I told the most feared man in Chicago that he was the reason his newborn son had been screaming for six straight hours. His armed bodyguards looked ready to bury me for saying it, but seconds after Dominic Moretti finally handed me the baby, the child went terrifyingly silent.

"Step back! All of you, back!" I barked, my tone leaving zero room for argument.

Dominic didn't draw a weapon, but his eyes were wide, fixed entirely on his blue-lipped son. Frankie held his pistol pointed at the side of my head, his hands visibly shaking.

"If she moves wrong, shoot her," Frankie whispered through gritted teeth.

"Touch me and the baby dies!" I snapped without looking up. "He swallowed an air pocket, rolled his tongue, and his airway is completely obstructed! Give me space!"

I leaned over Julian's tiny body. I checked his mouth—no visible liquid, but his chest was completely motionless. His infant body was going limp.

Four years of buried medical instinct flooded my brain. The lectures, the pediatric emergency room rotations, the desperate hours spent researching Leo's condition—it erupted through the grief like a tidal wave.

I placed two fingers on the center of Julian’s chest, right below his nipple line.

"Come on, Julian," I whispered, my voice tight. "Stay with me, little guy."

I delivered five gentle, precise chest compressions. One, two, three, four, five.

Nothing. His face was losing warmth.

I tilted his head back into a neutral position—not too far, knowing a infant's airway is as thin as a drinking straw and easily pinched. I placed my mouth over both his tiny nose and mouth simultaneously, creating a seal, and gave two gentle puffs of air from my cheeks—not from my lungs, which would rupture his delicate alveoli.

His little chest rose. Then collapsed.

"Breathing for him," I muttered under my breath.

Dominic’s shadow hovered over me, his breathing heavy and ragged. "Clara..." he rasped, reading my name from the brass badge pinned to my apron. "Bring him back."

"Shut up, Dominic," I growled, completely ignoring the absurd level of disrespect I was showing to a mass murderer. "Let me work!"

I performed another set of compressions. One, two, three, four, five.

I delivered another gentle breath.

Then I flipped Julian onto my forearm again, positioning his head lower than his body, and delivered five sharp back slaps between his shoulder blades using the heel of my hand.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

On the fifth slap, a wet, choking sound erupted from the infant's throat.

Julian gasped, a massive air pocket dislodging from his esophagus, followed by a small spray of milk. He took a ragged, desperate breath, his tiny chest expanding wildly, and then—

He cried.

It wasn't the agonizing, strained shriek from before. It was a clear, healthy, angry infant scream. The dusky blue tint around his mouth vanished in seconds, replaced by a flush of healthy pink as oxygen flooded his tiny bloodstream.

I immediately gathered him into my arms, holding him upright against my shoulder, gently patting his back as he let out a series of wet burps.

I slumped against the edge of the dining table, my knees shaking so violently I thought I was going to collapse. Sweating poured down my neck, and tears finally spilled over my eyelashes, washing away four years of suppressed terror.

I saved him, my mind echoed. He's breathing.

The restaurant was dead quiet except for Julian's indignant wailing.

Frankie slowly lowered his gun, looking at the crying baby, then at me, as if he had just witnessed a miracle. The other guards looked completely stunned.

Dominic Moretti didn't say a word. He stepped up to me. His hands, usually so steady and lethal, were visibly trembling as he reached out toward his son.

I didn't hand Julian over immediately. I held the baby tightly, looking up into Dominic’s dark eyes.

"He was choking on trapped gas and regurgitated milk," I said, my voice hoarse from shouting. "His airway collapsed because he was screaming so hard while laying on his back. If you had fed him that cow's milk your bodyguard brought, you would have killed him. Infants can't digest unpasteurized whole milk."

Frankie turned pale, stepping back as if he had been slapped.

Dominic looked from Frankie to me, then down at his son. "You saved his life."

"I did my job," I said, my breath catching in my throat as Julian’s tiny hand reached out and snagged the fabric of my black server shirt. His crying began to quiet down, soothed by the rhythm of my breathing and the warmth of my skin.

"You're not a waitress," Dominic stated flatly, his dark eyes boring into mine. "Who are you?"

"My name is Clara Vance," I said, wiping a tear from my cheek with the back of my hand. "And I used to be a nursing student."

Dominic stared at me for a long, heavy moment. He looked at the way Julian had settled against my chest—calm, pink, and resting comfortably for the first time in six hours.

"Marco!" Dominic's voice boomed across the room, making the restaurant manager jump a foot in the air.

Marco scurried forward, trembling so hard his tie was shaking. "Y-yes, Mr. Moretti? Anything you need!"

"Miss Vance no longer works here," Dominic declared smoothly. He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, and tossed them carelessly onto the table. "This covers her final shift. And her notice."

"What?" I gasped, looking up in shock. "You can't just—"