[COMPLETED] Six Days After Giving Birth, I Left the Mafia Boss Who Chose His Mistress

At six the next morning, Julia brought me tea and toast. I could barely finish either. Sophie had woken twice during the night, and every sound from the street made me look toward the window.

"You can sleep when she does," Julia said.

"I tried."

"Then I'll sit here while you try again."

I had forgotten what help without conditions felt like.

A visiting nurse arranged by Rachel came after breakfast. She checked my recovery, asked direct questions about pain and bleeding, and reminded me that stress did not erase the physical demands of the first week after childbirth. A pediatric nurse reviewed Sophie's feeding record and recommended we keep her scheduled appointment with Dr. Priya Sen.

Neither woman treated me as incapable simply because I was tired or frightened. That mattered more than I could explain.

While Julia folded a blanket on the sofa, Rachel called with news. Roman's lawyer had received her notice. No custody proceeding had been filed, but someone had asked a family-law practice about an emergency assessment of my "ability to provide consistent newborn care."

"Who?" I asked.

"The inquiry came from an assistant claiming to represent the Moretti household. The firm did not agree to act. I'm verifying the details before I draw conclusions."

I watched Sophie stretch one tiny hand beside her face.

"Roman knows I take care of her."

"Then his account of events should reflect that," Rachel answered. "We'll preserve the appointment records, your discharge instructions, and your feeding notes. Don't try to prove you can do everything alone. Accepting help is part of caring for a newborn."

At the mansion, Roman had done something I had never expected. Instead of sending his men to Julia's door, he had called his head of residential security, Vincent Caldera, and demanded every access record for the nursery.

I learned about that conversation when Rachel received an authenticated extract from Roman's attorneys two days later. It showed that someone had requested remote viewing permission for the camera mounted above the nursery door at 10:04 the previous evening. A household administrator had approved the request for an outside consultant.

The consultant was named Laya Crane.

I sat with the page in my lap for several minutes. The camera had been installed months before Sophie was born so that I could check the room from the kitchen. I had been told access belonged only to Roman and me. I had never authorized Laya to see our daughter.

The log did not prove she had watched anything. It proved that the system had accepted a request in her name.

"Can we find out whether it connected?" I asked.

"We're asking," Rachel said. "The court can require a fuller accounting if the parties won't provide it voluntarily."

That afternoon my phone rang from an unfamiliar number again. I let the call go to voicemail. This time the caller did not hide her name.

"It's Naomi. I know you received the first message. I'm sorry I frightened you. I left Laya's employment this morning. I can't say everything on the phone, but I kept a photograph of the paper I saw. My lawyer will contact yours."

A photograph did not automatically make a document genuine. Rachel reminded me of that when I forwarded the message. But I could hear how frightened Naomi was, and I recognized the tremor in her voice. I had sounded like that when I first called Rachel.

Roman's messages continued. Some were angry. Others sounded almost tender.

"I'll send Dr. Keller if you need him."

"Sophie needs her father."

"I came home and you were gone."

Each sentence contained a truth that sat beside a larger omission. Sophie did need care. He was her father. He had come home to an empty room. But he had known where he was going the night before, and I had told him why I needed him to stay.

In the afternoon, Rachel arranged a brief call with Roman through both attorneys. I chose to speak because I wanted him to hear that Sophie was well. Julia sat quietly on the other side of the room.

"Aaron," he said, and my name came out as though he had been holding it in his mouth for hours. "Let me come to you."

"No. Not today."

"You can't keep her from me."

"I'm not trying to. Rachel is proposing a temporary schedule. You'll receive it in writing."

There was silence, followed by a long breath.

"You should have called me."

"I did. At nine-thirty-one and nine-forty-eight."

He had no answer.

"Why did you let Laya access the nursery camera?" I asked.

"I didn't."

"Your security records show she was approved."

A chair moved on his side of the call.

"Vincent handles those permissions."

"You hired Vincent. You gave him authority inside our home."

"I never told anyone to watch Sophie."

"Then find out who did."

I ended the call before exhaustion made my voice shake.

Roman had sounded shocked, and I believed he might truly not have known about the access request. That did not clear him of responsibility. A door he had opened for someone else could still be dangerous to the people inside.

That evening, I finally slept for almost two uninterrupted hours. When I woke, Julia had placed a clean glass of water beside the sofa and written the time of Sophie's last feed on a small card. It was a simple thing. No one had asked whether I deserved it.

Rachel's email arrived shortly afterward. Naomi's attorney had forwarded the photograph, along with a statement describing where and when it was taken.

The paper had a Moretti household heading. Under a line marked "additional family access," Roman's signature appeared above a request for temporary oversight of the nursery system.

And in smaller print, beside the initials VC, was a second phrase.