazy smirk, eyes amused. To anyone else, he looked like trouble in a pressed suit.

But Alessandro knew the tells—the twitch in his left thumb, the rhythm of the spin. Gio only did that when his head was three moves ahead, deciding whose blood would spill first.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Alessandro asked. It came out sharper than intended. Giovanni’s unannounced visits never meant anything good.

Giovanni leaned back. “Well, well… big brother. And the infamous Bratva cousin—looking comfortable in your living room.”

Alessandro didn’t bite. “You’re supposed to be in Milan.”

“Supposed to be,” Gio said, still playing with the cup. “But then Marcella called.”

That name landed like a body blow. Alessandro’s fingers twitched. “What does she want?”

Giovanni’s smirk faded. “She wants to know why you’re playing house with the Bratva girl.”

“Sophia is not her concern.”

“There’s nothing in this family outside her concern,” Gio said, leaning forward. “She’s worried.”

“She doesn’t worry. She calculates.”

Giovanni’s voice cut sharper. “Then calculate this—Luca and Hanna weren’t accidents. Whoever lit that fire wanted what they were protecting.”

Alessandro’s jaw locked. “And you think that’s Sophia.”

Gio didn’t answer. Silence was enough.

“She’s the key to something bigger,” he said finally. “I don’t know what. Marcella does. And if she sent me instead of coming herself, she thinks you’re already in the blast radius.”

“Where is she?” Gio asked.

“Safe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all you’re getting.”

Gio tapped the armrest—warning shot. “You can keep her from me. But not from Marcella. Papà never told her no. What makes you think you can?”

“Papà’s dead because of that woman.”

Something flickered in Gio’s eyes, but before Alessandro could press, the head of security appeared in the doorway.

“We found something, sir. From last night.”

The man stepped in, holding a small device between gloved fingers. “A bug. Pulled from Miss Ricci’s nursery. And there’s more—two fake agents slipped inside between midnight and two. We took them out before they reached the crib, but…”

“But what?”

“They weren’t here for you. They were here for the child.”

Every muscle in Alessandro went tight.

Gio’s voice was low. “Still think this isn’t bigger than you?”

The office door slammed open.

Eva.

Boots heavy, eyes locked on him like she was already halfway to drawing blood. “Two fake agents inside the perimeter, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I had it handled.”

“Handled, or kept from me?”

“Some things you don’t need to know.”

Her voice went lethal. “When it’s about Sophia, I need to know.”

Giovanni chuckled. “She’s not wrong. Those agents? I’ve seen them before. Grayson’s people.”

Alessandro’s head snapped toward him. “Enough.”

Eva’s eyes narrowed. “Judge?”

“Evelyn Grayson,” Gio said. “The reform darling who smiles for the cameras while she shakes hands with people like us.”

Eva’s voice went flat. “Why would a judge want a six-month-old?”

Alessandro didn’t answer. He just said, “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”

The ride was all sirens and silence.

In the pediatric wing, Sophia lay in the crib—cheeks flushed, breathing steady. A nurse explained that someone had tried to access her medical file remotely. IT had stopped it.

Giovanni muttered from the wall, “Your girl’s got an audience.”

Eva’s hand hovered over Sophia’s chest. “Is this Marcella? Or the judge?”

“I don’t know,” Alessandro said.

Eva didn’t look away from the baby. “Find out.”

Later, the nursery door was locked with a biometric bolt. Eva tested the balance of a knife before tucking it away.

“First rule—no one near Sophia without our approval,” Alessandro said.

“Second—no guards who don’t answer to us.”

They circled each other like predators. Then Sophia, sitting between them on the rug, giggled.

It stopped them both. The sound was light, unguarded. For a breath, the air softened.

Eva looked away first. “She’s still breathing because of us. Let’s keep it that way.”

* * *

Three hours later, the apartment was quiet except for the faint, repetitive clink of metal against plastic as Sophia sat in her highchair between them, rhythmically tapping her spoon against the tray as though she were trying to measure time in a language only she understood.

Eva, elbow on the table and chin in hand, found her fingers unconsciously tapping along to the rhythm, her gaze resting somewhere near the window but never really leaving the child.

Across from her, Alessandro leaned forward, forearms braced on the table, watching Sophia with the kind of alert stillness that suggested if he blinked at the wrong moment, the world might take something from him.

It was an odd sort of stillness they’d found themselves in—not peace exactly, but something that looked a little like it if you squinted hard enough.

For a fleeting moment, the air held a rhythm: the tap of the spoon, the muted thrum of Eva’s fingers, the steady weight of Alessandro’s attention. It almost felt like life. Almost.

Then the television flickered on.

“…and now,” the anchor announced, “former Judge Evelyn Grayson presents her new Child Safety Reform Act.”

The screen filled with Grayson at a podium, her white suit perfectly pressed, her smile honed to surgical precision. Flanked by politicians and donors, she looked less like a public servant and more like a blade disguised in silk.

“We will identify at-risk children,” she said in that calm, measured tone, “and ensure they are placed where they can truly thrive.”

Eva’s fingers stopped mid-tap, but she didn’t look at the screen right away.

“I’ve fought her in court,” she murmured, her voice lower than the television. “Never won. Not once.”

Alessandro’s glass creaked faintly in his grip. “She’s Marcella’s. Been for years.”

On-screen, Grayson glanced down at her notes, then lifted her gaze to the camera and held it—not just a glance, but a deliberate stillness, as if she were looking directly through the lens at someone in particular.

Eva’s eyes cut to the screen, and whatever emotion had been there before sealed itself behind a harder mask. “She knows about Sophia,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

The moment fractured when a sound rose from the nursery—thin at first, almost uncertain, then swelling into a sharp, unbroken scream.

It wasn’t the fussy cry of a tired child, nor the needy wail for food or comfort. This was raw, piercing, and high enough to claw at the nerves, a cry with no pauses for breath, as if stopping for even a second might let something catch up to her.

Eva’s chair scraped back before she knew she’d moved. She was already across the living room and into the nursery, hands scooping Sophia up in one motion, pressing the baby against her chest. “It’s all right, Mílaya, it’s all right. We’re here,” she murmured, swaying gently, her voice low and steady.

But Sophia didn’t quit. Her small fists clamped onto Eva’s shirt with surprising force, her legs tucking up tight, body stiff as a drawn bow.

Her eyes—wide and glassy—weren’t on Eva’s face, but somewhere past her, fixed on the far corner of the room. For a split second, they seemed to track movement that wasn’t there, and her cry shifted pitch, becoming more ragged, almost panicked, like she was remembering something she had no words for.

Alessandro appeared in the doorway, his gaze flicking from Sophia’s face to the faint drone of the television still audible from the other room. Without a word, he turned, strode back, and killed the feed with a click.

The sudden silence was almost jarring. Sophia’s scream stuttered, broke into a gasping sob, then softened into small, uneven whimpers.

Her grip loosened, though she stayed curled into Eva’s shoulder, her breath still catching now and again, the way it does when the body hasn’t quite been convinced the danger is gone.

Eva stayed standing, her arms firm around the child, one palm cupping the back of her head as though holding her together by sheer will. Alessandro lingered a few steps away, his expression unreadable but his shoulders tight with the weight of something unspoken.

When their eyes met, it wasn’t with the brittle tension of reluctant allies, nor the veiled hostility of enemies. It was a quieter, heavier recognition—that whatever had happened to Sophia before she came into their care had left a mark far deeper than the absence of her parents.

And whatever it was… it had just been reminded to her.

Eva held Sophia curled against her chest, murmuring comforts she barely believed herself. “No, darling, you’re safe. We won’t let anything bad happen to you. Do you understand?”

The only answer was a soft, shuddering hiccup.

They looked at each other across the room.

Not like allies. Not like enemies.

Like two people who had just seen proof of whatever happened to this baby, it wasn’t just watching her parents die. It was surviving something no one should live through.

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