Page 23 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

A couple of minutes earlier

Liar.

Such a fucking liar.

I can’t even look at her—and I’m both relieved and raging when she finally flees the room. After years of searching, years of being suspended in limbo, I should feel like I can breathe again.

But every breath feels like needles stabbing into my lungs.

I’m alive again, but living? Living is just a little more painful than the numb, bleeding hole I carried inside me for so long. Part of me wants to go back—to the endless search, the crushing sorrow, the numbness. At least then, the pain made sense.

Because the alternative?

The truth?

Is that my life has been hell for years… for absolutely nothing.

The woman who shattered me has been living her best life—healthy, happy, fucking some other man, building a family—while I’ve been on the longest, slowest suicide mission in history.

I feel like a bloody fool. Like the biggest idiot alive.

Giulia’s been here, alive , this whole time. And she didn’t give a single fuck about me or the life we built together—the life we were supposed to have.

She took the first chance she got and disappeared. Left Chicago. Left me . Like I meant nothing.

Not once did I let myself imagine she was pulling the same stunt she did all those years ago—walking away without warning. I told myself this time was different.

This time, we were a real couple. With real plans. A future.

And while I was out here destroying myself piece by piece, she was living a goddamn storybook life in a picture-perfect house with that fucking fisherman.

I want to go after her. I want to grab her, shake her, scream in her face. I want to demand answers, tear the truth from her lips, force her to look at me the way she used to—like I was her whole fucking world.

But what if she doesn’t look at me like that anymore? Was I just a mistake? Did she ever really love me?—

What if she left because I was never enough?

The idea of her playing house with someone else makes me sick. I was supposed to be that someone. I was supposed to build that family with her.

And now I don’t even know if she wanted that family with me—or if the idea of it ever even made her happy.

Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe I’m the lie.

And still—some pathetic part of me is waiting to hear her say my name the way she used to. Holding on to the tiniest fucking hope that she’ll come back to me.

Still hoping she looks at me and feels something.

Because if she doesn’t…

Then I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep breathing at all.

Who else knew about this?

Isabella moves to go after her, but I catch her arm, grip hard.

“Did you know about this? Did you know she was alive?”

Her eyes go wide. “No. I swear, I didn’t know anything.”

I yank her closer, my voice low and sharp. “Don’t lie to me, Isa. You’re telling me Re Ombra never once mentioned her?”

She yanks her arm free, shoving me back. “Do you really think I’d stay silent while you drank yourself to death and threw yourself into those underground fights like you had nothing to live for?”

Then she pauses—eyes narrowing, voice harder now.

“Honestly, how the hell didn’t you find her? With all your power, all your connections, all your fucking resources? What were you really looking for, Raffaele?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. Just turns and takes off after Giulia, calling her name.

Pepe glances after them, brows pulled tight. “What the hell was that about?”

A dark-haired woman stands. “I’ll go see,” she says, throwing me a narrowed, cutting glare as she moves—one that has me reeling in confusion.

What the hell is her problem?

Before I can dwell on it, another man steps toward me—composed, unreadable.

“You must be Raffaele Gagliardi,” Lucio Sanna says, voice calm, expression impossible to read.

He’s nothing like I expected. I’ve heard about Re Ombra before—what Italian made man worth his salt hasn’t? He’s been a legend in Sardegna since I was a kid. But this is the kind of place you don’t go digging.

You hear about Re Ombra’s island, and you look the other way.

The man has to be in his seventies at least, but he carries himself like someone ten years younger. His hair is a carefully dyed shade of dark brown, still full, styled with precision. His face is more or less unlined, preserved by either discipline or vanity, I can’t tell which.

He doesn’t look like the man who rules Sardegna’s streets and runs the biggest drug operation in Italy.

The only thing that gives him away is his eyes.

They’re a chilling pitch black that seem to suck in every speck of light and color around. His eyes are way too perceptive, and when they flicker over me, I tense.

“Thank you for having me,” I tell him, holding out my hand.

“You’re family now,” he says, “in more ways than one. I would’ve welcomed you into my home for the simple fact that you’re related to Pepe. I believe in family, Gagliardi.”

He chuckles. “You could say I’m old-fashioned. Loyalty, family—those outdated values still matter to me. Do they matter to you, Gagliardi?”

Something in his tone makes me tense. What does he know? Could he know about my history with Giulia? A man like him wouldn’t let someone into his home without doing his homework.

Is this going to bring problems?

All of a sudden, Pepe bursts into laughter. “Raffaele, relax. It’s not an initiation process.”

Lucio Sanna steps back, hands clasped behind his back, a small smile playing on his mouth. “I like you, Gagliardi. And I think you’ll make Isabella happy.”

“Come, I’ll show you to your room,” my cousin says, clapping a hand on my back and steering me away.

But before I follow, I turn—eyes sweeping toward the windows, searching for them.

I hold my breath the entire walk down the hallway, waiting for Pepe to ask what’s going on—why Giulia bolted like the hounds of hell were on her the moment she saw me.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Should I start at that retreat decades ago? At the airport? Or skip ahead to the bone-crushing loss I felt staring into the void off that cliff, knowing there was no way to go after her?

I brace for the inevitable question, but it never comes.

Instead, as we turn a corner, I catch sight of her again. She looks at peace and unbothered. And I can’t help but wonder how much of that was real… and how much of it was just an act.

Was any of it?

Chest hot and heavy, I turn to Pepe. “There’s something I have to do first. Excuse me.”

And without another word, I turn and go after Giulia.

“Raffaele! Where are you going?” he calls after me.

But his voice is already a blur.

There’s a part of me that wants to forget the years between us. Forget her scalding betrayal. That part just wants to pull her into my arms, bury my face in the crook of her neck, and breathe her in.

But then again… I don’t think she still smells like the woman I fell in love with.

And maybe it’s better that way.

I have to keep the woman skulking around Casa Bianca separate from the woman I lost in Chicago.

My footsteps are light, careful as I trail after her, watching as she steps into a room. I wait for a few beats for her to come out again, and when she doesn’t, I make my way to the partially cracked door. I lean against the wall, ears cocked.

“I’ve been f-fine,” I hear her say. “I’m in Sardegna right now, but that’s not where I’ve always been. Everything has been complicated.”

There’s a pause. “Of course I couldn’t come back. What was waiting for me in Chicago? You think I wanted to throw myself right back into the middle of a war you instigated?”

Another pause—this one longer. “I didn’t call you to argue, Papa,” she sighs. “I called because I don’t want you to worry about me anymore. I’m well—and have been for a long time.”

The audacity of her telling him not to worry anymore.

Does she think it’s that easy? After putting everyone in a state of permanent grief for years, adding fire to the fuel that is our family feud by her disappearance, and breaking my stupid heart, she thinks it’s just a matter of showing up again and telling everyone not to fucking worry anymore.

I start clapping slowly as I step into the room. She whirls around with a gasp, eyes darting between me and the door like a trapped animal looking for an escape route.

A low laugh rumbles out of me. “And here I thought I got the ex-fiancé special.”

Giulia straightens, trying to compose herself. “Raffaele! I… how have you been?”

I motion at the phone in her hand, a mocking smile on my mouth, while on the inside, my chest is caving in. “Here you are, telling your father that you’re alive. For a second there, I was touched. Thought I was the only one you lied to. But turns out, I’m just one name on a very long list.”

Her throat bobs with a swallow, and even from across the room, I can see her pulse fluttering wildly at her neck.

“Raffaele—” she begins.

I hold up my hand. “I don’t think I want to hear anything from you!” I hiss. “What the fuck are you going to say anyway? What excuse could you possibly have for disappearing this whole time?”

Scoffing, I drag both hands through my hair while she continues to watch me. “I’d have understood a month, six months, a year, and maybe I’m stupid for that, but I’d have gotten it—a little break from the chaos of Chicago before you came back to me. I’d have welcomed you with open arms.”

“It was far more complex.”

“Was it!” I roar. “Even if you didn’t want to come back, a simple phone call would have fixed everything.”

Tears well up in her eyes, and I’m tempted to reach out and wipe them away. I’ve never liked seeing her cry, and this time is no different. She broke me, and I still want to clamp my mouth shut, drop to my knees, and apologize. Anything to make those tears disappear.

The realization that she’s shattered me—but that I’d still surrender every piece of my broken heart to her—only makes me more furious.

She moved on, let another man touch her, and loved him. Lied to him with the same mouth she used to lie to me, made him fall with the same wide-eyed, open look that knocked me over from the first glance.

“But you chose to be cruel.” My voice is lower now, rusty with use. “Did you ever, for once in all these years, think about me? Think about how I must have been feeling, or were you just fucking glad to be done with me?”

“You don’t know what?—”

“What don’t I know?” I laugh. “I know about him.”

“You’re getting married to Isa!” she says, her voice trembling with emotion.

My jaw clenches. “It’s different. We were forced to do this—to end this fucking war. Tell me, Giulia—just one thing I have to know. If I hadn’t found you here… would you ever have come back to me?”

My stomach drops as her mouth opens and then shuts. “Don’t ask me that, Raffaele, that’s not fair.”

I take a step forward, and she scrambles back—but I keep advancing until her back hits the wall and I’m barely an inch from her. Her chest is rising fast and high, and I’m disappointed that she smells different.

And yet, my heart pounds in my chest, refusing to see this woman as anything other than mine.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

Our hands brush—just barely. I lift mine, slow and deliberate, and wipe a silent tear from her cheek with the back of my fingers. Her eyes lock with mine, wide and wet, and suddenly the air thickens with the weight of everything left unsaid.

The silence howls between us. Pain pulses like a second heartbeat.

I lean in, close enough that she shudders when I speak, my voice low and rough against her ear.

“You know what’s not fair?” I whisper. “The fact that you had all the cards—and I was left floundering, wondering. I’ve searched for you every fucking day of my life—from the moment you fell…

to this very second, standing here with you.

I followed leads across the world. Wasted time, resources—and four years of my life—searching for a woman who didn’t want to be found. ”

I pull back just slightly, enough to see her face again—but not enough to let her go.

I want to lean closer, see if her mouth still tastes the same. It’ll be a bad idea, of course, but ask me if I give a shit.

“You think you know everything, but you don’t,” she whispers.

“I—”

But she’s had enough of hearing me talk. “No— you listen to me! ” she snaps. “I stayed away because I was trying to protect myself?—”

“And you think?—”

“And my child!” she cuts in again.

“I don’t—” I start again, but she cuts me off—and this time, the words that leave her mouth stop my heart cold.

“ Our child, Raffaele!”