Page 47 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

GIULIA

“ T hat song…” Val croaks.

A crack of thunder explodes through the room, loud enough to shake the windows.

She pulls the gun away from the back of my neck. “I know that song,” she whispers. “Why do I know that song?”

Tears flood my eyes and spill down my cheeks. They’re tears of relief, heartbreak, and pain all at once. I can’t believe it. My sister—who I thought I lost over twenty years ago—has been alive this entire time. All that grief, all that crippling loneliness, it was all for nothing.

Our monster of a grandfather ripped us apart, stole her memories, and kept her leashed like some obedient puppet. I feel sick just thinking about it, and rage rises fast, hot, and violent. How dare he ruin so many lives just to feed his twisted ego?

Did he think we’d thank him? Did he think we’d see him as some savior? Lucio deserves to rot in the deepest part of hell for all eternity.

I meet her eyes through the blur of tears. “Because it was our mother’s favorite song,” I say softly. “It’s the last good memory of the four of us before everything crashed to pieces.”

His gaze meets mine, dark and seething. “You’re no messiah, Lucio,” I spit. “You’re a fucking psychopath. You killed your own daughter. You brainwashed your granddaughter. It’s over. Just tell me where my daughter is.”

Val’s voice trembles. “Is that true?” she asks him. “Tell me she’s lying.”

Lightning flashes beyond the tall window behind him, and for a second, it casts a shadow of him over the room. I take a wary step back as the shadow briefly encompasses the room, feeling eerily like he has us surrounded.

“We need to get out of here,” I whisper, turning toward Val. Something moves in the shadows behind her. My eyes go wide. “Val?—”

A hand lashes out from the dark. Pain explodes at the top of my skull. The last thing I see is Val lunging for me—arms outstretched—and then the world drops into darkness.

I come to with a gasp, shooting upright. I decide that the move was a mistake when my head starts spinning and pounding a second later. I cup my head in my hands with a groan, waiting for the urge to throw up to pass.

Eventually, I blink my eyes open, momentarily confused.

And then the memories come crashing back.

I rise to my feet shakily, grasping at the walls to keep myself upright.

The slight movement already causes sweat to bead on my brow, my stomach churning with nausea.

What did that bastard do to me while I was unconscious?

And most importantly, where the fuck am I?

My eyes fly around the room, trying to make sense of where I am. I cock my head, hoping to hear something that will give me a hint. But there’s nothing. This place is like a vacuum, with strange, uneven walls and?—

My thoughts come to a screeching halt.

Uneven walls…

I press my palms against the walls, testing my grip. Maybe this could work. I turn around slowly, eyeing the rest of the room. There’s barely anything in here, just the twin bed in the corner with the thin mattress and a battered-looking couch.

The only sources of light in the room are a naked bulb swinging overhead and a tiny window high up in the room. Above the heavy-looking metal door in the room is an air vent that’s not doing anything to keep the room cool. The air is stiff and stale, and my clothes are damp with sweat.

I move over to the door and press my ear to it.

That’s when I hear it.

Footsteps.

Gasping, I spin away from the door, frantically searching for some sort of weapon, anything at all to defend myself.

I leap forward to grab the leg of the bed, yanking at it to try and break it off.

I don’t know what is about to walk through those doors, but whatever it is, I have to be prepared for it.

I hear the doorknob start to turn, and I freeze, heart pounding against my rib cage.

I watch in frozen horror as the door pushes inward and a figure appears. I blink in confusion as the woman stares at me with a nervous smile. It’s only when I hear a sniffle that my gaze shifts downward—and I finally register the much smaller figure at her side.

“Noemi!” I cry, leaping to my feet.

The woman winces as my daughter bursts into a furious, ear-splitting wail. But nothing else matters in that moment—except the fact that I’m finally seeing my daughter after what’s felt like half a lifetime of searching for her.

Tears roll down my face, and I spread my arms. “Come here, baby girl.”

She barrels forward on slightly pudgy legs until she’s falling into my arms, clinging to me desperately and sobbing into the crook of my neck. I wrap my arms around her small body, breathing her in.

Oh god. My baby. She’s fine and she’s safe and that’s all that matters.

“Mama,” she whimpers.

I pull her away briefly to assess her. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—bruises, maybe, or some sign that Lucio has messed with her head. When I heard what he did to Val, I was terrified that my baby might have been subjected to the same horrors.

I’m relieved when I don’t find any signs of abuse and trauma. She looks clean and well fed, and someone’s even been brushing her hair regularly and making her wear her lip balm. My daughter is in a neat, light pink dress with matching shoes, and her hair is done up in two cute pigtails.

The outfit is so unlike her, but then again, I guess that’s a part of Lucio’s plan to erase her identity.

I wipe my tears with the back of my palms. “I’m here, baby. Mommy’s here.”

“I missed you,” she says as her wails finally quiet down. “Pops said you were going to come a long time ago, and then you never came.”

And because I can’t exactly explain to her that her pops is a manipulative, self-important son of a bitch, I paste on a smile. “I’m sorry, baby. I wanted to come for you. I never planned for us to be apart for so long. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

She searches my eyes with a look of seriousness that has no place on her too-young face. “Promise?”

I nod. “I promise, baby.”

“You must be Giulia Sanna,” the older woman says with a careful smile. I note that she’s not moved an inch from her position at the door. She must have been warned to stand right there.

If I can lure her in, I can take her out and get out of here. I’m so distracted by my escape plans that it takes a moment for her words to register.

“Over my fucking dead body,” I snarl at her.

Noemi gasps. “You said a bad word, Mama.”

“I’m sorry about that, sweetie.”

“You have to put a dollar in the bad word jar,” she chides.

I smile at her, but half of my attention is on the woman by the door. I’m not giving her even a second of opportunity to take my daughter away from me again. I’d love to see her try, though.

A lack of weapon has never stopped me in the past, and it won’t stop me now, not with my daughter’s safety in the balance.

The woman looks taken aback. She blinks at me. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s what I was told. Aren’t you Re Ombra’s granddaughter?”

I scoff. “Did he tell you that too? My best advice is to stop listening to whatever bullshit he’s feeding you. Re Ombra is not my family. He’s nothing to me.”

He stopped being anything the moment I found out he had Noemi this whole time. All the heartache, all the pain her absence caused—he watched me spiral, watched me go crazy searching for her—and yet he was content to go ahead with his half-baked, nonsense plan.

As far as I’m concerned, such a person doesn’t deserve to be called family.

The woman’s eyes widen. “I-I have been looking after Noemi. You raised a good child. She’s so well-behaved and adjusted, but she’s been so miserable without you.”

I don’t know if she’d have turned out half as well without the help from the Amatos and Marco.

If—no, when —I get out of this alive, I’m going to do babysitting duty for Sienna for a whole month.

She warned me about this place, and I refused to listen, too busy blindly trusting a man who’s carefully been away from my life since the day I was born.

“Do you expect me to say thank you? Because if you’re waiting for it, you’ll be waiting a long time,” I bite out.

Her gaze moves from Noemi to me and back to my kid. My arms tighten around her, and I brace myself for a fight. After a strained moment of silence, the maid steps back and shuts the heavy metal door again. What follows is the unmistakable sound of the bolt turning.

“I didn’t know I had a pops,” Noemi says. “All my friends had one. I did have Mr. Amato, but he’s not my real pops.”

At this point, he’s been far more family to me than Lucio. I don’t want to think about him right now, though; I need to get out of here with my daughter. I have no idea what his next move is, but I know I’m not sticking around to find out.

Noemi speaks up again before I can say anything. “Pops said we’ll be a true family again soon.”

My breath stutters in my chest. How the hell am I going to explain to my kid that her so-called pops is evil personified, and he’s never going to be a part of this family—of the real, amazing family that I wasn’t even aware I’d formed up until this very moment?

“Sweetie, there’s something you need to know,” I tell her softly. “But first, you have to promise me that you’ll do whatever I say from now on.”

She blinks her big, blue eyes that are so like Raffaele’s, I almost start crying all over again. He warned me to get out of the house, but I couldn’t just give up halfway. I hope he’s safe and has realized that something’s very wrong by now.

I have no doubt that Lucio will do far worse to him if he manages to catch him. I swallow around the tight ball lodged in my throat as my mind conjures scenes of my grandfather’s men running Raffaele’s car off the road.

No, no, no. I shake my head quickly to dispel the thoughts.

He’s safe. He has to be. I can’t let myself spiral into the dark corners of my mind.

Noemi needs me. It’s up to me to get us out of here.

But how?

I turn my head, stare hard at the wall—and slowly, a plan begins to take shape.