“Sir, You Have My Eyes” The Waitress, The Mafia King, and the Secret Heir

The air in the diner’s storage room tasted of cardboard, old metal, and the sharp scent of the rain clinging to Alessio’s woolen coat. It was a tiny space, crowded with boxes of paper cups and industrial-sized cans of tomato sauce.

But with Alessio standing in the center of it, the room felt microscopic.

He towered over me, a dark silhouette against the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead. His presence was suffocating, a familiar blend of expensive cologne, tobacco, and the cold metallic tang of a man who ruled the city's underworld with an iron fist.

"Did you love him?"

His voice was a gravelly whisper, cutting through the silence like a blade.

I leaned back against a stack of dry goods, my hands trembling behind my back where he couldn't see them. I forced my chin up, clinging to the lie I had prepared for six long years in case this day ever came.

"Yes," I lied, my voice remarkably steady despite the terror clawing at my throat. "I loved him. He was everything you never were, Alessio. Gentle. Quiet. Safe."

Alessio’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. His dark eyes—the exact same shade of stormy grey as our son’s—seemed to burn holes through me. Step by step, he closed the distance between us until his chest was inches from mine. He reached out, his leather-gloved fingers hovering just a millimeter from my cheek before dropping back to his side.

"Where is he?" Alessio demanded, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the dangerous weight of a death sentence. "Where is the man who touched what was mine? The man who got to see you raise a child while I spent six years searching every gutter in this country for your corpse?"

"He's dead," I said quickly, looking away to hide the panic in my eyes. "He died before Leo was born. A car accident. There's nothing left of him but Leo."

It was a perfect lie. It explained why there was no husband in the picture, why I was working double shifts at a diner in the middle of nowhere, and why Leo looked so much like a Romano. I knew Alessio’s medical history. I knew that after an assassination attempt in his early twenties, the doctors had told him the scarring and trauma had left him completely sterile. He believed he could never have a child. To him, Leo's physical resemblance to him was nothing more than a cruel, mocking trick of genetics—or a resemblance to someone else in the Romano extended family, perhaps.

Alessio let out a harsh, bitter laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping over concrete. "Dead. How convenient for him. Because if he were alive, Mera, I would have skinned him alive for putting his hands on my wife."

"I am not your wife anymore," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You declared me dead to the syndicate. Let me go, Alessio. We have nothing to do with your world."

"You think you can just walk away from me?" He leaned in, his breath warm against my ear, sending a terrifying shiver down my spine. "You took my heart when you ran, Mera. And now I find you in a greasy diner, raising another man's bastard. Do you really think I'm going to let you stay here?"

Before I could answer, a sudden, sharp crack echoed from the front of the diner.

It wasn't the sound of thunder. It was the distinct, deafening roar of a shotgun.

Alessio’s demeanor shifted instantly. In a fraction of a second, the brooding, heartbroken husband vanished, replaced by the lethal predator. He reached inside his coat, drawing a matte-black handgun.

"Stay here," he ordered, his voice commanding and completely devoid of emotion.

But my mind didn't register his command. It registered only one thing.