Page 54 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

GIULIA

I t’s over.

It’s finally over.

For the first time in a long time, I can feel my future stretching out in front of me, full of endless possibilities. I have my father’s support, I have the man that I love by my side, our child, my long-lost sister, and there are no more strings pulling at us.

We’re free.

“Giulia, are you all right?”

I blink back into the present. Raffaele is staring at me with concern. It’s only then that his condition becomes clear to me. His face is pale, and he looks shaky.

“I should be asking you that.” I hurry over to him. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. We need to get you to the hospital. You’re bleeding and?—”

My words are cut off as he cups my face in his large hand and pulls me into a kiss. I melt into it, clinging to him like a lifeline. Even though Lucio’s dead body behind me should be all the evidence I need to feel safe, it’s Raffaele’s kiss that finally drives the point home.

“Don’t you dare die,” I whisper to him as we pull away from the kiss.

He chuckles lightly. “I’m not going anywhere. Not for a very long time. You’re going to get sick of me pretty soon, baby.”

“I could never get sick of you.”

A smile lifts his mouth. “I’m going to remind you that you said this a few weeks from now.”

“You better hope I’m not holding anything sharp when you do,” I tease.

Everything inside me feels like it’s shutting down slowly, like if I stop talking and smiling and making jokes, I’ll fall right apart. Like if I let go of Raffaele, even for a second, everything that has happened will catch up with me and knock me down.

And I’m not sure I’ll be able to get back up.

Deep down inside, I’m still reeling, trying to convince myself that I’ll wake up any moment from now and see that all of this was one bad dream that stretched into so many lifetimes. There’s a hurt, a gaping wound inside me.

And there’s also a part of me that’s considering Lucio’s last words. Will my father ever be the dad I want? I still resent him. I can’t help it. How can I not?

Even though my grandfather was crazy and almost ended this family, I have to admit that he did care about Val and raised her well.

She grew up in a real home, safe, happy, and wanted.

Unlike me, who lived like a ghost in my house, each day that I watched my father look past me like I didn’t exist breaking me a little more.

Would I have been better off with Lucio after all?

As if Raffaele can hear my thoughts, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me closer, my head pressed to his chest. “It doesn’t matter now, Giulia.”

“But maybe it does,” I whisper. “Did I really have the life that my mother would have wanted, or would she have wanted me here in Casa Bianca?”

“Don’t you see, Giulia?” He sighs. “For all the points he made, the fact is that he never came for you. And that’s all you need to know about the kind of person Lucio Sanna was. His love and care for Val was merely a fragment of his plan, a tool that he used to maintain this illusion of paradise.

“If he truly cared, he would never have lied to her and erased her identity,” he continues. “Even her relationship with Pepe was only permitted because it fit into the plans he had already outlined. Imagine what would have happened if she had fallen for someone not in his master plan.”

I think about it. “It would have ended in a situation just as bad as ours.”

He snorts. “You really think Lucio would have been as lenient as your father? He’d have gotten rid of me and held you at gunpoint until you said your ‘I do’s’ to whoever he thought was best.”

“He did so much evil, but now I understand how he got away with it,” I say. “He knew how to get into people’s heads, mess with them—a real master puppeteer.”

“I hate Enrico for a lot of what he’s done to you,” he tells me. “But I’m glad he got your mother out of here.”

I look up at him, my heart no longer feeling so heavy and burdened.

There’s a lightness there, the wounds starting to heal.

I know it won’t happen overnight, and I suspect that for the next few months, the horror of this entire mess will haunt me, but with Raffaele and Noemi and all my newfound family around me, I know I’ll be fine.

We will all be all right.

“I’m glad he got her out of here too,” I admit.

Our bubble bursts a second later at the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hall. The door flies open, and a small crowd pushes in—my sister right at the front. She freezes when she catches sight of Lucio.

I go still, wondering if it will be too much for her. To me, he was just a grandfather I barely knew. The seven weeks I’ve spent in Sardegna can never compare to the twenty-four years she spent with him. Even though she didn’t know him as her grandfather, she knew him as a guardian.

He was her whole family.

Her face screws up, and then she steps forward and spits on his dead body.

“ Bastardo del cazzo .”

Then she turns to face me, tears streaming down her face. “You did it.”

I nod slowly. Behind me, Raffaele grips my hip, offering a supportive squeeze.

“Yes. How are you feeling?”

“Like Valentina.” Her smile is small, unsure. It will take her a while to grow into her new identity. I swear to myself I’ll be here for her as she works through it. And if she eventually decides she’d rather be Caterina, I’ll support that too.

After all, she’s been Caterina far longer than she was ever Valentina.

“Lucio’s down,” Tommaso says as he walks in, speaking into a burner phone. “We need a cleanup team to take his body for processing.” He pauses and looks over at me. “What do you suggest we do with—uh—him?”

I shrug and glance at Val. “What do you think?”

Her face falls. “I think he should be buried on this land. There’s an empty grave at the back of the garden next to his wife’s. I think he’d want to be buried there. This whole thing was for her, anyway.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then I nod. “You’re right.”

A look passes between us—an understanding that, regardless of all the hurt, pain, and suffering he caused, at the end of the day, the only truth now is that he’s dead.

There’s no reason to continue letting our hate for him fester.

If there’s an afterlife where my mother and great-grandmother are waiting, he should be terrified to go there.

Pepe steps forward and wraps his arm around his wife, and she deflates in the safety of his hold, all the tension seeping from her body. The look Pepe shoots me says it all—he’s got her, and he’s going to make sure she’ll be okay.

“What about Enrico?” Raffaele asks.

“He had to be taken to the hospital,” Tommaso reports. “He lost a lot of blood, but I’m confident that he’ll pull through.”

“Your daughter is waiting outside,” Matteo informs me. “Marco decided there’s no reason to traumatize her further by exposing her to that.” He cocks his head at Lucio’s body.

Nodding gratefully, I start to hurry out of the room to get to my daughter, but then I pause. Spinning around, I step up to Raffaele, heart pounding in my chest, and take his hand.

“Come on, let’s go get our kid.”

His blue eyes search mine, and he suddenly looks nervous. “Are you sure?”

There’s no hesitation. “Yes,” I tell him. “With all that’s happened, this might not be the best time to tell her that you’re her father, but I want you to meet her. I want her to know you and love you as much as she loves me. I want you to be a part of our lives.”

I swallow. “Is that okay?”

His response is to pull me forward and cover my mouth with his. The kiss barely lasts five seconds, but it signifies and seals a promise that has been several years in the making. With my hand in his, we walk out of the room, hope blooming fresh and bright.

Noemi’s head is tucked into the crook of Marco’s neck, and he’s whispering something to her. When we get closer, I realize he’s telling her a story about a samurai. A sob rises in my throat as I listen to the familiar words.

It was the last story we were reading before she was taken from me.

It hits me that our lives took a painful pause, but we can finally get back on track. Maybe this time, Raffaele can be the one to read her stories, but that doesn’t mean I’ll completely erase Marco from her life.

Of course, he’ll have to take a back burner, but I can’t forget that he’s the most familiar and stable figure that my daughter knows outside of me, and he’s also grown to love her through the years. It would be cruel to rip them away from each other.

“I didn’t think the samurai would make it,” I say.

Both of their heads snap over to me, and a happy giggle slips out of my mouth. Noemi smiles back at me, holding out her hand. “Mama!”

“Hey, angel.” I kneel and gather her into my arms, pressing kisses all over her face and breathing in her clean scent.

She peeks over my shoulder. “He has blue eyes like me.”

I turn to see Raffaele staring at her in dumbstruck awe. I have to bite back my laugh when he starts stammering.

“Y-yeah,” he says. “I d-do, don’t I? And I used to have super curly hair like yours when I was a k-kid too.”

“Did yours get tangled too?” she asks.

He nods. “And my mom had to brush it out, and it used to give me a horrible headache.”

Gasping, Noemi turns to me, eyes wide with surprise at the shared experience. I laugh at the look in her eyes. Then she turns back to Raffaele. “I’m Noemi and I am almost four. What’s your name?”

“I’m Raffaele, and I’m a lot older than four.” He steps closer, and to my surprise, my daughter holds out her hand to him.

I nod in permission when he looks at me questioningly.

My heart feels too full, like it’s fighting to make room for everything—hope, relief, grief, love.

All twisted together until I can’t separate them anymore.

I watch Raffaele crouch down beside Noemi, his voice low and soothing as he shows her how to aim a toy slingshot that Matteo brought her.

He talks to her like she’s capable of anything, like he sees her for who she really is. He’s so patient and careful with her, speaking to her like she’s an adult, which I know she appreciates because she doesn’t like to be babied.

It makes my throat ache, seeing them like this. Seeing him like this. His eyes have softened in a way I’ve never seen before.

“Maybe he’s not so bad after all,” Marco whispers from behind me.

I roll my eyes at him, but the smile is stubborn. “Don’t start.”

He grins and nudges me with his shoulder. “You’ve been through hell together. Give yourself permission to breathe a little.”

“I’m trying,” I admit. And I am. But the weight of everything isn’t so easy to shrug off.

Valentina appears beside us with eyes rimmed red but shining. She’s been crying. She’s still crying. But her smile is the kind that reaches deep, that feels real. “So. What’s next for you?”

The question hangs between us, heavier than I expect. I look at Raffaele and Noemi—Noemi’s delighted shriek as Raffaele pretends to be struck by her tiny slingshot.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “I just think… I think I’m done running.”

Valentina’s eyes widen, then her smile splits open. “Good. Because I’m not letting you disappear again.” Her laugh turns watery, the kind that hits right in the chest. “I’ve never planned my life past Sardegna, you know. And now… I just found out I have a twin sister. I have a family.”

She swallows hard, her gaze fierce even through the tears. “You’re never getting rid of me, Giulia. Ever.”

I link my arm through hers, and my voice trembles when I say. “I’m counting on it.”

We stand there, leaning into each other, sharing the weight of this new reality. Of everything we’ve lost and gained.

“Raffaele.” Matteo’s voice cuts through the air. His expression is grim, and concern is etched into every line of his face. “You need to get to the hospital. Now. You’re still bleeding.”

Raffaele glances down, as if he hadn’t noticed. Blood seeps through the fabric at his side, spreading slowly. His lips twitch in a wry grin. “Just a scratch.”

“Like hell it is,” Matteo snaps. “You’re not dying on me, you reckless bastard. I’ll kill you myself if you do.”

Raffaele’s smile fades, replaced by something softer. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Better not,” Matteo grumbles, but his eyes are glassy. “I’ve still got things to blackmail you with.”

Raffaele’s laugh is strained but real. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Valentina’s hand squeezes mine, her gaze flitting between us all like she’s still trying to make sense of it. To hold onto something before it slips away.

I turn back to Raffaele. “You need to go. Matteo’s right.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll let him drag me to the hospital,” Raffaele concedes, but his eyes lock onto mine. “But only if you promise to be there when I get out.”

“Always,” I say. And it’s not a promise made lightly. It’s everything.

He holds my gaze for a moment longer, then lets Matteo haul him toward the waiting car. But before he disappears, he turns back, his eyes burning. “We survived this, Giulia. Whatever comes next… We’ll survive that, too.”

I nod, because words fail me. They feel too small for everything I want to say.

But I can’t look away until the car disappears from view. And even then, it feels like a piece of me has gone with him.

“Looks like it’s just us now.” Valentina’s voice is thick with emotion. “You, me, and Noemi.”

“Yeah,” I breathe out, the heaviness lifting just a fraction. “Family.”

Valentina grins and nudges me playfully. “Told you. You’re never getting rid of me. You’re stuck with me now, sorella .”

I laugh, but it cracks halfway through. And for the first time in what feels like forever, the tears aren’t born from fear or pain.

They’re from something better. Something that tastes like hope.