Page 126

Leon in her arms got scared by our fight. He poked his head out from the jacket, eyes brimming with tears as he looked at me. "Mamma... isn't he a good man?"

Hearing her son's tearful voice, Ruby's defenses crumbled instantly. She shook like a leaf in autumn wind.

"Isa." I turned my head, voice low and rough.

Isabella sucked in a sharp breath, expression impossibly complex, and hurried forward.

"Take Leon to the private room inside. Give him the strawberry Napoleon." I didn't look at my daughter. My gaze stayed locked on Ruby, unmoving. "Close the door. Don't let him hear what's out here."

"I won't let you touch him!!" Ruby backed away, voice breaking.

"Ruby, look at me!" Isabella grabbed Ruby's ice-cold wrist hard. Her own eyes were red too, but her tone carried rare steadiness and resolve. "Leon's shaking. Can't you feel he's scared? I'm Isabella. I'm your friend. I swear on my life I won't let anything happen to him! Let me take him inside to eat. You two talk this out!"

Ruby looked down at her terrified, helpless son. The veins on her forehead bulged. After a long silence, she finally gave in, collapsing.

She bent down, kissed Leon's flushed forehead hard, voice trembling. "Baby, go with Isa and eat cake inside. Mamma will be right outside the door. I'll come get you in just a minute, okay?"

"Okay..." The little guy wiped his tears and obediently put his hand in Isabella's.

The door closed.

My security moved in quickly, pulling up partitions with practiced efficiency, sealing off this booth into a forbidden zone no one dared approach.

Dead silence fell.

Ruby pressed her back against the cold, heavy pillar. Her shoulders jerked violently. Like a young animal backed into a cliff corner, she stared at me hard, tears finally breaking free and streaming down.

"Are you satisfied now, Marcelo Moretti?"

She pointed toward the private room, voice pressed brutally low but every word bleeding. "You used that disgusting controlling obsession of yours to tear my life apart again! Four years ago you threw that fifty-thousand-dollar check at me and crushed my dignity, told me to get out of your sight like garbage! You stayed in Manhattan playing mafia emperor while I lay alone on a freezing exam table at St. Mary's Hospital and the doctor told me I had a hematoma, severe threatened miscarriage!!"

Every sentence branded onto my heart like a red-hot iron.

"Threatened miscarriage..." I murmured, face white as paper, my tall frame swaying.

"Yes! I almost died that rainy night!" Ruby laughed bitterly, tears sliding down her pale jaw. "I vomited until I had nothing left! I rented a moldy attic less than ten square meters beside Venice's canals! The night Leon was born, it was pouring rain in Venice. I was in labor for sixteen hours straight. All I had beside me was a wet towel—not a single person to bring me water!! Where were you then? Where was your money? Where were your mafia soldiers?"

She lifted her face. Her eyes were cold as ice.

"Leon is my son. Ruby Caldwell's son. I traded my life for him! If it wasn't for the nanny's acute gastroenteritis today, if there wasn't such a time crunch, I never would have brought him here! He doesn't need a father. He definitely doesn't need your fake concern!!"

"I will never give him to you. Never, even if it kills me!!"

Despair and hatred tore through the air.

I looked at this woman shaking all over but protecting her child like a lioness with her life, and my heart felt ground into powder.

No excuses. No defense.

I watched the absolute hatred in her eyes, watched the viciousness she radiated protecting her child, watched her trembling body and the tears spinning in her eyes.

Four years of regret, guilt, self-blame—crashed over me like a tide. All that pride and dignity that sustained me through the Long Island basement, the Brooklyn docks, countless blood-soaked nights of killing—it all collapsed in this moment.

I slowly moved forward. Half a step away from her, I bent my knee.

My right kneecap hit the marble floor hard with a dull thud.

"Marcelo?" Ruby staggered back half a step in shock, her back slamming against glass.