Alessio’s mind was consumed with thoughts of the boy. Leo Carter. The boy he had seen with her—Emma Carter, the name she now went by. There was something about the child that unsettled him. That inexplicable pull, a nagging sensation that wouldn’t let him go. His gaze had been too familiar, too knowing for a stranger.
The day he’d witnessed the boy and Serena together, he felt a twisted sense of recognition. The way the child clung to her, the way he looked at her—it wasn’t just the bond of a mother and son. It was deeper, something that cut through the layers of his hardened exterior and unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
For days, he kept replaying that moment in his mind. No matter how he tried to push it away, the image of Leo lingered. There was no reason for it. No reason f
