Page 52 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

GIULIA

“ L ucio, let them go. It’s me you want,” my father spits out. “We both know that all of this is just because you think I took Eleanora from you.”

“I don’t think, I know,” he drawls. “You took her from me! She was happy here, content, had so much life left to live, and you ripped her from her home.”

He turns to one of his guards and motions at Noemi. “Take the child.”

“No!” I scream, but the gun pointed in my direction stops me from making any move.

“Mama!” Noemi cries as she’s torn from my arms and handed over to Lucio.

To my surprise and horror, his eyes soften as she’s brought to him, and he gently brushes a lock of hair away from her face. “Don’t worry, child. Your mother will be just fine. The grown-ups want to talk, that’s all. Just go ahead with Johnny quietly. Okay?”

“Do as he says, darling.” I fix a smile on my face, nodding encouragingly at her when she stares at me with those big, blue eyes.

“But I want to stay with you.” She sticks out her bottom lip in a pout, and I nearly burst into tears.

My daughter has been through so much. I only hope that everything that’s happened so far won’t traumatize her.

I don’t want her to bear the invisible scars for the rest of her life, like the ones that plagued me for years after I watched my mother plunge to her death.

I tell myself she’ll be fine, because I refuse to accept any other outcome.

“I’ll just be a moment,” I tell her, pleading with my eyes for her to do as I say. It’s clear that my grandfather adores her, if that soft look in his eyes is any indication, but it’s almost impossible to predict him and the sick lengths he can go to.

“Okay.” She finally nods, allowing the man to carry her away.

I swear to myself that if Johnny touches a single hair on my daughter’s head, he’ll live a long, excruciating life. Even if I die here today, I’ll claw and crawl my way out of the grave to make sure his life becomes a living hell.

As soon as she’s gone, Lucio’s eyes lose their softness, looking almost pitch black and utterly devoid of life. A smirk lifts his mouth.

“It’s a beautiful moment, isn’t it?” he begins, eyes meeting and holding on each of us one by one. “It’s too bad that my Eleanora will never get to experience it. And all because of one man.”

“You’re the one that killed her, you psycho!” Val snaps. “Quit playing the victim card.”

“Shut up!” he snaps. “You know nothing.”

“What do you want?” Raffaele asks. “What now? You finally have all of us where you want us, so now the question is what’s next?”

He laughs. “Smart and straight to the point—I like you. Perhaps you’re not such a bad choice for my granddaughter, after all.”

Bile climbs up my throat at the gleam in his eyes. Even now, he’s still plotting, trying to pull strings. Christ, what kind of monster is he? I can’t believe I’m related to him.

“The thing is, I’m owed a great debt,” he tsks. “And I’ve never been the type to forgive a debt. No true businessman does that—and despite all of this, I am, at heart, a simple businessman.”

I stare at him with revulsion written clearly on my face.

“I lost a daughter twenty-three years ago.” Lucio’s face crumbles, a look of genuine sadness on his face. How can someone so evil still have the ability to feel normal human emotions? “And it’s all because of one man.”

My father snorts. “You need a mirror if you’re looking for the cause of your misfortune, you bastard!”

Lucio turns to my father, cocking his head with a dark gleam in his eyes. Before anyone can process what’s happening, a gunshot echoes through the room, and my father lets out an ear-splitting scream.

“You bastard!” my father howls, staring at his bleeding knee in horror.

“Papa!” I cry, taking a step toward him, but one of Lucio’s guards steps in front of me, blocking my way.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Raffaele jumps to his feet, but my grandfather calmly points a gun at him.

“Sit down,” he orders him. “Or let me make myself clearer.” He moves the gun over to me and smiles at Raffaele. “Is this more of an incentive for you, Gagliardi?”

Raffaele glances from the gun to my terrified face, and finally drops back into the chair, shoulders tight with tension.

Lucio cocks his gun, ignoring my father’s cries of pain. He faces me. “As I was saying?—”

“When all of this is over, I’m going to look you in the eye and watch as you writhe in as much pain as you’ve caused everyone,” I spit furiously.

“I’ll never forgive you, and if you think for one second that what you’re doing right now will earn you some sort of redemption from the deepest part of hell that you deserve, you’d better think again. ”

“Redemption?” he echoes, his face screwing up like he’s tasted something foul. “You’re mistaken, Giulia. The only person here who needs to be redeemed is Enrico. Don’t you see that he’s the cause of everything? If he never touched my precious Eleanora, none of this would have happened!”

There’s something erratic about him now, his eyes bulging wide. He’s waving his hands around, and I’m very aware of the gun in his grasp. It can go off at any time.

I take a wary step back, eyeing the gun.

“My precious daughter would have been married to a responsible man. She’d have lived here with me in Casa Bianca, safe in Sardegna.

None of the cruelty of the world would have touched her.

I’d have kept her safe, protected, and happy.

” His eyes meet mine. “Isn’t that more than your wastrel of a father ever did for you?

He treated you like you didn’t exist for years. ”

He shakes his head sadly, his voice now low. “You’d have been so much better off with Caterina and me.”

My fingers curl into fists at my sides, and to my astonishment, my sister speaks again. “My name is Valentina, not Caterina. I won’t let you continue to erase my identity as part of your crazy plot to control everything and everybody.”

“Everything I did, I did for you!” Lucio spits. “How can’t you see that? Ungrateful brat.”

“Go fuck yourself!” she snarls.

His eyes widen, and he stumbles back. A fleet of emotions crosses his face—shock, disappointment, and then disgust. I can’t help but compare him to an artist whose art didn’t turn out to be the perfect piece he envisioned.

Pride at my sister’s defiance moves through me.

Right from the start, there has always been a quiet strength to her, and now I can see it manifesting.

I’m glad she’s not been squashed under the shock of everything she’s discovered.

There will be time in the future for her to dissect everything and freak out… that is, if we make it out of this.

Lucio turns away from her, looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “Let’s end this once and for all. We’re going to play a game of choose.”

“What the fuck is that?” Raffaele asks.

“It’s where Giulia here decides what’s most important to her—the family she chose or the family fate gave her,” he says, entertained by his own cleverness. “If you choose Raffaele, I’ll shoot your father and sister. If you choose them, I’ll shoot your lover.”

My heart sinks into my stomach as I stare at him with dawning horror.

“Are you crazy?” Val cries.

“You sick bastard!” Raffaele growls.

“Forget it,” I tell Lucio firmly. “I’m not choosing between anybody. I’m not leaving here without everybody. You can’t make me choose. I refuse to play your crazy games. Let us go, Lucio.”

His mouth presses into a thin line. “I don’t think you understand the severity of what’s happening here. I’m not offering you a choice. I’m telling you what you’re going to do. You’re going to choose, child.”

“Fuck you.”

He hums. “I believe you’re in need of an incentive.” He raises his gun again, straight at my father.

“No! Stop!”

The sound of two gunshots fired in rapid succession drowns out my scream. My stomach squeezes into a ball, and my lungs don’t seem to be able to draw in enough air as I watch my father jerk back in his chair.

His other knee turns into a bloody stream while the chest area of his shirt starts to darken rapidly. The tremble starts from the tips of my toes and moves upward until all of me is shaking.

“Oh god. Oh god!” Val stares at me wide-eyed, like I have a solution to all of this, but I’m just as terrified and confused as her. Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I blink them back. This is no time to cry.

“Are you going to play my sick game now, or do I need to decide who I’ll shoot next?” He flicks invisible lint off his suit jacket.

I glance from Raffaele to my father and sister. What now?

Raffaele shoots me a small smile. “You know exactly what you need to do, baby.”

“No way.” I shake my head thoroughly.

“It’s common logic.” He shrugs. “It’s never a good financial decision to risk a bigger sum over a smaller profit. It usually goes the other way around.”

“You’re not a financial decision!” I roar at him, the dam bursting loose, tears rolling down my cheeks.

“You’re the man I’ve loved for nearly my whole life.

You’re the father of my daughter and the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, so don’t talk about yourself like you’re expendable! You’re not. Not to me.”

“Giulia, Giulia, look at me,” he urges softly.

I turn and meet his eyes, and the soft look of adoration in them nearly bowls me over.

“No. I won’t do it. I won’t.”

“We’ve had some time together?—”

“Not enough,” I argue.

“You lost Val as a child, and now fate has brought her back to you,” he tells me fiercely. “I would never be able to forgive myself if you didn’t get to know your sister because of me. I love you, Giulia.”

I shake my head, sobbing. “Don’t make me do this. I’ll figure something out. Noemi needs her father.”

He scoffs. “We both know you’re already doing a tremendous job with her. You don’t need me.”

“Yes, I do!” I scream. “I’m sick and tired of losing you every time I get the slightest chance to have you.”

Am I cursed to never have love and family in the same lifetime?

I turn to Val and my father. He’s pale with blood loss, and my twin is clinging to him and sobbing. Her eyes meet mine, and there’s an acceptance in them.

“I’ve lived a good enough life with the man I love,” she tells me slowly. “You deserve the same, Giulia. Noemi deserves a father. You know what to do.”

“Giulia, no!” Raffaele barks. “Don’t you dare! There’s no guarantee that I won’t be a shitty father. Lucio, you bastard, just shoot me and end this.”

“No!” my father pipes up weakly. “It’s me you want, Lucio. I took Eleanora from you. Kill me and get the revenge you’ve always wanted.”

“I wish I could,” Lucio laughs. “But rules are rules. Giulia has to be the one to choose. What do you say, child? Who do you choose?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, tears running down my face in rivulets. I know exactly what I have to choose.

“I choose?—”

A loud boom echoes through the room, followed by the crack of a single gunshot—and then the world is thrown into chaos.

“I choose you fucking die …”