12 Paramedics Couldn’t Save the Mafia Boss’s Baby — Until the Maid Did Something Unthinkable
God help her, she wanted this dangerous, broken man to kiss her. But he pulled back.
“Tonight is the gala,”
Rocco said, his voice hardening.
“The charity ball at the estate. Salvatore will be here. Vanessa will be playing the role of the doting fiancé. You will attend.”
“As the maid?”
“No. Dr. Vance, my son’s pediatrician.”
Rocco’s eyes glittered.
“I want you on my arm. I want Vanessa to see you. I want to provoke her. I want to make her so jealous, so angry that she slips up.”
“You’re using me as bait,”
Arya realized.
“Yes,”
Rocco admitted without shame.
“Will you do it?”
Arya looked at Leo. Then she looked at the man who would burn the world down to save him.
“Get me a dress,”
She said.
The Traitor Revealed
The gala was a display of obscene wealth. The ballroom was filled with men in tuxedos who had killed for their fortunes and women in diamonds who looked the other way.
The air smelled of expensive perfume, cigars, and fear. Arya descended the grand staircase wearing a gown of emerald green silk that Rocco had provided.
It hugged her curves in ways her maid uniform never had, slit high up the thigh, revealing heels that clicked sharply on the marble. She wore no jewelry except for a simple pair of diamond studs, a gift from Rocco an hour ago.
The room went silent as Rocco met her at the bottom of the stairs. He took her hand, placing it on his arm.
“Don’t look down,”
He whispered.
“Look them in the eye. You’re not a servant anymore. You’re the queen tonight.”
Across the room, Vanessa stood with her father, Don Salvatore, a corpulent man with eyes like a shark. Vanessa was wearing red.
When she saw Arya, a glass of champagne shattered in her hand.
“What is she doing here?”
Vanessa hissed, loud enough for the nearby guests to hear. Rocco guided Arya through the crowd straight toward his fiancé and her father.
“Don Salvatore,”
Rocco said, bowing his head slightly in respect.
“Vanessa.”
“Rocco!”
Salvatore boomed, his voice gravelly.
“Who is this stunning creature? I didn’t know you had a new mistress.”
“This is Dr. Arya Vance,”
Rocco said smoothly.
“Leo’s private physician. She saved his life earlier this week. I thought she deserved a night off.”
Salvatore raised an eyebrow.
“The surgeon? The one from the news?”
“The very same,”
Rocco said.
“She’s under my protection now.”
Vanessa stepped forward, her eyes manic.
“Daddy, she’s a murderer! She killed babies in Baltimore! Rocco is insane for letting her near Leo!”
“Enough, Vanessa,”
Rocco said, his voice low but cutting.
“Dr. Vance is a guest of honor. Show some respect.”
Arya felt the hatred radiating off Vanessa like heat from a furnace. She decided to push.
She decided to play the game Rocco wanted her to play.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Vanessa,”
Arya said, her voice sweet and cold.
“By the way, I switched Leo’s lotion. The lavender one seemed to be irritating his skin. I’m sure you didn’t know.”
Vanessa froze, her eyes locked with Arya’s. In that split second, the confession was there: she knows.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Vanessa stammered.
“Of course not,”
Arya smiled.
“Just a medical observation.”
Rocco squeezed Arya’s arm. It was a signal: Good job.
But the victory was short-lived. Halfway through the night, chaos erupted.
But it wasn’t the kind Arya expected. It wasn’t a gunshot or a scream.
It was a text message that went out to every phone in the room simultaneously. A distinct ping-ping-ping echoed through the ballroom as a hundred guests checked their phones.
Arya checked hers. It was an anonymous blast.
Attached was a video. The video showed Arya three years ago in the hospital ICU, but the audio was doctored.
It showed her leaning over a dying infant, and a voice—clearly AI-generated to sound like her—said:
“Just inject the potassium. Let’s get this over with. I have a dinner reservation.”
A collective gasp went through the room.
“She’s a monster!”
A woman screamed, pointing at Arya.
“Get her out of here!”
A man shouted. Vanessa stepped forward, a triumphant smirk on her face.
“See? I told you she’s a psychopath. She’s probably planning to kill Leo tonight!”
Rocco looked at the phone, then at Arya. He knew it was fake.
He knew it was a deepfake, likely orchestrated by Vanessa’s team to discredit the witness. But the crowd was a mob.
And Don Salvatore was looking at Rocco with narrowed eyes.
“Rocco,”
Salvatore rumbled.
“This is bad business. You have a child killer in your house, disrespecting my daughter.”
“It’s fake,”
Rocco said, his voice straining to be heard.
“Doesn’t matter,”
Salvatore said.
“Get rid of her, or the deal is off.”
Rocco was cornered. If he kept Arya, he lost the alliance.
If he lost the alliance, the war started. Arya looked at Rocco.
She saw the calculation in his eyes. She saw the pain.
“I’ll go,”
Arya said, stepping back.
“I’ll leave.”
“No,”
Rocco said.
“Rocco, you have to,”
Arya whispered.
“For Leo. If they go to war, Leo dies.”
She turned and ran. She ran through the crowd, past the judging eyes, past the smirking Vanessa, and out the terrace doors into the garden.
She made it to the fountain before the tears came. She had lost again.
Vanessa had won. But as she stood there, shivering in the night air, she heard a sound that made her blood freeze.
It wasn’t a footstep. It was the click of a radio.
“Target is isolated in the garden, north sector. Green light for extraction.”
Arya spun around. Three men dressed in black tactical gear emerged from the hedges.
They weren’t Marchetti security. They weren’t Salvatore’s men.
They were wearing masks with a red insignia: the Russos, the third family. The ones who wanted to burn everything down.
They weren’t here for her. They were here for the leverage.
“Grab her,”
The leader whispered.
“She’s the key to the nursery.”
Arya tried to scream, but a gloved hand clamped over her mouth. A needle jabbed into her neck.
The world went black.
The Human Key
When Arya woke up, she wasn’t in a cell. She was in a moving van, her hands zip-tied to a metal rail.
Across from her sat a man with a scar through his eyebrow and a machine gun on his knees.
“You’re the key to the safe room,”
He sneered, holding up a tablet. He tapped the screen.
It was a live feed of Arya’s mother in the hospital. A man stood behind her chair, holding a syringe.
“Mrs. Vance is having a lovely nap,”
The scarred man said.
“But if you don’t open the nursery door for us, she’s going to have a very sudden heart attack.”
Arya strained against her bonds, tears of frustration stinging her eyes.
“She has nothing to do with this!”
“Everyone is involved, doc. Now, move.”
The van screeched to a halt at the servants’ entrance of the Marchetti estate. The gala was still blaring music on the other side of the grounds, masking their entry.
