Page 26 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

GIULIA

I t’s not that I think my father doesn’t care about me at all, but rather, I’ve never been a priority to him. On the long list of things he’s willing to spend his energy and effort on, the first four are his revenge and hatred for the Gagliardis, the fifth is his business— and the sixth is me.

And because his hatred for the Gagliardis is so consuming, I completely disappeared from his focus, leaving us as two bitter strangers living under the same roof.

After my call to my father, where I gave him a brief rundown of everything that’s happened, and Noemi’s kidnapping, I expect that he’ll cool his heels in Chicago, before reluctantly coming here.

I’m surprised when, barely forty-eight hours after the call, Caterina comes to inform me that my father is waiting in Lucio’s office.

A brief tingle of excitement touches me as I make my way down the hall to the office. I hate to admit it, but I’ve missed my father. For all his faults, he’s still my family—and call it stupid or delusional, but part of me still sees him as the wonderful father he was before Mama died.

Taking a deep breath, I push the office door open and there he is, hands clasped behind his back. It’s the same way Lucio stands, and the loose similarity brings a small smile to my face.

One that slips away when Papa turns around to face me, and I take him in fully. A gasp slips out of my mouth.

He looks old. Too old and tired. The lines on his face are deep, and he’s lost a lot of weight. There’s far too much gray in his hair now, and his eyes are dull and sunken. This isn’t the man I left in Chicago. What the hell happened to him?

I open my mouth to say something, but he beats me to it.

“Giulia, it’s really you,” he rasps. “Come.”

I close the distance between us, and then his arms are pulling me closer, wrapping around me and holding me tight. A shuddered breath escapes his mouth, and I can feel his chest rising and falling too fast.

“I’m here, Papa,” I tell him.

He pulls away. “I thought—I had no idea you—god, Giulia, don’t do that to me again.”

I take a step back from him, putting some space between us.

I can’t completely trust the pain in his voice or the relief in his eyes.

I can’t trust that any of this isn’t just for show.

Because the moment I let myself be vulnerable again, he’ll go right back to being the man who manipulates everything around him for the sake of his war with the Gagliardis.

“I didn’t think you’d notice at all that I was gone,” I say in a scathing voice. “Or did you only realize it when you needed someone to clean up the mess you’d made, and had to substitute with Isabella when you couldn’t find me?”

His mouth falls open, shock and pain filling his features. I don’t want to be this person, the one who is offered an olive branch but whips out a dagger instead. I had planned to walk in here and act indifferent about anything.

But the years of hurt are bursting to come out, combined with the feeling of betrayal over them suddenly wanting a union between Raffaele and Isabella, when they staunchly refused to accept Raffaele and me.

Before he can say anything, the door is pushed open, and Lucio walks in, Raffaele trailing in behind him.

“Enrico,” Lucio says cooly.

Right before my eyes, my father pulls inward, eyes hardening. “Lucio Sanna.”

“Welcome to Casa Bianca,” he says with a mocking smile, stepping around my father to settle into his chair behind the desk. “I trust you’re familiar with the place. Eleanora must have told you so much about it, seeing as you never once came to visit your father-in-law.”

My father’s eyes narrow, but instead of responding to him, he turns back to me. “How is the search for your daughter going?”

I shake my head. “There have been no leads. It’s like she’s disappeared completely.”

“And you think it’s La Rete Rossi?” Papa asks, looking like he’s deep in thought. “Somehow, I don’t think this is a coincidence. This was a very specific move, and the question is, why would they want her?”

“Are you also thinking that this is a move against Re Ombra?” Raffaele asks as he sits.

“If it were, I’d know by now,” Lucio says. “Someone would have said something, or they’d have brought their terms to my knowledge. This has nothing to do with me.”

“Is it possible that they’re taking their time to make you sweat so that you’ll be more amenable to their demand later?” Enrico asks.

The older man sits back, thinking. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Why?” I ask.

He sighs. “I don’t think this has anything to do with La Rete Rossi at all. I’ve met with some of my inside men and rounded up some of their transporters. It’s all the same thing: They haven’t seen Noemi.”

“If this involves the higher-ups, the lesser men in the hierarchy won’t know about it,” Raffaele points out. “They could have made this particularly discreet because they know you’ll get involved.”

“So what you’re saying is we should just sit on the edge of our seats with our thumbs up our asses, waiting to hear from the bastards who kidnapped her?” my father sneers.

Raffaele’s face hardens into stone. “I’m not saying that. Trust me, if I could, I’d raze this entire island to the ground until Noemi is back where she belongs. I don’t like this any more than you do. She’s my daughter, for god’s sake.”

Lucio chuckles. “Of course. How very like the Americans to have no tact. That mindset is exactly why Chicago is burning right now, and you’re all feeling the heat now, trying to douse a fire that you started in the first place.”

“And how like you to think that you know everything about everything.” Papa slants him a chilling look.

“Tell me which part I got wrong?” Lucio leans forward and staples his fingers over the table. “The part where Chicago is burning, or the part where you’ve become victims of a fire you started.”

Before my father can retort, I cut in. “Forget Chicago, that’s not our focus now. We’re talking about Noemi here.”

I’m beginning to think that bringing these men together is a terrible idea. The animosity in the room is rising to ceiling levels, and I don’t have it in me to try to diffuse this.

It will be too much to ask them to settle their differences for the sake of my daughter, but at least they can pretend to be cordial in the meantime. Once I have Noemi back, they can whip out their swords and put them to each other’s necks for all I care.

Lucio’s jaw clenches so hard, and for a moment, I think he’s going to continue his banter with Papa, but then he drags his gaze to me. “We have to consider the very real possibility that you seeing the La Rete Rossi coin was merely a coincidence.”

“I thought about that too,” Raffaele pipes up.

I look over at him with surprise, and he shrugs.

“As far as I know, they don’t target anyone specifically.

In order to maintain their peace and be free to conduct their activities, they can’t afford to cause any problems like taking the wives or children of well-known family heads.

I’ve looked at it from every angle, and honestly, them being behind this is very unlikely. ”

That doesn’t seem like a strategically sound move. From any direction I look at it,” my father adds. “Unless Lucio has a beef with them that he’s not telling us about.”

I roll my eyes when my grandfather scoffs. “Unlike you, Enrico, we don’t believe in carrying on with petty feuds and wars. Here, when you have a fucking problem, you meet up somewhere nice and neutral, drink aged wines, air your grievances, settle it, and get the fuck over it.”

“But then again,” he continues with a drawl. “The same can’t be applied to you because you don’t even have any idea what your grievance is about, do you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe,” Lucio says. “But what I do know is that you promised my daughter a fairy tale and dragged her right into an inherited family feud that eventually killed her.”

“We had nothing to do with her death,” Raffaele pipes up.

“It’s funny how you truly believe that she would have had a better life here.” My father chuckles. “Eleanora left because she wanted nothing to do with your island cult.”

“It’s not a cult, it’s family,” the other man barks. “Something that you know entirely nothing about.”

“It’s a goddamn cult, and you know it. You would have eventually tried to marry her off to one of your loyal men to keep them all close, forever loyal and tied to you,” Papa says.

“That’s some sort of narcissism. Wanting to control everybody’s life with the excuse that you just want to keep them safe and do what’s best for them is a mental illness, and she wanted no part of it. ”

“She was fine with it until you came along!”

My gaze flies between the two men, and when I look at Raffaele, I see that he’s looking at me.

He’s looking at me like he hasn’t even noticed the fight that is brewing right there in that room, as if the men can start shooting at each other right now and he won’t be bothered, like I’m the center of his world, and everything else is secondary.

My mouth goes dry as our gazes hold, that familiar charge rising between us, making my heart pound in my chest. It’s this singular feeling of being alone in the world with him whenever he’s near.

Nothing else matters.

Nothing else even exists.

Just him. And me.

“You ruined everything. You took her away from me and tore my family apart!” Lucio roars, and I’m suddenly snapped back to the room. My father and grandfather are still throwing barbs at each other, trying to blame the other for everything that’s ever gone wrong, and I suddenly can’t stand it.

In that moment, I loathe them.

Why did I think this time would be any different? That something would finally matter to my father more than the deep hatred that consumes him? Why did I think he’d suddenly become the kind of man who accepts that maybe he’s just as responsible for how his life turned out?

I rise to my feet too fast, and my seat goes clattering to the floor. The two men snap their heads to me, blinking like they forgot I was here. I should be used to feeling like this, but somehow, it still hurts.

The tears well up, fast and unbidden.

“For the first time in a long time, I needed your help,” I tell my father. “I needed you to swoop in and save me for once in my life. But look at you. Look at both of you!”

Papa flinches and tries to speak, but I’m far from done. “My child is out there, taken by some sick bastards, and I have no idea what’s being done to her. I have no idea if she’s even—” I choke on a sob, unable to admit, even to myself, that she might really be gone.

“The past happened,” I tell them. “And I know it hurts—you both lost someone important, a daughter and a wife. But so did I. I lost my mother and my sister.

Maybe if you two had gotten your shit together, they’d still be alive.”

“Child—”

“Don’t call me that!” I snap at Lucio, tears streaming down my face.

“It’s too late to get Mama and Val back, but it’s not too late to save Noemi.

It’s not too late for both of you to get your heads out of your asses, put your stupid hatred aside for a second, and for once do something that isn’t all about your egos. ”

My eyes catch Raffaele’s again, and he looks wrecked, tired. Even though he hasn’t met her yet, I know losing our daughter is hurting him deeply. I know he feels the helplessness, the desperation, and the fear. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for him.

From going out of his mind searching for me to searching for his daughter. He hasn’t caught a break in four years, and I can’t help the guilt I feel over it.

“If something happens to my daughter while you two are busy bickering over who destroyed whose life,” I tell them, “I’ll never forgive you. Never.”

“Giulia—”

I don’t stick around to hear the rest of what my father has to say. I’ve heard enough of his bullshit for one lifetime. I turn on my heels and march out, feeling more hopeless than ever.