Page 53 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

I was beginning to think my men had gotten lost on their way to Sardegna. A second more, and I’d probably be dead. I leap to my feet as several gunshots rend the air.

“Giulia!” I roar, turning this way and that in my desperation to find her through the cloud of smoke filling the room.

“Argh,” a man groans, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground.

The beat of my heart is an odd staccato, and my hands are clammy with panic and fear. After what feels like forever—but I know it’s just a few seconds—the smoke begins to clear, and I spot a familiar figure standing frozen in the middle of it all.

As I begin to cross the room to where she’s standing, I spot one of Lucio’s men rushing toward her, a dagger in his hand.

A ferocious roar rumbles from my chest, and I dash forward.

I swing my still-handcuffed hands, cracking my fists and the metal cuffs down on the side of the man’s head.

Blood explodes, and he staggers back before dropping down.

“Giulia, are you okay?” I ask, grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her a little to pull her out of whatever daze she’s stuck in.

I can’t believe that her own grandfather was going to make her choose between the people she loves. I know for a fact that that choice is ripping at her now, but it would have been far worse if she had actually played Lucio’s game and watched someone die by her verdict.

Death isn’t nearly enough for that bastard.

“I’m f-fine,” she stammers. “Or at least, I think I’ll be fine. What about Val and my father?”

I run my gaze over every inch of her carefully, searching for injuries. I’m relieved when I don’t find any. She’s merely shaken up a bit. And while I know that mental wounds can be far worse in the long run than physical ones, we can work through them later.

“Your father is?—”

“Boss,” Tommaso cuts in, appearing at our side, a handgun in his hand and a larger rifle slung over his shoulder. He’s fully kitted out in combat pants and a bulletproof vest. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Where’s Noemi?” Giulia’s voice is thin, terrified.

Tommaso turns to her. “The girl is with Marco and another of our men. When Lucio ordered his men to take Noemi out, we’d already infiltrated and gotten her far from the blast. She’s safe. Pepe is also here, and he has your sister. They’re both with your father. We have everything under control.”

Giulia and I exchange a glance. There’s one major person who hasn’t been accounted for. I’m just about to ask about him when Matteo rushes forward, a thin line of blood rolling down his cheek.

He grimaces. “Lucio’s gotten away.”

Giulia steps forward. “Give me your gun. I’m going to go find him.”

He hesitates. “He could be anywhere in these tunnels, and he knows this place better than all of us. It’s not safe to?—”

“Give her your gun,” I cut in. “And for Christ’s sake, can someone take these cuffs off me?”

“Yes, boss.” Tommaso tucks his gun back into the holster at his hip and pulls out a thin pin from his breast pocket.

I glance over at Matteo. “And your bulletproof vest.”

“It’ll slow me down,” she argues. “I’m not used to it, and I’ve never needed it.”

“Sounds like a good time to start needing it,” I bite out.

She stiffens, looking affronted. “I don’t need a fucking bulletproof vest to take out Lucio. I’m going to strangle him with my bare hands and watch the light slowly leave his eyes. It’s the least he deserves for everything he’s done.”

There’s no time to argue with Giulia. The more time we waste, the farther Lucio could get.

I do not doubt that if he manages to get out of the underground bunker and Casa Bianca, we’ve lost him.

Out there in the streets of Sardegna, he’s a god, not to mention the endless resources he can access to disappear until he’s recovered an army to come back for his vengeance.

I want this to end today. Right here and right now. I want Giulia and Noemi, and every single one of us, in fact, to finally live a life removed from this nightmare. No more looking over our shoulders, waiting for the other shoe to fall. No more confusion over why evil keeps finding us.

I roll my wrists to get blood moving in them again, and Tommaso silently hands me his gun. Glancing over at Giulia, I nod. “Fine, let’s go.”

Together, we rush out of the room with a single mission in mind: Hunt down Lucio Sanna and end his reign of terror.

Perfectly in sync, we creep down the first hallway, pushing doors open, guns held at the ready. There’s no sign of Lucio, so we hurry out of there and take the third hallway.

Giulia meets my eyes and shakes my head after we’ve gotten to the last room in the narrow passageway.

“Do you think?—”

“Let’s check the other one,” I cut in, before she can let her doubts take root. I don’t even want to imagine a possibility where Lucio’s gotten away. We both know that if her grandfather gets a second chance at us, he’s not going to hesitate.

There won’t be any games. He’ll kill us all and take Noemi away.

Nodding, we hurry down the final hallway. As I push open one of the doors, a gunshot echoes, and searing pain rips through my chest. I stagger back, pressing my free hand over the gunshot wound, while the hand holding my gun stays aimed at Lucio.

His gun is trained on Giulia, his small, black-beaded eyes shifting between us, reminding me of a cornered rat.

“You fool,” he spits at Giulia. “You’ve come to kill me? After everything I’ve done for this family?”

“What have you done for this family?” she asks him icily. “Everything you’ve done, you’ve done for yourself. Because you cannot bear the thought that anyone wouldn’t want to be a part of your life.”

He snarls at her. “The woman I loved was gunned down like an animal on the street, while I watched helplessly, my one-year-old daughter in my arms. Sardegna was a warzone, much like what you’ve all turned Chicago into.”

I look over at Giulia and see that she’s staring at him with a curious expression.

“I was a simple man,” he continues. “A simple man with a simple life, who just wanted to be with his family and protect them. I failed her, and I swore never to fail my family again. I turned Sardegna from a den of thieves and rogues into paradise.”

He spreads out his other hand, gesticulating. “Here, we could have all led the most beautiful, wonderful life. Free from pain, the uncertainties of the world, the cruelty. I gave Eleanora everything she ever wanted here.”

A small smile curves his lips, eyes far away, lost in memory. “The day Enrico stepped onto this island is the day everything came crumbling to dust. He ruined everything.”

“That’s not true!” Giulia cries.

“It’s the truth,” he says coldly. “My daughter made the biggest mistake of her life by allowing that man to put his hands on her, to convince her that there was life outside the island, full of possibilities. She gave him her life and entrusted you in his hands, and all for what?”

There’s a pause before he continues. “Can you really say that you grew up loved, taken care of, happy?”

Giulia flinches, and he takes note of it immediately.

“Voila!” He laughs darkly. “He took everything from me, and didn’t even bother to care for it.

Do you think that a man who ignored you and made you feel unwanted for years would have been the best husband to my Eleanora?

Face it, child, it was for the best that she died rather than face the reality of the horrible decision she made. ”

I feel sick at his reasoning. He has managed to justify killing off his own daughter by telling himself that he saved her from a lifetime of unhappiness from her own choices.

Giulia steps forward. “What about you?”

His eyes narrow. “What about me?”

“You talk a lot about everybody else’s role in ruining everything, but what about yours?

” she asks. “The thing that makes us human is our ability to choose. I know that somewhere in that twisted head of yours, you think everything you’ve done was to save the people you cared about.

But if you hadn’t been so obsessed with controlling everything—so obsessed with everything following your master plan—you’d have realized that Mama loved Papa. ”

“She—”

“And he loved her too,” she cuts him off firmly.

“He wasn’t the best father after Mama died, but if you really think he didn’t care about me, why didn’t you come out of the shadows and ask him to hand me over?

A man who didn’t care wouldn’t have hesitated—so why didn’t you?

You say he treated me like I was invisible, but you were right there too, watching from your paradise and unaffected by my pain. ”

She scoffs. “You don’t care about me, you don’t care about Val, and you sure as hell don’t care about Noemi. All of this has just been your hatred for my father coming into play.”

I’m beginning to feel faint from the blood loss, but I know that things are about to come to a boil, and I have to stay alert. My finger hovers a hairsbreadth from the trigger, ready.

“Come to think of it, the two of you are so similar,” Giulia points out.

“You became obsessed with your daughter after your wife died, while he just shut down. You both owe me millions of dollars in therapy—but the difference between the two of you is that Papa doesn’t think he’s some kind of hero. ”

Her hand holding the gun aimed at the old man goes perfectly still. “The most terrifying part about you, Lucio, is that you don’t know you’re a monster.”

Three gunshots fire at once. Giulia’s shot knocks the gun out of Lucio’s hand, causing his own to go wide and hit the wall, just an inch from my head. My bullet lands dead center in his chest, and he crashes to his knees, eyes wide with shock.

“Enrico w-will… never…. be the f-father you want,” he croaks.

Giulia walks forward, stopping right in front of him, gun held to the middle of his forehead. “Well, he hasn’t driven me off a bridge yet.”

His eyes widen, pain and horror and something that looks like guilt shining in them.

But it’s too late. Giulia’s hand jerks back as she fires, and Lucio’s head explodes in a sea of blood, brain matter, and bone.

He remains kneeling upright for a second before his body falls backward and crashes to the ground.

The room is plunged into silence, and my vision starts to blur from the blood loss. I stagger a little, then grab the wall for support. The moment is far too heavy, and Giulia is awfully still.

My gaze shifts over to Lucio’s fallen body. It’s hard to believe that he’s the man who’s tormented us for years, the man who’s ruined our lives for far too long.

“He’s dead,” she finally says, turning to face me, face pale and expression a blank mask. “It’s over now.”

“Yes, it’s over,” I echo the words, assuring her that this isn’t a figment of her imagination. “We’re free now.”