Page 4 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

I don’t know what I expect, but it’s certainly not the older man letting out a low, rasping laugh. I stare at him in surprise, wondering if he’s lost his marbles.

“How the mighty have fallen,” he eventually says, a humorless smile twisting his mouth.

“Who would have ever thought that Raffaele Gagliardi, the perfect protege, Edoardo’s pride and joy will stand before me, confused, terrified and at a loss?

This must feel so humiliating for you, which makes me wonder how your father will?—”

“Don’t talk about my father,” I grit out, sick of his yapping. “This has nothing to do with him.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Tell me what I want to freaking know, or your brain will end up being splattered on the wall behind you.” My voice is icy and hard as steel. Behind me, I hear Isabella suck in a terrified breath.

Instead of giving me the information I need, though, Enrico steps forward, making sure that the gun is pressed as firmly as possible to his skull.

“Everyone leave us!” he roars, eyes never leaving mine.

“Uh-b-boss, b-but—” one of the men begins.

“Take the men and leave,” he orders, harsher this time. “If Raffaele Gagliardi wants to put a bullet in my skull, who am I to oppose him?”

My jaw clenches together. I don’t have time for his games. Since I realized what a horrible father he was to Giulia, and how much he hurt her despite her constantly jumping to obey his orders, please him, and defend him, I’ve been itching to hit him.

“I’m not fucking around, Enrico,” I warn him. “Just tell me where she is.”

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” he says flatly , eyes flashing with manic amusement. “I much prefer you like this, going out of your mind with worry.”

“Tell me where she is!” I roar, heart racing. “What have you done with her?”

“Raffaele, please!” Isabella pleads. “We can just discuss this. We can just sit down and talk about this like adults.”

“I have nothing to discuss with a Gagliardi,” Enrico spits.

“This isn’t the time for your stupid family feud,” Isabella chides him, voice trembling. “Giulia is missing, for god’s sake, and she fell off a cliff—she could be lying somewhere dying or—or already…” Her voice breaks, and she presses her lips together, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Do it,” the older man’s mouth pulls into a smirk. “You want to kill me so badly, then do it. I have nothing to say to you. Kill me, and end this whole thing once and for all. Don’t you want that bastard Edoardo to finally look at you with approval?”

“Shut up!”

He laughs. “Kill me! Pull the fucking trigger.”

“Fine.” I cock the gun. “I’ll kill you, and then I’ll use the rest of the bullets on my father. I’m going to tear down this world and turn it upside down until I find her.”

“Put down the gun for a second. Let’s be logical about this.” Isabella tugs my shirt. “You two are acting so stupid right now, and watching this is making me sick.”

“Stay out of this, Isabella. This is between Enrico and me.” I glance over at her and freeze. My mind has been on a one-track lane since I walked into this room, and I’ve scarcely noticed anything else except Enrico.

Now I take in the discoloration on her face. Old bruises, maybe a day or two healed, but still ugly against her skin. There’s purple and blue bruising on her chin, at the corner of one eye, and on her cheeks. A stitched-up wound runs into her hairline.

“What the fuck happened to you?” I ask.

She lets out a shaky breath, her gaze locked on mine. “It doesn’t matter. Focus on finding her. She’s the one who matters.”

“What happened?” I repeat.

“That’s exactly what we were trying to figure out before you barged in here and started waving your gun around,” she snaps. “Enrico had nothing to do with this, Raffaele. If anyone’s at fault, it’s you.”

I reel back, shocked. “I don’t understand. What the fuck are you saying? You know I’d never hurt Giulia.”

She advances at me, eyes flashing with fury. “Then why didn’t you show up? I’ve gone over this thing in my head a thousand times, and all I can think is that you somehow arranged this ambush. Maybe you changed your mind about betraying your family and decided to betray her instead.”

The hand holding my gun drops down to my side, and I stare at her. “I’d never betray her. I loved her. I was going to marry her and go away with her.”

The other thing she said suddenly rings in my head. I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean, I never showed up? I waited at the chapel for four hours.”

Enrico snorts. “Are you seriously going to stand here and listen to his bullshit? It’s obvious you set my daughter up, and now you stand here threatening everyone like you have no idea what you did.”

He stares down at me even though I have a few inches on him. “I knew from the start you were bad news. I told Giulia every day that you were no good, but she insisted. Now look at the result.”

“Shut up,” I bark at him. “You have no right to speak when you tried to sell your daughter not once but twice.”

“I wasn’t trying to sell her,” he snaps. “I was trying to do what was best for her. If you had just left her alone, she wouldn’t be missing now.”

The words knock into my chest, and I flinch. What he just said are the words I’ve been thinking since I found out that Giulia was missing. The guilt hits me like a ten-ton weight.

“None of that matters now!” Isabella slashes a hand through the air, looking more exasperated than ever at this point. “You two should fucking cut it out. Can’t you see there’s more to play than the feud and your petty issues?”

She turns to me, meeting my gaze. “You said you waited at the chapel, right?”

I nod, unsure where she’s going with this.

“That literally makes no sense when you texted to change locations.”

I blink, confused. “What are you talking about? I never tried to change locations. I didn’t hear from Giulia after the call that night. I got to the chapel at the time I was supposed to and couldn’t reach either of you. I called over and over again.”

The way Isabella is staring at me—like I’m speaking an unfamiliar language—starts to make a strange feeling curl through my stomach.

“No. You’re mistaken. You must have changed the location—or…

god… maybe someone pretended to be you. I don’t see how else it could have happened,” Giulia’s cousin says.

“We got your text about changing venue from the chapel to the old park. We thought it was strange, but we didn’t question it too much because we assumed the old location had been compromised. ”

An icy feeling rolls down my spine. “I never sent that text. I never changed the location.” And only two other people knew about that plan.

“That’s exactly what happened.” She folds her arms across her chest like she’s bracing herself. “There was no network in the area, and after half an hour of waiting for you, Giulia asked me to step outside and try to call you while she waited behind in case you were just running late.”

“I remember hearing some noise as I put some distance between us,” she continues, body trembling now. “I turned around, and someone grabbed me from behind. I tried to fight and got knocked out. When I woke up, I ran back for Giulia, but she was gone.”

“I never sent that text,” I repeat, mind racing.

“Whoever sent it had to have known about your plans to meet up with her and get married,” she points out. “Who else knew about your plans?”

My right-hand man, Tommaso, and my best friend, Matteo, were the only ones who knew about my plans to meet up with Giulia and get married.

There’s no way it could be either of them.

I trust those men with my life. The thought of doubting them feels like a betrayal of every moment they’ve shown up for me. I refuse to let suspicion creep in.

For one, I didn’t tell either of them the exact location.

Only Matteo knew about the priest, and even that was a fleeting detail.

Besides, they’ve both been by my side for the last forty-eight hours, tangled up with me in the chaos of disrupting my father’s plans for the Montanaris.

Matteo, especially, has been a rock through it all.

I would have noticed if they’d made any unusual calls.

My heart tells me they’re loyal, and I cling to that certainty like a lifeline.

I swing around to face Enrico again. “Did you do this?”

He leans back with an eyeroll. “Believe it or not, I was looking forward to Giulia going off with you, getting her heart broken, and running back with her tail tucked between her legs.”

What a freaking asshole. I’m tempted to put my fist into his face and shatter his nose. But I know that that’s exactly what he wants. He’s been trying to rile me up since I walked into this house. A closer look at him reveals dark circles around his eyes, paper-thin skin, and greasy hair.

I cock my head, studying him. He looks like a wreck, and I wonder if I’ve just never noticed it before, or if it’s a new development as a result of his missing daughter.

“If you’re really behind this—” I start, but Isabella quickly cuts me off.

“We’re wasting time being at each other’s throats when the real people or person behind this is getting away,” she snaps. “Have you spoken to your father?”

“There’s no way he knew about my plans,” I argue. “I was careful. And anyway, my father and I aren’t really seeing eye to eye at the moment.”

“Which is more reason he could have taken her. Maybe she was supposed to be a bargaining chip. I hate to say it, but the Gagliardis have more motive to take her than Enrico.”

The man in question steps forward, fingers curled into fists at his side. “That bastard Edoardo. I knew I should have killed him when we had the chance.”

“You have no proof he did this.” I don’t know why I’m defending him. Maybe some part of me still feels loyalty to my family, or maybe I’m stubbornly refusing to believe that my father can be that much of an evil bastard.

“I don’t need proof,” Enrico snorts. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. This has him written all over it: trickery, ambush, and underhanded methods. This means war, and this time around, I’m not going to stop until the Gagliardi family is nothing but a speck of dust.”

He begins to step closer to me until he’s in my face. “Tell your father I’m coming. He’d better pray I don’t get there first.”

“You’re not really planning another war.” Isabella looks incredulous. “We’re still trying to recover from the first one. What the hell, Enrico? Are you doing this for Giulia, or is she just a convenient excuse for you to continue your eternal grudge?”

Let’s not be martyrs. The words I’d whispered to Giulia when I asked her to marry me. The words she’d said back to me, her voice steady, not even forty-eight hours ago.

“Raff, you have to talk to your father and find out the truth,” Isabella implores.

The problem is that if I go anywhere near my father, he’ll order his men to shoot first and ask questions later. Saying that we aren’t on speaking terms is being extra generous. I have, after all, messed up his plans, betrayed the family, and turned myself into the enemy.

“I don’t know how that’s possible,” I finally confess.

She grips my hand, eyes wide and teary. “You have to try, Raff. He might have her after all. I’m sure neither of us wants this to escalate to a full blown-out war.”

I tune out Enrico’s erratic barks and screaming, all my focus on Isabella’s pleading eyes.

“We have to work together just like old times to find her,” she offers me a tentative smile.

I drag a shaky hand through my hair, glancing over at the older man. Coming here today, all messed up in the head and hungry for blood, may have been the worst decision I’ve ever made, next to not grabbing Giulia and disappearing into thin air from day one when we reconnected at the airport.

I shake the thought away.

It doesn’t matter that I can’t change the past. What I can do is take action here and now. I’m going to find Giulia, and I don’t care how high or low I have to search. She couldn’t have disappeared into thin air, shit like that just doesn’t happen.

Someone somewhere must have seen or heard something.

My chest aches with something I don’t have a name for. Guilt. Rage. Love so desperate it feels like it might swallow me whole.

If she’s alive out there, she’s scared. She’s waiting for me to come.

Spinning on my heels, I stalk out of the room and the house. I’m going to find my woman, and I’m not going to stop until I have her back in my arms, no matter the price I’ll have to pay.

Even if it costs me what little soul I have left.