In The Restaurant, The Mafia Boss’s Baby Wouldn’t Stop Crying — Until A Single Mother Did The Unth..

The Shadow in the Kitchen

When they arrived at the estate, the sun was setting. The gates opened.

But as they drove up the long driveway, Marco slammed on the brakes.

“Ambush!” Marco screamed.

Glass shattered. A bullet took out the windshield, missing the driver’s head by inches.

“Get down!” Julian roared.

He threw his body over Sarah and the baby seat in the back. Chaos erupted.

The SUV was being fired upon from the trees lining the driveway. The armored plating held the heavy rounds, but the noise was deafening.

Leo started screaming.

“Marco, drive!” Julian commanded.

“Tires are blown, Boss. We run,”

Julian looked at Sarah. His face was bleeding from a shard of glass, but his eyes were focused.

“Listen to me. When I open this door, you run for the front porch. Do not look back. Do not stop. I will cover you.”

“What about you?” Sarah cried, clutching Leo.

“I am the target,” Julian said grimly. “They won’t shoot you if they have a shot at me.”

He pulled a handgun from a holster beneath his jacket. He didn’t look like a businessman anymore; he looked like a soldier.

“Go!”

Julian kicked the door open and rolled out, firing into the trees. Sarah didn’t think.

She grabbed Leo and sprinted. She ran through the gravel, her heels sinking, her breath tearing at her lungs.

Gunshots popped behind her—crack, crack, crack. She heard men shouting.

She heard Julian roaring orders to his security team, who were pouring out of the house. She reached the heavy oak front doors just as Marco’s men pulled them open.

She tumbled inside, collapsing onto the marble floor.

“Secure the house!” Someone shouted.

Sarah scrambled up, clutching Leo, and ran to the window. She had to see.

Outside, the driveway was a war zone—smoke, flashing lights. She saw Julian.

He was standing behind the SUV, reloading his weapon with practiced ease. He wasn’t hiding; he was advancing.

Then she saw it. A man in black tactical gear had flanked the car.

He was aiming a rifle at Julian’s exposed back.

“Julian!” Sarah screamed, though he couldn’t hear her through the bulletproof glass.

But Julian Moretti had instincts that bordered on supernatural. He spun around, raising his gun, and fired three times.

The assassin dropped. But another shadow moved—not toward Julian, toward the house, toward the side door.

The door that led to the kitchen; the door Sarah had unlocked earlier to let fresh air in while baking cookies. She had forgotten to lock it.

Terror, cold and absolute, washed over her.

“The kitchen,” She whispered.

She looked around. The guards were all outside or at the front door.

Sarah looked at Leo. She saw a heavy antique vase on the hallway table.

She put Leo down behind a marble statue.

“Stay quiet,” She begged the crying baby.

She grabbed the vase. She kicked off her heels, and she ran toward the kitchen.

She wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t a killer.

She was a mother. And someone was coming into her house to hurt her children.

Not My Children

Sarah Bennett disappeared into the dark hallway just as the kitchen door handle began to turn. The kitchen was shrouded in shadows, illuminated only by the flashes of lightning tearing through the sky outside.

The smell of burnt cookies, a domestic scent turned ominous, hung in the air. Sarah pressed her back against the granite island, her breathing shallow and ragged.

In her hands, the heavy porcelain vase felt slippery with the sweat of her palms. She listened.

The doorknob turned. Click.

The door groaned open, letting in a gust of wet, freezing wind. Heavy boots stepped onto the tiled floor.

Thump, thump. The intruder moved with purpose.

He wasn’t checking corners. He knew exactly where he was going.

He was heading for the main hallway. He was heading toward where she had hidden Leo.

Sarah’s terror transmuted into a cold, hard rage.

“Not my children.”

She waited until the figure passed the island. He was a large man dressed in black, a suppressor attached to the pistol in his hand.

Sarah didn’t scream. She didn’t hesitate.

She stepped out from the shadows and swung the heavy vase with every ounce of strength she possessed.

Crash! The porcelain connected with the back of the man’s head with a sickening thud, shattering into a thousand razor-sharp shards.

The man grunted, a guttural sound of shock, and stumbled forward, dropping to one knee. Ideally, he would have been knocked unconscious, but this was a professional killer fueled by adrenaline.

He roared, spinning around, blood pouring down his neck. His eyes were unfocused but furious.

He raised the gun. Sarah froze.

She had no weapon left. The man smirked, his teeth stained with blood.

“Bitch,” He hissed.

He squeezed the trigger.

Bang! The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.

Sarah flinched, waiting for the pain, waiting for the end. But the bullet didn’t hit her.

The intruder’s head snapped back as if pulled by an invisible string. He collapsed backward, dead before he hit the floor.

Standing in the doorway connecting the dining room to the kitchen was Julian. He looked like a demon rising from hell.

His tuxedo was torn, his face streaked with soot and rain. He held his smoking gun with a steady hand, but his chest was heaving.

“Sarah,” He choked out.

He took a step toward her and then stumbled.

“Julian!” Sarah rushed forward, catching him just as his knees gave way.

He was heavy—a dead weight against her. Her hands slipped on his jacket.

It was wet, but not with rain. It was warm.

She pulled her hand back. It was covered in bright crimson blood.

“You’re shot!” She gasped, panic rising in her throat.

“Side,” Julian gritted out, his face draining of color. “Through and through. Just missed the liver, I think.”

“Marco!” Sarah screamed, her voice echoing through the house. “Marco, help!”

Julian gripped her arm; his grip was weak, trembling.

“Leo? Lily? Are they—”

“They’re safe. I hid them. They’re safe.”

“Good,” Julian whispered.

His eyes rolled back, and he slumped against her.

The Survivor

The next hour was a blur of chaos. Marco and the security team swarmed the house.

Paramedics—private ones on the Moretti payroll—arrived in unmarked vans. They didn’t go to a public hospital where police would ask questions; they went to a private clinic in the Loop, a sterile fortress of glass and steel.

Sarah refused to leave. She had Lily on one hip and Leo in a carrier, pacing the waiting room floor.

Her dress was ruined, stained with Julian’s blood and the intruder’s blood. She looked insane, but when the nurses tried to tell her to sit down, one look from her eyes made them retreat.

She wasn’t the nanny anymore. She was the survivor.

Four hours later, a doctor in surgical scrubs emerged.

“Miss Bennett?”

“How is he?” Sarah demanded, stepping forward.

“He lost a lot of blood,” The doctor said gravely. “The bullet nicked an artery. But he is strong. We’ve stabilized him. He’s in recovery.”

Sarah let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding since the driveway. Her legs gave out, and she sank onto the waiting room chair, pulling Lily onto her lap.

“Can I see him?”

“He’s sedated. He needs rest.”

“I didn’t ask what he needs,” Sarah said, her voice trembling but firm. “I asked if I can see him.”

The doctor looked at Marco, who was standing guard by the door. Marco gave a subtle nod.

“Five minutes,” The doctor conceded.

Sarah walked into the dimly lit room. Julian looked smaller in the hospital bed, stripped of his suits and his armor.

He was pale, wires and tubes connecting him to monitors that beeped in a steady, reassuring rhythm. She walked to the bedside.

She didn’t cry. She reached out and took his hand.

It was rough, calloused, and lifeless.

“You can’t die,” She whispered fiercely. “You promised me no one would break my toaster. You promised Lily a home. You don’t get to quit now.”

She squeezed his hand, and faintly, weakly, she felt a squeeze back.