On the night his daughter was born, the mafia boss was in another woman’s bed—but by sunrise, everything had collapsed, and his powerful empire was left desperate, as those around him begged his wife not to walk away.

He didn’t wake all at once. It came in pieces, the way regret sometimes does when it knows it will hurt more if it rushes in. First the light—gray and thin, slipping through a gap in blackout curtains like a blade—then the dull ache behind his eyes, then the smell of whiskey and something sweet that didn’t belong to him. After that came memory, fractured and unkind. The private room at the casino. The negotiation that had stretched too long. Lila’s voice, low and amused, telling him he looked like a man who hadn’t slept in days. Her hand brushing his sleeve, then his chest, then not stopping. His phone vibrating in his pocket, again and again, until eventually he’d silenced it without thinking, because the moment in front of him had felt easier than the responsibility waiting on the other end.

When Dominic finally reached for his phone, it was with irritation more than urgency, the reflex of a man used to being needed but rarely interrupted. That irritation vanished the second the screen lit up. Missed calls stacked one after another, all from Evelyn. Beneath them, messages. One from Dr. Halpern: She’s in labor. Please come immediately. Another ten minutes later: Mr. Vale, this is urgent. And then one from Marcus, his head of security: Mother and child stable.