Page 40 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

“ H e’s down here,” Pepe informs me, motioning down the dark hallway of the decrepit building. A single naked bulb flickers on and off, giving the place an eerie feeling.

I trail after my cousin to a closed metal door. He pulls out a key from the pocket of his slacks, and we step into the dark room. I tense, fingers creeping toward my gun tucked into the holster at my back, but a second later, there is a clang, and bright fluorescent bulbs come to light above us.

I wince at the sudden brightness. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, and when they do, I take note of the man tied to a seat in the middle of the room. The man’s face is already bruised and discolored, dried blood stuck to his jaw and staining his white shirt.

“We found him yesterday evening in this abandoned building,” Pepe explains. “After he shot Isabella, he managed to slip away, then one of the maids started talking about the photographer not making it to dinner.”

I raise a confused eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. “Apparently, he was taking pictures of the house and cars. She noticed him earlier in the day and thought he was one of the guests. We did a rough sketch and took it to the streets, and it led us straight to the bastard.”

I step closer to him and grip him by his hair, yanking his face up. To my surprise, I find a young face staring back at me defiantly. He can’t be more than twenty. Distaste rises inside me.

Who the fuck is using kids to do their dirty work?

“Who are you?” I ask him.

He glances between Pepe and me. “I don’t know why I’m here. I swear, I’m just a waiter. I don’t know what the fuck this is, but you have no right to keep me here!”

I glance over at Pepe in surprise, and he shrugs. “He’s been singing the same tune since yesterday. The men who dug him out roughed him up a little to get him to say something, but nothing so far.”

Facing the tied-up man again, I go down to my haunches so I can look him in the eye. “Look, kid?—”

“I’m not a fucking kid,” he spits, eyes narrowed in fury.

I scoff. “The only reason I haven’t blown out your kneecaps is because you’re a fucking kid, so if I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to say you’re an adult.”

Fear flashes in his eyes, replacing the indignant expression on his face. He swipes his tongue over his lower lip nervously. “Look, you have the wrong guy. I don’t know what you think I did, but I didn’t fucking do it, okay?”

“Who are you working for?”

“Livvie,” he says. “She owns the restaurant where I work.”

A dark smile curves my mouth, and he recoils when I rise to my full height and wiggle my shoulders to loosen the muscles there. “One more chance, kid. Who the fuck sent you to kill Isabella?”

His eyes flare. “I didn’t kill anyone! I swear to God. This is all a big misunderstanding and—” He continues to babble about being innocent, but he’s not fooling anyone.

The terror and guilt and regret in his eyes are dead giveaways.

One thing is certain, though: Neither of us is walking out of here until I get some useful information.

Isabella didn’t deserve to be gunned down like a criminal.

For the rest of my life, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase the sight of Giulia shattering into pieces while covered in Isa’s blood.

Her shrill screams still haunt me.

The only way to put an end to all of this is to get to the bottom of it. In essence, find the root and take it out. This kid is our first real link, and I’m going to crack his brain open and get the truth out if I have to.

I pull out my gun and drop it on the metal table at the side with a loud clang. His words trail off as he spots the gun.

“Do you have the tools?” I ask without turning around to look at Pepe.

“They’re right there in that box,” he informs me casually.

Undoing the latch on the box, I push it open, revealing an array of tools. A shiver of anticipation rolls through me as I access the various tools. There’s everything from pliers to nipple clamps that receive an electrical charge.

When I turn back to the guy with a butcher knife in hand, his eyes go saucer-wide, and his face drains of color.

“Look, there’s a mistake,” he says again. “Oh god.”

“No god is going to save you from what will happen to you here,” I promise him.

“You can either start telling me what I want to hear, or get ready for the most excruciating day of your life. I’m in no hurry, kid, and it’s been a while since I had the opportunity to enjoy getting a stubborn bastard to talk. ”

Pepe chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against one side of the wall with its peeling paint. “Oh, this should be fun.”

The guy gulps. “The bullet wasn’t for her!” he finally blurts out. “I was supposed to kill you, not her. I fucked up the mission and had to go underground to escape the consequences of that massive fuck-up.”

My eyebrows climb up to my forehead, and from the corner of my eye, I can see Pepe pulling away from the wall.

“What do you mean by you fucked up the mission?” he asks.

He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “I was running out of time, and I had a short time window before the guards did another rotation.” His eyes meet mine, dark and furious. “And then you moved. Fucked up everything!”

There’s no remorse in his eyes, just fury at me for causing him to miss his shot. I suddenly see past the mask he’s been wearing this whole time. As much as the guy tied up might be young, there is something hard about him.

“Who sent you?” I ask him. “Who wants me dead?”

More importantly, why would someone want me dead? I rack my brain, trying to figure out if I’ve made any enemies in Sardegna—someone with enough balls to shoot me in a house under Re Ombra’s protection.

“I’ve told you all I know!” he barks. “There’s nothing else. I don’t know who sent me.”

“Don’t you?” I drawl, spinning the butcher knife around so it catches the light.

“I don’t, I swear!” He glances past me to Pepe. “I don’t know anything else, man, can you tell the crazy one to step back?”

My mouth spreads into a smile, and I grab his hand, banging it down against the metal table. “Who sent you?”

He begins to shake, gaze flying from the knife gleaming in my hand to his own hand spread out against the table like an offering. “I’ve told you all I know. I got the request from the internet. The money was deposited in my bank on the day of the assassination, and that was that.”

“Do you know what my favorite body part to cut is?” I ask him.

He shakes his head, face white as a sheet. “Look, I?—”

“The hands,” I cut in, sick of hearing of his half-truths and desperate cover-ups. I’m sick of everybody hiding something. More than ever, I feel like it’s Giulia and me against everybody.

Ever since I found out Martina was on the plane that Lucio Sanna assured us she wasn’t on, I’ve been watching Pepe more, trying to see if there’s any behavior or attitude that suggests he’s hiding something.

I’ve even started asking him pointed questions about what he plans to do after Lucio is gone.

“Know why?” I ask him.

The guy shakes his head slowly, eyes still wide and fixed on the knife.

“The reason is that the fingers are already sectioned by nature,” I drawl. “I don’t have to think too much about where to cut. It makes it very convenient. Don’t you think?”

Before he can say anything else, I’m pressing the knife into his middle finger, pushing it down until the finger is completely severed. He lets out a howl of pain as blood spurts out.

Pepe steps forward, a garrote held between his two hands. He goes behind the chair and wraps it around the guy’s neck, steadily tightening it, while I reach for another finger.

“W-wait—” he croaks before I can push the knife down. “Th-there’s something else.”

I meet my cousin’s eyes, signaling at him to stop, and he lets the garrote loosen.

“Well? What is it?” I ask impatiently.

“Listen, I d-don’t know who he is,” he says.

“I told you as much. I don’t know who’s behind this.

I’m just following orders from a long, complicated chain of command.

The boss at the top has to be someone powerful, someone who’s very fucking careful.

He’s taking great care to cover up his tracks.

Trust me, a man like that can’t be found unless he wants to. You’re wasting your fucking time.”

“That’s too bad for you then,” I tell him. “If you have no useful information for me, I’ll have to kill you. Or do you want to rifle through that brain and get some useful information that can convince me to let you go?”

His breath is ragged as he stares at me with consideration.

I can see the wheels clanging in his head.

He’s weighing his chances, and it leaves me with a cold feeling.

He’s faced with clear death right here and still afraid of some nameless, faceless man who’s pulling strings like a master puppeteer.

“I’ve h-heard things,” he finally stammers out. “There’s talk… about someone close to you. I don’t know much, nobody is saying much, but you’re not safe, and neither is Giulia.”

My blood runs cold. “Giulia? What do they want with her?” I dare any bastard to lay a hand on a single strand of her hair. After all she’s been through, she doesn’t deserve to still be a target.

If something happens to her…

I refuse to even think about that sickening possibility. My stomach tightens and spasms.

“I don’t know,” he tells me. “You have to believe me. I don’t know any more than this. But I know they have bigger plans. Something big is coming.”

I’m starting to think his whole talk of following a long string of commands was bullshit. The terror in his eyes makes it clear that he knows who exactly is behind this. Or at least, he has a suspicion. Nobody would be scared of a ghost.

“Who’s behind this?” I ask him again.

Just as he opens his mouth, I hear the metal door fly open behind us. One of Pepe’s men rushes in.

“We just finished our search. There are bombs in the building!” he roars. “And they’re about to go off—we’ve got to get out of here, now!”

“What about him?” I motion at the tied-up man.

Before anyone can give me a reply, there’s a deafening sound of an explosion. The world around me goes silent for a split second, and then it’s all rushing back.

My ears are ringing, and there’s thick smoke everywhere, filling my lungs and blocking my vision. I cough, glancing around me in confusion.

“Raffaele, we need to go!” Pepe grabs me by the elbow, steering me to the door. He has a bleeding gash on the side of his head from the explosion. “His employer must have been onto him as well. They’ve rigged this place, and there might be more bombs. We need to get out of here.”

I glance over my shoulder, searching for the waiter.

Pepe confirms my worst fear. “Dead.”

Goddamnit!

Yet another fucking dead end.