Page 58 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

“ Tesoro mio , you have to step away from the screen,” Raffaele instructs.

“Okay, Papa!” When she does, a dinner setting with our entire family is revealed.

Mrs. Amato is wagging her finger at Paolo in the background, Tommaso is secretly feeding the dog, Sienna’s husband is pacing with the twins in either arm, trying to stop their screaming, while Sienna is clicking away on her laptop; Matteo is leaning against the fridge, arms crossed over his chest and observing the room.

Mr. Amato and my father are locked in another game of chess, with Pepe standing beside them, trying to learn their moves.

I wince when I spot Val at the stove and hope Mrs. Amato will take over soon.

“Guess what?” our kid asks, pressing her whole face to the screen again.

“What?” I ask, eyes heavy with sleep.

Suddenly, she disappears from the screen, and I hear some scrambling. Finally, she reappears, holding up a strange-looking creature. Its eyes and head are too big, and it’s entirely hairless. “Marco took me with him to pick a dog from the shelter. We named it Raffie, after Papa.”

“That fucking asshole,” my husband bites out behind me, too low for Noemi to hear.

I slap a hand over my mouth to muffle my laughter while Raffaele snatches the phone to roar at Tommaso for letting Noemi bring the ugly dog home. I’m not worried, though. Noemi has her father wrapped around her finger, and he’ll end up letting Raffie stay.

Everything might have been a mess in the beginning, but I’m glad it led us to this moment.

It was all worth it in the end, and I won’t trade what I have now for anything.

Eventually, I know that everyone might go their various ways, but I know that I’ll always have them, and whenever I need them, they’ll show up for me.

That’s what family is about, and mine might just be the best.

I guess patience pays off, after all.

I fall asleep sometime around the moment my husband is promising to buy Raffie a cute bow, a smile pasted on my face.

I must have only been asleep for a few minutes when Raffaele nudges me awake with a gentle shake of my shoulder.

I blink, eyes groggy and heavy with sleep, but the first thing I see is his excited grin.

“Raff? What time is it?” I mumble.

“Late. Or early. Depends on how you look at it.” His smile widens. “Come on, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What kind of surprise?” I groan, burying my head into the pillow. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No, lazybones. Now get up before I carry you out there myself.”

I crack one eye open. “You’re disturbingly perky for someone who barely got any sleep.”

“What can I say?” He shrugs. “I’m married to the woman of my dreams. Sleep’s overrated.”

I can’t help but smile as he hauls me out of bed and helps me into a thick robe before leading me outside, his hand steady in mine.

Even though it feels like the last thing I want to do, his smile is so earnest, so full of excitement, that I can’t bring myself to argue.

I let him guide me down to the quiet stretch of beach, illuminated by the pale moon and the soft shimmer of the ocean.

The chill air nips at my skin, but the warmth of his touch is enough to chase away the chill.

“What are we doing out here?” I ask as we reach the beach. The sand feels cool beneath my feet, the gentle roar of the waves soothing.

Raffaele lifts a small glass lantern, lighting a single white candle. He passes me another, already lit. “I thought… maybe we could pay tribute to them.”

My heart squeezes. “Our moms.”

“Yeah. I know we’re building something new here, with each other, with Noemi, with everyone. But I wanted to start the right way. By asking permission.”

“Permission?” I echo, smiling through my tears.

He nods. “From your mom. For loving you. For promising to protect you. For trying my best to make you happy.”

I chortle, wiping at my tears. “She’d be mad at you for making me cry.”

“Yeah, well… I have to make sure she knows. That I’m not going to mess this up. That I’m all in.”

My chest feels tight, full of so much love, I think I might burst. “You’re incredible.”

“So are you,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Come on. Let’s do this together.”

I hold the candle carefully, the flame a small, fragile thing against the vast darkness around us. “I’d love that, Raff.”

We wade into the shallows until the water laps at our ankles. Side by side, we lower our candles into the gentle waves.

“My mom would’ve loved you,” I say. “She’d have been all over you, cooking you so much food you’d have to roll yourself home.”

He giggles, and I can’t help but marvel at how beautiful it sounds every time I hear it. “I’d have loved her, too. But she’d have to wrestle me for the cooking—I make a mean lasagna.”

I grin through my tears. “She’d have appreciated the effort. Probably made you chop onions until your eyes bled just to prove your worth.”

“Challenge accepted.” He reaches for my hand, our fingers twining together. “My mom… she would’ve loved you, too. I think she’d be so relieved to see me happy. She’d have adored Noemi.”

“And you. She’d be proud of you, Raff. For everything you’ve become.”

He lets out a shuddering breath. “I hope so. I try to be better. Because of you. Because of Noemi.”

“You are better,” I whisper. “And you’re everything I need. Everything I’ll ever need.”

“I promise to love you, Giulia. No matter what. I’ll love you when you’re angry. When you’re sad. When you think the world’s against you. I’ll love you when you’re old and gray and we’re arguing over who left the TV remote in the fridge.”

“The fridge?”

“I know you. You’ll blame me, but you’ll be the one who put it there.”

“Fine,” I chuckle, shaking my head. “But only if you promise to love me when I’m cranky and forgetful and sneaking chocolate before dinner.”

“Always.” He pulls me close, his breath warm against my ear. “And when I forget to love myself, promise me you’ll be there to remind me.”

“Always,” I echo, feeling his arms wrap around me. “And when I lose my way, you’ll be there to guide me.”

“For as long as we both breathe,” he swears.

The ocean breeze picks up then, swirling around us in a cool, gentle rush. It ruffles my hair and tugs at Raffaele’s shirt, like a whisper carried from somewhere far away. The kind of sign I didn’t dare believe in until now.

“Did you feel that?” I ask, eyes wide.

He nods, his gaze fixed on the candles bobbing on the waves, carried away by the tide. “Maybe they’re listening.”

I grip his hand tighter. “I think they are.”

We stand there for a long time, the silence between us full of all the words we’ll never get to say to them. But somehow, knowing they’ve heard us feels like enough.

Eventually, the cold seeps through my robe, and Raffaele notices, tugging me back toward the house with a quiet smile. His arm loops around my shoulders, holding me close as we walk along the cool sand, leaving the ocean’s whispers behind us.

Inside, he lights a fire, the warm glow flickering against the walls as he pulls me into his arms again. No words. Just the heat of his gaze, the gentle way his fingers trace along my collarbone, like he’s memorizing every inch of me all over again.

And when he kisses me, it’s slow, unhurried, and like he has all the time in the world to show me everything he feels. Our love-making is soft and fierce all at once, a quiet promise of forever written into every touch, every breath, every heartbeat.

Later, tangled up in him, my head on his chest, I listen to the steady thump of his heart. His fingers draw lazy patterns along my back. It is always so soothing and familiar.

“Stay with me forever,” I whisper.

“Always,” he replies, his voice holds no doubt. “You’re mine, Giulia. In this life and the next.”

Then I fall asleep in his warmth, his name stitched into my breath.

And when I wake up in the morning, it will be in the arms of the man I love—the man I plan to do this life thing with.

My husband.

My future.

My forever.

Because this love thing isn’t just about the moments we share.

It’s about the promises we keep, the way we find each other even in obscurity.

And maybe, just maybe, that cool breeze was their way of telling us they’re watching over us, approving of what we’ve built, forgiving us for what we couldn’t change.

Raffaele’s arms tighten around me in his sleep, as if he can feel my thoughts drifting. And I know, with a certainty that feels like destiny, that whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.

THE END

If you enjoyed His to Break Duet , then you’ll also like Mafia King of Lies .

Forced to marry her fiancé’s father instead, Maria becomes the forbidden obsession of a broken mafia king in this brutal age-gap, arranged marriage, secret baby romance. Read Chapter One on the next page!