Page 24 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

GIULIA

“ I … I don’t understand.” Raffaele’s eyebrows draw together, a deep V forming between them. “What do you mean by our child?”

I sigh. “I was pregnant when…”

He staggers back a step, putting space between us. A storm of emotions flickers across his face—too quickly for me to read any of them. But god, I want to. I need to know what he’s thinking.

“When did you find out?” The words fly out between us, accusation ringing behind them.

I open my mouth to tell him it doesn’t matter, but his eyes narrow as if he knows exactly what I’m about to say. “Was it before or after you were kidnapped?”

Somehow, I think he already knows the answer to that question—but I still give him the reply he’s waiting for. “Before.”

His eyes squeeze shut, and this time around, I know exactly what he’s feeling. Pain. It’s written on every tight line of his face, the white corners of his mouth, the clench of his jaw, the fists at his sides, the way his shoulders curl in on themselves.

“Why?” he finally asks, blue eyes meeting mine again, blank again, all his emotions wrestled behind a wall that he never used to bother putting up with me.

But I guess I deserve it. I deserve to be locked out like every other person. And still it hurts.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to tell me, Giulia?

” he asks again. “When was I supposed to find out? I don’t get it.

Why would you hide your pregnancy? Did you think I wouldn’t want it?

Because Giulia, we both know that’s bullshit.

We both know that there’s nothing I wanted more than to start a family with you, so tell me why you’d hide it. ”

I blink back the tears threatening to form in my eyes. “I was going to tell you, Raffaele. You have to believe that, even if you don’t believe anything else. I was going to tell you, it was going to be a surprise.” A shaky laugh escapes my mouth. “And then everything happened.”

“Which brings us to the next problem,” he says in a cutting voice. “You survived, and you decided that you wanted none of it—not me, not the life we were supposed to live together.”

“That wasn’t how it was!” I snap, hurt that he’d even think it was anything like that.

“Then tell me how it was!” he snarls, dragging his both hands through his hair. “Explain it to me, Giulia, because all I have are questions. Questions I’ve been asking since you disappeared and never gotten any answers to. I’m sick of having so many question marks hanging around my life.”

I want to pull him into my arms. Everything inside of me is gravitating toward him, but that wall stands firm between us. The only way to break it down is to tell the truth.

All of it this time around.

“I didn’t tell you about the baby because part of me was terrified you’d realize what we had was actually real—and that you’d reconsider.”

“Giulia—”

I cut him off before he can start giving me assurances I don’t want or need. “I knew it was stupid—of course I knew. You wanted me, and you’d talked about a family. I guess everything was just happening too fast, and it was all a mess, and I was confused.”

The tears well up in my eyes now, and this time I don’t bother blinking them away. I have a feeling that no matter how much I try to hide them, he’ll see right through me.

“I didn’t even want to mention the baby at all,” I continue, my voice lower now. “Because I was terrified too. I didn’t want to bring the baby into that chaos—not even by uttering its existence.”

I meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Raffaele. I never meant…” I trail off, then clear my throat. “I lost my memories after I fell into the lake. For the first few months… I didn’t even remember who I was.”

He tenses. “Did that bastard fisherman seriously take advantage of a woman with memory loss? I’m going to kill him.”

“It wasn’t like that!” I cry. “It’s not like that between Marco and me.”

His jaw tightens. “He’s in love with you.”

There’s a question buried in those seemingly simple words, and his eyes search mine—careful, wary.

“Are you?”

I don’t waste time pretending otherwise. “I’m not in love with him.”

He exhales, shoulders sagging in quiet relief, no longer rigid and locked up.

“And after you gained back your memories? Why not then?”

“I’m sorry, Raffaele,” I tell him in a shaky voice. “I missed you every day, but it wasn’t just about me anymore. Noemi became my priority, and I couldn’t risk making her a target in this family feud, or whatever the fuck all of this is.”

“Noemi,” he tests the name on his tongue, and the faintest hint of a smile touches his lips. “It’s a beautiful name.”

“It was only after I regained my memory that I remembered—it was one of the names you suggested, back when we used to talk about having children,” I say softly.

Silence descends between us; it’s far from being light and easy, but the edge that existed at the beginning is missing now. An easy truce, perhaps—or maybe the calm before an explosion.

“There was that day at the church.”

His head snaps up, eyes widening. “You were there.”

There’s something certain in his voice, like he’s always known—deep down—that I had been.

“You knew?” I ask, surprised.

“No,” he says. “But I could’ve sworn I felt you. The feeling has stayed with me ever since. I knew you were close… but it made no sense.”

“I didn’t know who you were,” I confess. “All I knew was that I felt drawn to the stranger in the confession booth. I couldn’t walk away. I just sat there, crying for you… confused.”

I swallow, blinking hard. “I swear to you, Raffaele, if I’d just—if I had known who you were, if I had talked to you—god, we wouldn’t be here right now. We would’ve fixed all of this, and?—”

I hang my head, throat tight and aching.

I can’t manage any more words from a throat that feels like it’s bruised and wrecked. But I force the rest out, each word like salt against open word. “We would have been together. We wouldn’t have had to go through all of this just to have life rip us apart again, and again.”

Raffaele steps closer, voice low, urgent. “it’s not too late.”

“W-what?” I blink at him, startled.

“It’s not too late for us,” he repeats. “We can still have the life we’ve always wanted, the life we’ve envisioned. I still want that life, Giulia. Don’t you want it anymore?”

“I’d always want it. I’d always want that life with you,” I tell him honestly.

“Then let’s go. What’s really stopping us? What’s really keeping us here?” he asks. “Remember Thailand? All those beautiful places we read about. The island, sitting by the sea, just you and I. We would never have to see the endless chaos, the drugs, the violence, the betrayal.”

There’s a pause. “Our… Noemi will love it there.”

I appreciate that he doesn’t call her our daughter—not because I don’t want him in her life, but because there’s still a part of me that isn’t comfortable with the idea of him showing up and instantly claiming his place as her father.

Maybe it’s unfair. But I want him to prove he wants to be a father.

Talking about it is one thing. Actually being a parent is something else entirely.

There were so many moments when I broke down in tears because I couldn’t get Noemi to breastfeed, or stop crying, or fall asleep. I thought I was strong—until I had a fragile baby whose entire survival depended on me.

I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d had to go through it completely alone.

“You’re engaged,” I remind him, my heart squeezing.

“I’ll call everything off right this second. I don’t care about it, Giulia.”

What if? What if…

I shake my head, pushing away the voice in my head that’s telling me to grab this opportunity with both hands and never let it go. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” His voice is sharp with frustration. “Because of that damn fisherman?”

“It has nothing to do with him!” I cry. “We aren’t even together.”

“I saw the picture on the mantle and the way he talks about you,” Raffaele spits out the words. “Does Noemi think he’s her father?”

“Of course not!” I snap. “And I don’t feel that way about him. There has never been anything between us.” If I had managed to find a way to feel for Marco even half of what I feel for Raffaele, my life would have been so much easier.

“So you can, but you just won’t,” he bites out. “Come on, Giulia, what’s really your excuse this time? There’s nothing stopping us. We have a child together. I want us to be a real family. I’ve missed so much already, and I don’t want to miss more.”

My mouth presses into a thin line. “Isabella?—”

“She’s known from the start that I feel nothing for her,” he cuts in. “It’s always been you. It will always be you.”

Yes, say yes , everything inside of me is chanting, but I hesitate. “Raffaele, there’s something you need to know?—”

Before I can say another word, my bedroom door swings open, and Isabella steps in, her eyes quickly scanning the scene.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asks.

I begin to say no, but my focus shifts to Raffaele. I watch his face harden with resolution, and then he begins to turn away from me.

It must be years of knowing him—knowing him so deeply that it feels like our souls are entwined—that allows me to read him now.

I know what he’s about to do, and I can’t let him do it.

He might not feel anything for Isabella, but he can’t just call off the wedding.

I’ve been gone— twice —and I’m sure something formed between them.

A connection. An intimate friendship born from two people sharing one loss.

And being ditched after announcing her engagement would be humiliating for any girl.

Not to mention the two families. This union between Raffaele and Isabella is the only thing holding off another war. If there’s any chance of bringing my daughter back to Chicago, I have to let this feud die—even if it means giving up the man I love.

The man I’ve always loved.

“Isabella, we need to talk.” Raffaele’s voice is toneless.

Her eyebrows rise, and her gaze shifts over his shoulder to meet mine. I clock the panic in her eyes immediately. A part of her knows this is about to happen, and it makes my stomach churn with even more guilt.

After everything Isabella has done for me, how can I repay her like this? I can’t be the one to ruin whatever it is they’ve built over the years. At least, not like this.

“About what?” Isabella asks.

“It’s about?—”

“Our child was kidnapped,” I blurt out.

The room is suddenly plunged into silence. It only lasts a heartbeat, though. Two sets of eyes fall on me, and then their disbelief explodes out of them simultaneously.

“What?!” they bark.