My stomach dropped.
“Security assessment?”
“This building has a broken elevator, no doorman, no cameras in the stairwell, and a back entrance that does not lock properly.”
“I’ve been doing my best.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“I know.”
Somehow that hurt worse than judgment.
Then he said, “I’m filing for custody if you refuse to come to New York.”
The room went silent except for Luca’s soft breathing.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would burn down half the Eastern Seaboard to protect him.”
“He is my son.”
“He is our son,” Giovanni said. “A son I was denied for seven months.”
I stood so fast the chair scraped behind me.
“You think I kept him from you for fun? You think I wanted to do this alone? I was terrified. You made your life sound like a battlefield. You told me children were leverage.”
“They are.”
“Then why would I bring him to you?”
“Because hiding him did not make him safe,” Giovanni said. “It made him unprotected.”
I hated him for being right.
He looked around the apartment again, and I hated that too.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “You’re drowning in bills. You’re working too many hours. You almost hesitated to take him to the hospital because you were afraid of what it would cost.”
My throat tightened.
“I still took him.”
“Yes. And thank God you did.” His voice softened, but only slightly. “Come to New York. Work for one of my legitimate companies as legal counsel. You’ll have your own salary, your own contract, your own apartment. Luca will have security and the best doctors in the country.”
“I am not becoming your kept woman.”
His mouth tightened.
“I am offering you employment, not ownership.”
“You don’t know the difference.”
That landed.
For a moment, pain flashed across his face before the mask returned.
“I am trying to learn.”
I should have refused.
Jessica told me to refuse.
When I called her later, she said, “Lauren, you left him because you were disappearing inside that marriage. Do not let one emergency drag you back into his cage.”
“What if the cage is safer for Luca?” I asked.
“Safer from who?”
I didn’t answer.
