THE JANITOR’S BABY CRAWLED ONTO A DYING MAFIA BOSS—AND BY SUNRISE, EVERY MAN IN THE HOUSE WAS AFRAID OF HIM

For three terrifying seconds, nobody moved. The storm outside battered the glass windows, and the wind howled through the architectural seams of the high-rise, but inside the master suite, time seemed to grind to a violent halt.

Ji-hoon did not blink. His eyes, dark and flat as obsidian, surveyed the woman standing in his doorway. He saw the frantic rise and fall of her chest, the cleaning uniform she wore, the smudge of gray dust on her left cheek, and the white-knuckled grip she had on her flashlight.

He also saw the absolute, unadulterated terror in her eyes—not for herself, but for the child resting upon his ribs.

"Take him," Ji-hoon said. His voice was a harsh, gravelly rasp, ruined by the poison and hours of silence, but it carried the chilling authority of a man accustomed to having entire rooms drop to their knees at a whisper.

Aisha didn't need to be told twice. She crossed the room in three rapid strides, her sneakers silent against the thick Persian rug. She didn't look at the bedside monitors, didn't look at the empty medical trays, and didn't look at the blood-stained sleeve of Ji-hoon’s shirt.

She reached down, her hands trembling as she scooped Theo up against her chest.

The boy whimpered softly, clutching his stuffed elephant, burying his face in the crook of his mother’s neck.

Aisha clutched him so tightly her ribs ached. She backed away toward the door, her eyes never leaving Ji-hoon’s face. She expected him to pull a weapon. She expected him to call for his guards, to demand to know how a cleaning woman and her baby had breached his private quarters while his elite security team patrolled the perimeter.

Instead, Ji-hoon simply lay there, his head resting against the unblemished pillows, watching her with an intense, analytical gaze that made her skin crawl.

"You're the night janitor," Ji-hoon said quietly, his voice regaining a fraction of its normal cadence as Theo’s departure triggered a sudden, sharp spike of the poison's heat in his stomach. He winced, his hand twitching against the mattress. "Aisha Williams."

Aisha froze, her hand hovering over the doorknob. "How do you know my name?"

"My house employs twenty-six people," Ji-hoon said, his lips curling into a grim, mirthless smile. "I know the blood type, criminal record, and outstanding debts of every single one of them. You have a sister in Chicago, a mother buried in Queens, and a son who has zero respect for private property."

"He's eighteen months old," Aisha shot back, maternal instinct momentarily overriding her terror of the mob boss. "He doesn't read 'Do Not Disturb' signs."

"Clearly," Ji-hoon muttered. He pushed himself up slowly, his broad shoulders tensing as a wave of dizziness hit him. He grabbed the edge of the mattress to steady himself. The gray pallor had returned to his skin now that Theo was gone, his breathing shallow and strained.

Aisha noticed the change immediately. She was no nurse, but she had spent the last two years sitting in hospital rooms beside her brother’s bed and her mother’s dialysis chair. She recognized the look of a man whose body was quietly shutting down.

"You're dying," she said, before she could stop herself.

Ji-hoon looked up, his dark eyes flashing with sudden, dangerous sharpness. "That is none of your concern, Miss Williams."

"You were poisoned," she whispered, her eyes dropping to the empty glass on the floor and the faint residue of amber liquid staining the rim. "Someone in your inner circle. They didn't want a shootout; they wanted a silent exit."

Before Ji-hoon could reply, heavy footsteps echoed down the private hallway outside the bedroom.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Boss?"

It was Kang’s second-in-command, a brutal, humorless enforcer named Baek.

"Boss, the generators are fried. We've got a breach on the service floor. Some of our sensors are tripping near the loading docks. Are you decent?"

Ji-hoon’s jaw tightened. If Baek walked into this room and found the night janitor standing over him while he was vulnerable, Baek wouldn't just kill Aisha; he would execute her to cover up any sign of weakness. In the syndicate, a dying boss was an invitation to a civil war.

Before Aisha could panic, Ji-hoon looked straight at her.

"Under the bed," he hissed, his voice dropping into a fierce command.

"What?"

"Get under the bed, or you and your son are dead before the clock strikes three."

There was no time to argue. The door handle began to turn.

Aisha scrambled, diving beneath the oversized wooden frame of the king-sized bed, pulling a sleeping Theo into her arms and muffling his breath against her shoulder. She held her own breath, pressing her face against the dusty floorboards, listening to the world above her pivot on a razor’s edge.

The heavy mahogany doors swung open.

"Boss?" Baek’s voice boomed into the room, accompanied by the bright, probing beam of a tactical flashlight that swept across the floor, stopping inches from the edge of the dust ruffle.