Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the MirrorLiving in the Vance estate was like entering a world suspended between reality and a dream.
Lorenzo did not lock me in a room. In fact, the next morning, he gave me the run of the entire second floor, assigning me a lavish guest suite adjacent to the nursery. He brought in tailors to provide me with comfortable clothes, ordered the kitchen staff to prepare whatever food I desired, and assigned Viktor—the intimidating bodyguard—to act as my personal escort whenever I wanted to walk through the estate gardens.
Yet despite the luxury, I spent almost every hour of the day in the nursery.
It turned out Leo didn't just tolerate me—he was utterly obsessed with me. The moment I walked into the room, his little face would light up with a breathless, toothless grin. He would scramble across the carpet on his hands and knees, pulling himself up by my jeans, babbling endlessly in his sweet, nonsensical baby language.
For the first time in his eight months of life, Leo began to thrive. He ate his meals without crying. He took long, peaceful naps. He laughed when I stacked building blocks and let him knock them over with a triumphant shriek.
And every evening, at precisely seven o'clock, Lorenzo would step into the room.
He didn't speak much at first. He would sit in the deep velvet armchair in the corner of the nursery, holding a tumbler of scotch he rarely drank, simply watching us.
At first, his presence made me nervous. He was still a man surrounded by shadows—a mafia boss whose name made grown men tremble in the city streets. But as the days turned into a week, I began to see the cracks in his armor.
I saw the way his shoulders slumped with exhaustion when he thought no one was looking. I saw the deep, dark circles under his eyes—the physical toll of managing an empire while grieving a wife and worrying for a motherless son. And I saw the overwhelming, heartbreaking tenderness with which he held Leo whenever the baby allowed him to.
"He looks like her today," Lorenzo murmured one evening, watching me wipe a smear of strained carrots from Leo’s chin.
I looked up from the high chair. "Sofia?"
"Yes," Lorenzo smiled faintly. "When she was happy, her left eyebrow would lift slightly higher than her right. You do it too when you laugh at him."
I set the baby spoon down, resting my hands on my lap. "Does it hurt? Having me here... seeing her face every time you look at me?"
Lorenzo was quiet for a long time. He turned his tumbler of scotch in his hands, watching the amber liquid swirl against the ice.
"In the beginning," he admitted softly, meeting my eyes, "it felt like a blade turning in my ribs. I thought I was losing my mind at the restaurant. But then I watched you hold him. Sofia was a gentle soul, Mara, but she was fragile. She was terrified of the world I lived in. You..." He paused, his gaze intensifying. "You walked into a room full of armed killers, held my son, and threatened to spill my wine if I harmed you. You are not a ghost, Mara. You are very much alive."
A strange, warm blush crept up my neck. I looked down at Leo, who was currently trying to chew on a plastic yellow duck, hiding my sudden embarrassment.
Before I could reply, the heavy doors of the nursery were thrown open without a knock.
A woman stepped into the room.
She was in her late twenties, stunningly beautiful, dressed in an immaculate white designer suit with dark red lipstick that matched the sharp, predatory angle of her cheekbones. Her dark hair was slicked back in a high ponytail, and her heels clicked loudly against the hardwood floor.
Behind her, Viktor stepped into the room looking deeply uncomfortable. "Boss, I told her you were in the nursery—"
"Get out, Viktor," the woman commanded, her voice like glass scraping against ice.
She stopped in the center of the room, her eyes sweeping over me with immediate, visceral disgust. Her gaze lingered on my simple cotton sweater, my messy hair, and finally settled on my face.
She froze. Her red lips parted in a sharp intake of breath.
"What is this, Lorenzo?" she demanded, turning toward him with a violent flick of her coat. "Who is this woman? Why does she have Sofia's face?"
Lorenzo stood up from his chair slowly, his relaxed posture instantly vanishing, replaced by that cold, formidable authority I had seen at the restaurant.
"Contessa," Lorenzo said, his voice laced with dangerous warning. "You do not enter my son's nursery without permission. And you certainly do not speak to my guest in that tone."
"Guest?" The woman—Contessa—let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "You bring a peasant waitress into your house who happens to look like your dead wife, and you call her a guest? Is this your way of replacing Sofia? Or have you finally lost your mind completely?"
Leo, startled by the loud, harsh voice, let out a sudden, frightened cry, ducking his head into my chest.
Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around the baby, glaring at the woman with a fierce, protective heat I didn't know I possessed.
"Keep your voice down," I snapped, my tone dropping low and dangerous. "You're scaring the baby."
Contessa blinked, genuinely shocked that a woman in simple clothes dared to speak to her with such defiance. "How dare you—"
"Leave, Contessa," Lorenzo commanded, taking a single step forward that seemed to shrink the entire room. "Now. Before I have Viktor throw you out of the gates."
Contessa’s eyes darted between Lorenzo, me, and the crying baby. A look of pure, venomous hatred flared in her dark eyes.
"This isn't over, Lorenzo," she hissed, backing toward the door. "The council is already questioning your stability since Sofia died. If they find out you've installed a fake wife in the estate, they will strip you of the syndicate leadership by the end of the month."
She turned on her heel and slammed the door shut behind her, her heels clicking angrily down the long corridor.
I stood there, holding the trembling baby, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Who was that?" I whispered.
May you like
Lorenzo stared at the closed door, his jaw set so hard the muscle flexed violently.
"That was Contessa Vance," Lorenzo replied coldly. "My late father's younger sister. And the woman who wants my empire more than anything in the world."
