Page 55 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

RAFFAELE

T wo months later

“Mama looks so pretty today,” Noemi whispers loudly to me.

“She always looks pretty.” I grin down at her. “And so do you.”

She spins away from me and stands in front of the mirror, making a face. “Yellow sucks.”

“What happened to the lilac dress?” I ask her, stepping forward to straighten the bow in her hair.

Her blue eyes meet mine in the mirror, and she suddenly looks almost sheepish. “Well,” she drawls.

Laughing, I pick her up into my arms and carry her to the armchair in the corner. I drop into the seat with her in my lap. “Well, what?”

Red climbs up her cheeks, and she lowers her lashes. Overwhelming love for her pours through me, and I can’t help but smile down at her.

“I may or may not have slept in the dress because I was too excited, and then it got creased and stained with maple syrup. Mama was so mad she started to cry, and Aunt Val had to help me take a shower and get dressed.”

“You shouldn’t be making your mama mad,” I chide softly.

Giulia has been stressed out all week, and I’ve barely had a chance to see her, even though we live together now. I’ve been busy trying to set everything right with the family business and make it clear that the feud between the Montanaris and the Gagliardis is over.

My father hasn’t exactly been helping to speed the peace along, but at least he’s no longer interfering. Come to think of it, he’s been quiet lately. I’m not bothered, though. As soon as I returned to Chicago with Noemi and Giulia, I went to talk to him about my plan to finally end the family feud.

I told him that I’m marrying Giulia, and reminded him that he has a granddaughter now. He was silent for most of the conversation, but just before I left, he finally spoke up.

“I’m glad Re Ombra is dead,” he had said.

“You wanted to form an alliance with him through my marriage to Isa,” I pointed out.

He didn’t look surprised by the fact that I knew about his hidden agenda for pushing the marriage to Isabella, and I was relieved that he didn’t try to act surprised and make me look like a fool. He had merely nodded.

“I’m still glad he’s dead.”

And that had been the end of that conversation. He hasn’t tried to reach out, and despite Giulia constantly trying to bring up making peace with him, I’ve also pretty much ignored him.

If there’s one thing I know about my father, it’s that he’s a proud man. He’s worked his whole life to turn me into a cold, efficient machine that he’d be proud of. He’s always seen me as weak, but I had spotted a reluctant respect in his eyes in our last conversation.

He’s finally seeing me as the son he’s always wanted, but now, he’s also realizing that he’s not the father I want, and he’s going to have to re-evaluate a lot of choices he’s made if he wants to keep our relationship alive.

My father is the last person I want to think of right now, though.

“I know, Papa,” she sighs.

I can’t even be mad at her anymore. It took over a week before Giulia finally had the talk with Noemi, telling her that I’m her father. We’d discussed it beforehand, bracing ourselves for shock—or at least some confusion—on our daughter’s part.

But we were the ones who ended up shocked when she took it so well. Two days later, she called me “Papa” for the first time. It felt like that single word rearranged my entire world. Nothing has been the same since.

It’s still hard to believe that I’m a father to this beautiful, amazing girl. Giulia did a good job raising her. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her, but she pulled through somehow.

I can’t wait to make things official today. She’ll be my wife by the end of the day. Giulia Gagliardi. It does have a nice ring to it.

“What are you thinking about?” Noemi’s voice cuts through my daze.

I blink back to the present and find her watching me with open curiosity, her mouth pursed.

At first glance, it’s easy to say she’s a spitting image of me, with her curly dark hair and big blue eyes, but on closer inspection, her hair isn’t entirely black.

It’s a very dark shade of brown, and her facial bone structure is all Giulia.

The jaw that ends in a stubborn point, the top lip that’s a little bit fuller, and the shape of her nose. She’s a perfect combination of the both of us, and I love her so much.

“I’m thinking that?—”

The door flies open, and the damn fisherman walks in. He’s not in his usual baggy jeans and Henleys for once. The suit he has on is surprisingly well-fitted, but he looks ill at ease in it, a barely visible grimace on his face.

“Uncle Marco!” Noemi cries, scrambling out of my lap to hug the other man.

My jaw snaps together in annoyance as I watch him ruffle her hair, making a mess of the ponytail I managed to put her hair up into. What the fuck is he doing here anyway?

I rise to my full height, staring him down with my hands stuck in my pockets.

“Hey, angel.” He goes down to his haunches, smiling at her and taking care to ignore my presence altogether. My fingers curl into fists inside my pockets.

Giulia has already warned me not to put her or Noemi in a difficult position between Marco and me, which means the two of us have to play nice—even though it’s clear we’re both itching to break each other’s jaw.

Finally, he reluctantly drags his gaze over to me. “Raffaele.”

“Marty.” I nod, choosing to be an asshole.

A mocking smile curves his mouth as he glances back at my daughter. “Uncle Marco is here to save the day. Ta-da.” He holds out a box with a lilac bow around it.

Noemi screams in excitement, hopping in place happily. “What is it, Uncle Marco? Is it a tiara? Is it a teddy bear? Is it a dog?”

“You already have a dog,” I grumble. My big, ferocious dog, which I got back from Alessia, has been turned into a little teddy bear by my kid. The worst part is that the dog now completely ignores me, preferring to follow Noemi around the house like a bodyguard.

She pouts at me. “He needs a friend.”

I sigh.

To my surprise, Marco shoots me a sympathetic look. “It’s not a dog. It’s something else. Go ahead and open it.”

Noemi dives forward, ripping the bow away and pushing the top of the box open. An ear-splitting squeal rips out of her throat as she spots what’s inside the box. I step forward and peek in curiously.

She yanks the piece of fabric out and begins to twirl around. “Papa, look! Uncle Marco’s bought me a dress, and it’s my favorite color.”

I watch as she rushes over to the full-length mirror, holding the lilac dress against her body excitedly. I narrow my eyes at Marco, who looks smug—especially when my daughter flies toward him, giggling, and wraps her arms around him in a hug.

“I’m going to go show Aunt Si,” Noemi announces before racing out of the room, her happy squeals trailing behind her.

“How much is the dress? I’ll write you a check,” I tell Marco.

“Keep your money,” he tells me. “It’s the least I can do for her. I wasn’t going to stand by and let her wear yellow to her parents’ wedding.”

“Still, I’d like to refund you for the dress. It’s no longer your responsibility to take care of her, anyway.” By that, I mean that he’s been replaced, and he should get lost.

He crosses his arms over his chest and leans up against the door frame.

“If you’re going to write me a check for the dress, you should also go ahead and add the cost of all the dresses I’ve bought for her in the past. Plus the food, the electricity, the heater, the ice cream, her juice boxes, and probably all the time I spent taking her to the clinic and reading her bedtime stories. ”

“You’re an asshole.”

He shrugs. “You’re going to be seeing a whole lot of me, pal. Get used to it.”

“I can make you disappear, Marty.”

“It’s Marco, you asshole.” He doesn’t seem bothered by my threat. “I’d hate to be you when you make me disappear, and then have to spend the rest of your life wracked with guilt.”

“You think I’d feel the faintest guilt about getting rid of you?” I snort. “You give yourself too much credit.”

“If you wanted to get rid of me, I’d be gone already.” He grins, straightening from the doorway and stepping forward until we’re almost chest to chest. “But then again, maybe you’re too much of a coward to make that move and get the thorn out of your side.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I tell him.

Have I thought about ordering Tommaso to file his car tires and cut his brakes? Yes. Will I do it? No. And it doesn’t have anything to do with cowardice or guilt.

Giulia has already lost so much, but no matter how much I dislike Marco, I know that she sees him as a friend.

He helped to raise my daughter, too, and they have a bond I could never replace.

I don’t want to ever see Giulia cry again, nor do I want to have to tell my kid that she’ll never see her uncle again.

I’m just going to have to get used to seeing the bastard often.

“Are you two about to start throwing punches?” Matteo’s bored voice drifts from the doorway. “Because you have twenty minutes to get to the altar, and I don’t know if it’s enough time to get the fight over and done with.”

Pepe steps past Matteo into the room. “Not to mention that I don’t think my sister-in-law wants her groom to show up with a dislocated jaw.”

“He’d never be able to land a hit,” I reply confidently.

Marco snorts. “There’s only one way to test that theory.”

“Eighteen minutes.” Matteo glances down at his Rolex. “Are we doing this or not? Because if I don’t get out of this fucking bowtie soon, someone’s jaw is going to need to be wired shut.”

“He’s not kidding,” Pepe pipes up.

I step away from Marco, glaring at my cousin and my so-called best friend. “Since when did you two start finishing each other’s sentences? It’s starting to feel like I’m being ganged up on.”

I walk up to the mirror and straighten my own tie, checking myself over to make sure there’s nothing out of place. I let out a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

“Fucking finally,” Matteo mutters, walking off, Pepe trailing after him.

As I begin to turn away from the mirror, I catch a glimpse of pain in Marco’s eyes that gives me pause. For all our differences, the fact remains that we both love Giulia and Noemi, and I’m the one she chose. For years, he thought he had a chance, only for me to swoop back in and ruin everything.

Our eyes meet in the mirror for a split second before he turns away.

There’s no reason to continue to hate Marco. I’m the one who gets the girl at the end of the day, while he’s left hovering on the periphery.

“Good luck,” his voice calls out as I make my way out of the room.

I nod. “Good luck to you, too.”

And without a backward glance, I continue on my way to finally make Giulia mine.