Page 48 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

“ M r. Gagliardi, you startled me.” The maid I run into lets out nervous laughter.

Another flash of lightning sparks outside, illuminating the house for one quick second. The maid is staring at me in confusion as I just stand there.

“Where is she? Where’s Giulia?” I ask.

“You mean Miss Sanna?” she asks.

I freeze. “I mean Giulia Montanari!” I grit out, voice harder than I intend. The bad feeling in the pit of my stomach persists, and the storm gathering in the distance isn’t helping to ease my mind. An evil is brewing in Sardegna, and the skies are screaming down their warning.

Another booming thunder crashes through the house, rattling my bones.

“I haven’t seen her,” she replies. “Have you tried her room?”

I push past the maid, pulling out my phone to call Giulia again, but the No Signal warning halts that plan. Without a second thought, I race down the hallway and up the staircase leading to her bedroom. I barge into the room and find it in perfect order.

Spinning around, I fly down the stairs to Lucio’s study on the first floor. I find it empty and in perfect order too. There’s no sign of a struggle or violence.

Where the hell is she?

Something bad has happened. I just know it. That bastard has her. I only hope he’s still sane enough not to murder his granddaughter in cold blood.

I hurry back upstairs to my bedroom. Inside the closet is a box filled with books. I pull out one of the thick journals and open it up. The pages have been hollowed out, and a burner phone is situated in the space within. I pull out the phone and turn it on.

Matteo gave me the phone the last time I was in Chicago after we discovered that someone in Lucio’s ranks was concealing Martina’s movements.

I dial the only number on the phone, and after one ring, Matteo picks up.

“I’m already way ahead of you,” he informs me, and I can hear the rapid clicking of a keyboard.

“What do you have for me?”

“I didn’t know if it would work, so I didn’t bother to tell you,” he says. “But I finally managed to hack the cameras in the house and on the surrounding grounds for a few minutes before I was discovered and kicked out of the servers—and it was just in time.”

I still. “Where’s Giulia?”

“Last seen in Lucio’s study,” Matteo says.

“That was just before I was booted out of the network. But I did manage to see Caterina being escorted out of the office, flanked by two of Lucio’s men.

There has been no activity on the grounds, so I’m guessing they’re all still somewhere on the property. ”

I rise to my feet and start pulling boxes down from the overhead shelves. Each box contains random articles of clothes, my weapons and various ammunition secretly tucked into a random suit jacket or the inside of a shoe.

I pull out two Glocks and load them up with bullets, then grab two knives, sheathing them into the holsters at my ankles.

“I’m currently narrowing down the areas where I suspect they are on the…” He trails off, clicking away. “Found them.”

My heart gives a single, powerful thud. “Where is that sick fuck keeping them?”

“There’s an underground bunker beneath the estate,” he says. “Looks like it used to be some kind of storage for keeping whiskey in the nineties. That’s beside the point anyway. You can access the underground tunnels through a false door in the staff kitchen.”

“Roger that.”

“One more thing, Raffaele,” he sighs. “Be careful, man. I don’t have eyes down there, but there are no less than twenty of Re Ombra’s men—armed, and if I’m guessing right, they’ve all been instructed to shoot you on sight.”

I cock my gun. “I’d love to see them try.”

“Giulia will never forgive you if you die in there.”

“I’m not dying until I put a hole in Lucio’s head.” It’s going to feel very satisfying to finally end that fucker. He doesn’t just deserve a gunshot to his head. What he deserves is a slow, excruciating death.

Hanging up, I pick my way through the deadly still and dark house. I spin around, gun held up, when a shadow creeps past me, but then I realize it’s just the reflection of a swaying curtain. I exhale slowly, trying to calm my nerves.

I’ve never in my life been jittery about a mission, regardless of the danger or how many enemy men are waiting for me, but everything is different now. I’m not just fighting to get back stolen drugs or guns. This is far more than encroached territories and petty gang wars.

My family is on the line.

It still feels strange to say those words. Just a few months ago, I had nothing—numbing the ache of loss with bottles of alcohol. And then, all of a sudden, I discovered Giulia was alive… and that we have a child together.

No way in fucking hell am I letting Lucio take everything from me again.

I’ve never even met Noemi, but I already know I’ll love her as much as I love her mother.

Just seeing pictures of her created an ache in my chest—a sharp, hollow feeling that something’s missing.

Something I’ve never actually had, something I’m not even familiar with.

The mansion is huge—too many rooms, too many corridors, all of them designed to confuse and control.

It’s crawling with guards. Lucio’s paranoia has them swarming the place like insects, their patrol routes drilled into their brains until even a half-drunk lackey could navigate them blindfolded.

It should make things easier, but I can’t afford to get cocky. Not now.

Matteo’s words stay sharp in my head . Underground bunker. Old whiskey storage. False door in the kitchen. Guards on rotation. I’ve got five minutes, maybe less.

I keep my back pressed to the cool plaster of the hallway, moving through the shadowed creases where the sconces’ glow is weakest. I wait, counting the seconds, letting the guard’s boots echo down the corridor before I slink forward.

One guard pauses by the entryway, his fingers drumming impatiently against the butt of his gun.

I slip around him just as he turns to glance out the window, his eyes fixed on something in the distance.

I move further down, using the darkness to my advantage. Lucio keeps only a few lights on, enough to make everything hazy.

I hear another set of footsteps echoing down the hall. Another guard walks by, shoulders slumped, the grip on his rifle loose. He must be tired. That’s good. I slip behind a tall vase in the corner, crouching low. He doesn’t see me.

His boots fade down the corridor. I press on, sticking close to the walls. The mansion feels like a maze, with corridors that stretch too far.

Up ahead, I spot two guards near the main hall, their conversation muffled but tense.

“Can’t believe we have to do another sweep,” one of them grumbles. “We just did one twenty minutes ago.”

“Boss’s orders. Someone outside thought they saw something. Now we all have to pay for it.”

I slip past them when their backs are turned, too busy complaining to notice anything. Close to the wing I’ve hardly stepped foot in, I see a study filled with leather chairs and old books. I cut through it, keeping to the walls.

The staff wing is busier, with the soft clinking of dishes and murmured conversations drifting from the kitchen.

A maid appears from a side door, her arms piled high with linens.

She nearly barrels into me, her gaze fixed on the mess of sheets.

I duck into a small alcove just as she passes, the scent of fresh laundry and lavender cutting through the mustiness of the hallway.

A muffled voice crackles over a guard’s radio nearby. I catch fragments—“West exit secure… perimeter check in five.” I move quickly before anyone decides to double back.

The layout of the house is familiar; I memorized it the moment Matteo got his hands on the blueprints, back when we first started to suspect Lucio’s dealings.

But blueprints don’t account for the bodies roaming the halls.

The staff kitchen is just ahead. I can smell food and something rich and greasy, probably left out from earlier. My heartbeat slows, steadying itself for what’s next.

The guard Matteo mentioned is slumped against the counter, eyes glued to his phone. His gun rests on the marble beside him.

I step quietly, boots touching the floor like I’m afraid to breathe. He chuckles at something on his screen, his guard completely down.

“Fucking idiot,” I mutter under my breath as I ease past him. He doesn’t even flinch.

When I round the corner toward the pantry, the sharp clink of a glass hitting the floor makes me freeze. A maid is sweeping up broken shards, her voice a low stream of curses.

My fists tighten. She’s blocking the door.

She scoops the glass into a dustpan, her back turned to me. I slide around her, muscles tensed, eyes locked on the pantry. The false door is just ahead, hidden behind a row of pantry shelves.

She hums to herself, some old tune that scratches against the air.

It’s easy for me to find the false door in the shelves when I know what I’m looking for. I push it open with straining muscles and step into the dark stairwell.

I look back briefly to see the guard’s still distracted. The maid’s still humming. I slip inside, closing the door softly behind me.

The darkness swallows everything. It’s cool and stale, like stepping into a cave. The air is filled with the scent of dust and something metallic.

Earlier, I’d hesitated, briefly contemplating whether to go back and alert Pepe about what’s happening, but there was no time. Last we spoke, he had to make sure Lucio still believes he’s out of town on business today to avoid drawing attention.

Plus, I have something else on me to aid this mission. I can only hope we succeed with the limited time we have—and the high risk of it all blowing up in our faces.

It feels like there’s an invisible hourglass floating above my head, its sand steadily running out.

A few seconds of delay could be the difference between life and death for Giulia and Noemi.