The Mafia Boss Rewound the Nanny Cam Twice — The Curvy Nanny Taught His Sons to Break a Hold

By Saturday morning, the second floor playroom had been completely restored.

The tip-over bookshelf had been replaced by a heavy, solid-oak unit bolted directly into the wall studs with six-inch lag screws. The broken lamp was gone, replaced by recessed LED lighting. The service door downstairs had been swapped for a two-hundred-pound slab of reinforced steel from Vanguard Steel, complete with a electronic strike plate that required a biometric scan to open.

At 9:00 a.m., Roman stepped into the playroom wearing a dark gray cotton t-shirt and black athletic trousers.

Josephine was already there.

The high-pile wool rug had been rolled up against the wall, revealing thirty square feet of heavy, blue high-density foam mats that she had ordered from a martial arts supply house in Baltimore.

She was dressed in a navy blue judo gi—a heavy, double-weave cotton jacket that made her look twice as broad as usual, tied at the waist with a faded black belt that showed yellow threads at the edges.

Oliver and Finn were sitting cross-legged on the edge of the mat, wearing matching white gis that were three sizes too big for them, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows.

"You're late, Mr. Tierney," Josephine said, not looking up from where she was helping Finn tie his belt.

Roman stopped at the edge of the blue foam. "I had a phone call with Baltimore."

"The phone call could have waited," she said, snapping Finn’s belt into a neat square knot with a flick of her wrists. "In this room, between nine and ten, the outside world does not exist. That is Rule Four."

Roman looked at his sons. Both boys were sitting upright, their backs straight, their shoulders down, watching Josephine with an intensity they had never shown for their private tutors or their tennis coaches.

"Rule Four," Roman repeated, stepping onto the mat in his bare feet. The foam was firm under his soles. "Very well."

Josephine stood up. She adjusted the lapels of her blue gi, smoothing the heavy cotton over her deep chest, then turned to face Roman.

"Today," she said, addressing the boys as much as him, "we are covering the center of mass. Most untrained men—especially men who carry weapons—believe that strength comes from the arms and the shoulders. They think that if they have seventy-inch chests and twenty-inch biceps, they can control space."

She looked at Roman, her grey eyes cool and assessing. "Mr. Tierney weighs approximately one hundred and ninety-five pounds. He has good upper-body tone. He probably benches three hundred pounds."

"Three twenty," Roman corrected automatically.

"Which is completely irrelevant," Josephine said smoothly, "if his feet aren't connected to his hips."

She gestured toward the center of the mat. "Stand here, Roman. Square your feet. Put your hands up like you're going to grab my collar."

Roman stepped to the center of the mat. He widened his stance to shoulder-width, bent his knees slightly, and raised his hands, his fingers curling into loose claws three inches from the blue cotton of her lapels.

"Firm stance?" she asked.

"Immovable," Roman said.

Josephine didn't grab his wrists. She didn't strike his chest. She simply stepped forward—one quick, heavy step that brought her right hip directly against his left hip socket—and placed her right palm flat against his center sternum.

She didn't push with her arm. She simply dropped her weight two inches, dropping her rear back toward her heels, and drove her hips through his.

Roman felt the floor disappear.

It was not a violent throw; it was a sudden, terrifying absence of ground. One second he was an immovable one-hundred-and-ninety-five-pound obstacle; the next, his center of gravity was three inches behind his heels, and his legs were flying into the air.

He hit the blue mat with a loud THWACK that knocked every lungful of air out of his chest.

The ceiling flickered above him.

"Dad!" Finn yelled, clapping his hands together. "She did it again! She did the hip-drop!"

Roman lay on his back for two long seconds, staring up at the white plaster ceiling, his chest heaving as his lungs struggled to re-inflate.

Josephine stood over him. She was not winded. Her posture was perfectly vertical, her hands resting lightly on her hips, her heavy face looking down at him with a quiet, professional curiosity.

"You resisted with your shoulders," she said, offering him her right hand. Her palm was broad, calloused, and stone-dry. "You tried to use your upper back to stay upright. That’s why you fell so hard. If you had dropped your hips when I entered your space, we would have neutralized each other's weight."

Roman took her hand. Her fingers locked around his wrist with the strength of a vice, and with a single, smooth pull that used her entire leg drive, she yanked his one-hundred-and-ninety-five-pound frame off the floor and back onto his feet like he was a sack of feathers.

His chest was three inches from hers. He could smell the clean, sharp soap she used, mixed with the warm scent of her skin under the heavy blue cotton of the gi.

"Again," Roman said, his voice a gravelly whisper.

Josephine’s eyes glinted. "Again?"

"Show me how to drop the weight," Roman said, his hands coming up to grip the thick cotton lapels of her jacket. His knuckles brushed against the soft, warm skin at her throat, right where the gi parted.

"Very well," she said, her hands coming up to rest over his wrists, her grip heavy and warm. "Rule Five, Roman: don't look at my face. Look at my hips. The face lies. The hips always tell you where the body is going."

"I like looking at your face," Roman said softly.

Oliver let out an audible groan from the edge of the mat. "Ew. Dad, stop flirting with Josephine and do the move."

Josephine’s cheeks flushed a subtle, deep rose—the first time Roman had ever seen her lose her cool composure. She cleared her throat, shifted her feet three inches to the left, and looked down at Oliver.

"Ten push-ups, Oliver," she commanded, though her voice lacked its usual icy precision. "For interrupting instruction."

"Ten!" Oliver complained, but he immediately dropped to his hands and knees on the foam and began pushing his small chest up and down.

Roman looked down at Josephine’s face—at the faint rose flush spreading across her cheekbones, at the way her long auburn lashes cast shadows over her grey eyes, and at the small, soft dent in her lower lip where she was biting her teeth together.