The Mafia Daddy’s Pretty Little Doctor (Mafia Daddies Ruthless Possession #46)

1. Nina

ONE

Nina

"You look like you could sleep through a fire alarm," Marissa said, nudging my elbow with her elbow.

"I'm on call," I answered, because saying I'm exhausted would sound unprofessional at a charity gala. "Nina Russo—ER doctor—twenty-five. If anything happens, I can't be useless."

Marissa Cole, my best friend, made a face that said she didn't believe I was being noble so much as foolish. "You look useless," she said. "Sit. I'll hold your clipboard while you actually put your feet up."

"I don't—" I started, then remembered the look the event coordinator had given me when I'd checked my pager for the fifth time. "Fine. Ten minutes. Then I'm on."

"Ten? Promise?" she asked.

"I promise."

The room did that polite hum of small talk and clinking glass.

Somewhere a harpist noodled; someone auctioned a weekend at a vineyard; people who never saw ambulances in their lives clapped like they'd bought lives with their bids.

I should have been a face in the crowd—professional, contained, efficient.

Instead my body felt like a used bandage.

Late nights in the ER make you efficient and hollow at once.

"Can you breathe?" Marissa asked, softer.

"Yes," I lied, because breathing was easier than admitting I wanted to be held.

My parents had always said strength meant never falling apart in public; after a mass-casualty night during residency, I learned that I had to hold everything inside or let it tear me.

Two sentences of backstory, and I kept walking.

"Sit," Marissa said again, tugging me toward the quieter end of the ballroom where the lighting softened and the hors d'oeuvres table had given up any pretense of being elegant.

I sat on a low velvet settee and let the world blur.

My bag hit the floor with a soft thunk. When I moved it, a small owl keychain—worn at the seams—caught the light like a secret.

I pressed the leather-bound notebook to my chest; a pressed flower peeked from the pages.

A childish sticker, a pastel heart, stuck to the inside flap where nobody would look.

"You're bringing your whole shift with you," Marissa said, smiling in a way that warmed me. "And that owl. He needs a name."

"Ollie," I said before I could stop myself. Saying it made my cheeks hot. It was ridiculous, this tiny thing that calmed the corner of my mind. It was also mine.

A man paused near the entrance to the private lounge—a pause that felt like someone holding the room's breath.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair slightly rumpled, flecks of silver at his temples.

When he stepped closer, the crowd seemed to deflect around him.

Vittorio Moretti, thirty-eight, the man whose donations funded much of the hospital's wing and who, rumor said, ran an organization from a private, secure headquarters.

I noticed the slope of his shoulders, the way his suit fit without shouting, the scar along his brow that made him look dangerous and careful at the same time.

"Excuse me," he said, voice low. "You look like you shouldn't be here alone."

My professional reflex tightened. "I'm fine, thank you. I'm on call."

"Then be fine somewhere with water," he said. He offered a glass like he was offering an order and a lifeline at the same time.

"Who's he?" Marissa mouthed, a smirk tugging her lips.

"Someone important," I said, but my hand already went out to take the glass. His fingers brushed mine—the briefest contact, a thumb over my knuckle—and something electric threaded through me. It was adult and startling, not childish or soft, and I resented how much calmer it made me feel.

"You're shivering," he observed. "Blanket?"

"I—" I started, then caught myself. Pride lives in small muscles; mine would rather freeze than accept help from someone who might pity me. "No. I'm fine."

"You're not," he said, and there it was, an unarguable fact. He turned to a passing attendant. "Bring a blanket. Warm, not scratchy."

The attendant hurried off. The man—Vittorio—sat on the arm of the settee with a casualness that made the fabric protest. He didn't ask permission. He didn't ask for my credentials. He just occupied space in a way that felt like protection rather than threat.

"Thank you," I said too quietly, because gratitude was a small surrender and I could already feel my pulse under my ribs, asking for more.

"Are you with someone?" he asked, eyes flicking to Marissa.

"She's with me." I nudged Marissa, who raised an eyebrow like a hallelujah.

Vittorio's mouth twitched. "Good. I don't like being the person who imposes himself uninvited."

"You are imposing," I said, because banter keeps conversations adult and safe. My voice came out steadier than I expected.

He laughed, a low sound that seemed measured and private. "Then let me impose this much: water, a blanket, and a ride if you need it. You shouldn't be walking home after being on call."

"I'm staying at a friend's," I said automatic, because leaving a gala alone when your pager is a sleeping beast is smarter than accepting rides from strangers—no matter how much calmer his presence made my shoulders. "I'll be fine."

Marissa's hand squeezed mine. "Nina Russo, the 'fine' defense is not a valid protocol with this man. Take the blanket."

"Marissa," I hissed.

The blanket arrived—soft, ivory—and he tucked it over my legs with an awkward tenderness that made me want to cry and laugh at once. Then, without asking, he reached into my fallen bag and lifted the owl keychain out between two fingers, as if it were a delicate artifact.

"That's nice," he said, turning Ollie so the light hit his faded button eyes. "Do you want me to keep it safe?"

Heat flushed my face. "No. I—it's mine."

"Then let me put it somewhere you can find it," he said, and—before I could protest—he slid the keychain into the inside pocket of his jacket. "Safekeeping," he added, eyes on mine. The word landed soft and absolute.

"Don't," I said, because it was embarrassing and childish and thoroughly sensible to act like it didn't matter.

"I won't run," he replied, and his tone had the low edge of a promise. "You'll get it back before you know it."

He reached for my notebook next, and I braced myself like a guppy.

He didn't open it. He smoothed the pressed flower back into its place with a gentleness that didn't match his broad fingers.

It was a careful, reverent motion—an adult handling something tender because he understood that some things were fragile.

"You're careful," I said.

"I like knowing the fragile things are in good hands," he answered.

A pause. My fingers found Ollie's invisible weight in his jacket and chewed a fingernail in habit.

Wanting small things—someone to offer water, a blanket, someone to tuck a silly keychain away because they thought it mattered—felt shameful.

It made me feel less composed than the white coat and the charting and the life-or-death alchemy of the ER.

But there was a small door opening and he stood in it with a lantern.

"Why are you here?" I asked, because curiosity is a professional habit and because people who give often have edges.

"A benefactor," he said, dry. "And someone who believes good hospitals should be able to keep good doctors awake enough to do their jobs."

"That's oddly specific charity."

"Not charity," he corrected. "Investment. The hospital is part of the city. Keeping the city healthy keeps everything else quieter."

I should have been impressed or dismissive.

Instead I felt watched and oddly steady.

There was a calculation in him—careful, controlled, practiced—and a softness that surprised me in its rarity.

He stayed longer than politeness required, leaning slightly forward, hands folded, listening like he meant to remember.

"Do you want me to call for transport?" he asked after a moment.

"No," I said, because reserves live in the word. Then I met his eyes and found the truth was easier when said aloud. "Yes. I do."

He nodded like he'd expected the back-and-forth. "I'll have someone take you. Quietly. No cameras, no fuss."

"You don't have to—" I began, the professional in me flaring. Accepting favors creates ties.

"I know," he said. "And I don't expect repayment."

"Why are you doing this?" Marissa asked, bold as always.

"Because sometimes," he said, looking at me in a way that made my breath catch, "someone needs someone else to make the choice for them. Tonight it's you."

"That's very paternal of you," Marissa said, grinning.

Paternal. The word landed awkward and sharp, colored.

I flinched in a way I didn't like. There were parts of me that didn't want to need someone.

There were parts that, after nights that blurred into mottled red and blue lights, would have died for a blanket and a hand that didn't ask anything in return.

Admitting that felt like weakness in a room full of polished socialites.

Vittorio's eyes flicked to mine, and the expression I saw there wasn't judgment; it was assessment and something softer. He didn't call me baby girl. He didn't make a joke of it. He simply offered a steadiness that asked nothing and then arranged to give me what I needed anyway.

"What's your number?" he asked, reaching into his wallet.

"I can't give you my number," I said, immediate. Professional boundaries. Safe lines.

"Then take my card," he offered, sliding a black rectangle across the low table. The paper was thick and heavy, standard for wealthy people who wanted to be taken seriously. When I took it, a small folded scrap of paper slipped out. He'd tucked it there like an afterthought.

I unfolded the scrap with fingers that trembled for reasons I didn't want to trace. On the inside he'd doodled the smallest heart and written a number in tight, even script. There was a tiny scribble—an owl—next to the heart.

"That's remarkably obvious," Marissa said, loud enough to attract a glance from a passing hostess.

Vittorio smiled once, a small, private thing. "Sometimes obvious is kind."

"Thank you," I said, because I meant it and because manners exist to grease the world. "For the blanket. For the ride."

"For the flower," he added, nodding toward the pressed blossom in my notebook. "Flowers are easy to break. They deserve gentleness."

I wanted to tell him that shows like this made me feel the need to be small in my head for a second—the wish to be wrapped and put to bed and told that it was okay to be tired.

I wanted to tell him I'd learned to hide that wish because my parents applauded people who never cracked, and because the ER rewarded strength and punished softness.

I wanted to tell him all the reasons that asking for care felt like asking to disappear professionally. But the sentence died in my mouth.

Instead I folded the card back into his hand and then into my palm as if it were a talisman.

"I should go," Marissa said, standing. "Before Nina makes friends with more men of mystery."

"We'll walk you to the car," Vittorio offered. "Discreetly."

At the door, the attendant had pulled a black SUV away from the crowd and parked it in the shadowed valet lane. The driver stepped forward with a polite bow, a nod to anonymity. Vittorio lingered by the door like he belonged there, like this was part of his map.

"Sit," he said, gentler this time, and his hand found the small of my back to steady me. It was an adult touch rendered completely unnecessary and somehow exact.

"Thank you," I said again, and this time there was no shame in the sound. I slid into the car, the blanket tucked around my legs, the card heavy in my palm.

When the window rolled up, muffling the ballroom to a glossy hum, I saw him through the glass placing my owl keychain on the seat beside him for a moment and then slipping it back into his jacket pocket.

He smoothed something in his own inside lapel and then straightened, a silhouette of careful motion.

Inside, my fingers traced the folded scrap. The doodled heart looked larger now. I felt a ridiculous, tentative flutter—part hope, part alarm. He'd noticed the small bits of me that I thought were private: the owl, the flower, the sticker. He'd treated them like they mattered.

I told myself I was a competent adult, a doctor who could run codes and give bad news. I told myself I didn't need the sort of attention that came attached to mystery men.

Then I tucked the card into my notebook, pressed the pressed flower flat again with my thumb, and thought of his thumb on my knuckle—an innocuous, lingering contact that made my ribs unclench.

When the car pulled away, the last thing I saw was his back as he melted into the crowd. He'd left a sliver of himself in my jacket pocket even when he was miles away. My thumb found the tiny doodled owl and smoothed it like an invocation.

I turned the page, heart doing something new and worried and dangerously hopeful.

On my bedside table that night, I didn't sleep. I traced the number and the little heart on the scrap as if it were a pulse I could read. I told myself that morning would be business as usual: coffee, charts, triage. I told myself he'd be a benefactor at a gala and nothing more.

Before I let myself believe either lie, I smoothed the pressed flower, wrapped the notebook close, and noticed with a short, startled intake of breath that the jacket pocket his hand had closed had left a faint scent on the fabric—tobacco and citrus, oddly domestic.

I pressed the card to my lips, where perhaps something of the moment could stay safe.

He'd stayed longer than politeness required. He'd noticed the private things. He'd tucked my owl into his pocket.

I didn't know whether I wanted to be rescued or to run, but the card in my palm felt like a decision waiting for me to make it.

I curled the scrap between my fingers and, before I could stop myself, I drew a tiny heart over his doodle and wrote in the margin: Thank you.

Then my pager buzzed, bright and sharp, and I was awake in an instant—doctor first, complicating thoughts later. I tucked the notebook under my arm, clipped my badge on, and headed for the ambulance bay.

As I left, the card slipped slightly from between the pages, and when I bent to catch it my thumb brushed the little doodled heart again. It felt like the thin hinge of a door someone had just nudged open.