“I compensated your employer. Generously.”
“You had no right.”
“I had every reason.”
Alexis stood so abruptly the chair shr:ieked against the marble. Alessandro startled, whimpering; she scooped him up automatically, her maternal instinct drowning out her fu:ry.
“You don’t get to purchase my life because your son is attached to me,” she hissed.
Franco’s expression remained a mask of stone. “Whoever took Alessandro had access from the inside. They are still among us. Until I purge them, you are the only soul he trusts. That makes you a target, Alexis. But it also makes you indispensable.”
He slid a folder across the table.
Temporary Residential Caretaking Agreement.
Duration: Until threat elimination.
Compensation: $1,000,000.
Alexis let out a jagged laugh. “You think I’ll sign that?”
“I think you’re smart enough to realize it’s the only way you both stay alive.”
She understood. It was a golden cage. It meant a fortune that could erase every scar of her past, but it also meant stepping into a line of fire she had no business surviving. Alessandro pressed a sticky palm to her cheek.
“Mama,” he whispered.
Franco went rigid at the word. Alexis closed her eyes, took a breath, and steeled herself.
“I want clauses.”
A shadow of a smirk touched Franco’s lips. “Of course you do.”
“I want a ‘safety exit’—if this house becomes a liability, I’m gone. I want full medical. And I want a perimeter: no one touches this child without my say-so, except a doctor or you.”
Admiration, faint but unmistakable, flickered in Franco’s eyes. “Done.”
“You’re agreeing awfully fast.”
“I prefer people who negotiate before they’re desperate.”
Alexis looked at the contract, then at the man who held her life in his hands. She signed.
The LaRosa estate swallowed her whole. By day three, she realized wealth was a language she was expected to speak without a stumble. The staff watched her with polished disdain—the ‘dumpster girl’ in borrowed silk. The worst was Claudia, the silver-haired house manager who treated Alexis like an infection.
“Punctuality is respect, Miss Esposito,” Claudia snapped one morning when Alexis arrived four minutes late, Alessandro on one hip and spit-up on her shoulder.
Alexis didn’t blink. “So is not talking down to people. Looks like we both missed the lesson.”
Franco hid a smile behind his coffee; Marco, a footman, nearly choked on a grape. Later, Alexis overheard the kitchen staff whispering about how silk couldn’t hide her “street” origins. She stepped into the light.
“You’re right,” Alexis said, her voice steady. “I don’t know which fork to use. But when your heir was in a dumpster, I was the one who climbed in. None of you did. So until the ki:llers are found, save the gossip.”
A slow clap echoed from the hallway. Franco stood there, his presence chilling the room. “Everyone out,” he commanded. He turned to Alexis. “My son is alive because you don’t scare easily.”
That night, after a br:utal hour of teething cries, Alessandro finally fell asleep. As Alexis laid him in the crib, he lunged for her, eyes wide with pa:nic. “Mama!”
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