‘Take Nothing of Mine,’ the Mafia Boss Ordered – Unaware She Carried the One Thing He Could Not…

“Take nothing of mine,” Matteo Lombardi said as hi…

“Take nothing of mine,” Matteo Lombardi said as his guards dragged me toward the door. He took back the diamonds, the credit cards, even the dress on my body—but he never knew I was already carrying his child. Five years later, I had rebuilt my life above a little bakery in Maine, raising a gray-eyed boy who looked exactly like the Chicago crime boss I had escaped. Then Matteo’s lieutenant walked in for coffee, saw my son, and went white. By nightfall, Matteo knew. By morning, men with guns were coming. But the biggest shock wasn’t that he found us. It was what he had lied about five years earlier.

PART 1 — He stripped me of everything, unaware I carried his child.

“Take it off.”

For one stupid second, I thought Matteo Lombardi meant my coat.

Then his eyes dropped to the diamond necklace at my throat.

“The jewelry. The ring. The dress. Everything I paid for.”

Rain slammed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Lombardi estate outside Chicago, and somewhere beyond the front gates, thunder rolled over Lake Michigan.

I could hear my own breathing.

That was about it.

His men had gone silent.

Even men who carried guns for a living knew when something was too ugly to watch.

“Matteo,” I whispered. “Don’t do this.”

He looked at me like I was a stain on his marble floor.

Five hours earlier, that same man had kissed my bare shoulder in his bedroom and asked what I wanted for dinner.

Now there was blood on the cuff of his white shirt.

My brother’s blood.

At least that was what I thought.

“Your brother stole from me,” Matteo said. “Half a million dollars. Then he tried selling information to the Morettis.”

“Caleb is an addict. He’s reckless. He’s an idiot. But I didn’t know.”

Matteo laughed once.

No humor.

Just contempt.

“You sleep in my bed, Hazel. You run my kitchen. You hear everything in this house. And you expect me to believe your brother was robbing me under my roof while you knew nothing?”

“It’s the truth.”

I reached for him.

He caught my wrist before my hand reached his chest.

Hard.

I looked down at his fingers around me.

Then back up.

Six months.

That was how long I had belonged to the secret part of Matteo Lombardi’s life.

To everybody else, I was the head chef at his estate.

The big girl who could make osso buco better than his grandmother.

The woman who yelled at armed men for stealing cannoli before dinner.

Behind closed doors?

I was the person he came to at two in the morning when the whole city wanted something from him.

He used to put his head in my lap while I ran my fingers through his hair.

He had kissed every stretch mark I once hated.

He had told me my softness was the only place in Chicago where he didn’t have to be Matteo Lombardi.

Apparently peace had an expiration date.

“Where’s Caleb?” I asked.

Matteo’s jaw tightened.

“Tobias.”

His lieutenant stepped forward.

Matteo never stopped looking at me.

“Take Caleb to the docks.”

My stomach dropped.

“Matteo.”

“Make sure he understands what stealing from me costs.”

“No.”

I moved before my brain caught up.

Two guards grabbed my arms.

“Matteo!”

He turned away.

That hurt more than the guards’ hands.

“Please. He’s my brother.”

Nothing.

“Break his legs. Put him on a bus. Send him to Mexico. I don’t care. Just don’t kill him.”

Still nothing.

Then I said the one thing I should have kept to myself.

“Please. For what we are.”

Matteo slowly looked over his shoulder.

His expression changed.

Not softer.

Worse.

“What we are?”

My face burned.

He walked back toward me.

“You cooked my meals.”

My throat closed.

“You warmed my bed.”

One of the guards looked at the floor.

Matteo leaned close enough that I smelled rain and expensive cologne.

“You were convenient, Hazel.”

There it was.

The knife.

And he knew exactly where to put it.

I stared at him until my vision cleared.

Something inside me went very quiet.

Maybe that silence saved me.

Because I stopped begging.

Matteo noticed.

His eyes flickered.

Just once.

“Let her go,” he ordered.

The guards released me.

Then his gaze fell to the ruby ring on my hand.

The one he had slipped onto my finger three weeks earlier while we ate cold pizza in his study.

No proposal.

No promises.

Just, This belongs on you.

He held out his hand.

“Everything.”

I pulled off the ring.

Placed it in his palm.

Then the necklace.

Then the earrings.

My hands had stopped shaking.

That seemed to bother him more than the tears had.

“Anything else?” I asked.

His mouth hardened.

“The dress.”

Tobias looked up sharply.

“Boss.”

Matteo didn’t blink.

“She leaves with what she arrived with.”

So I walked upstairs.

Changed in the servants’ quarters.

Gray sweatpants.

An old Northwestern T-shirt.

Beat-up sneakers.

The clothes I had worn my first morning on the job.

I left the silk dresses.