Page 8 of Broken Mafia Bride (His to Break #2)

“Is this God’s punishment?” the man bites out bitterly.

“Is he punishing me for my past? For not acting fast enough? I don’t care what he does to me, I don’t care if he makes me go the rest of my life bleeding out from a wound only I can see.

I’ll bear it all if it means she’ll be—” His voice cracks.

I press a shaky palm to the wooden wall between us.

“I love her. I love her more than life itself, and I miss her a little more every day. Existing is unbearable without her,” he croaks.

“How can I, in full consciousness, move on when I know that I have nothing to give someone else? Not my heart, not my affection, not even the wrecked pieces of what’s left of my soul.

But this war has to end, and this is the only way. ”

I want to childishly cover my ears so that I won’t hear any more of this, and at the same time, I want to know more. I want to understand this man who drips with both the blood of his victims and his own.

“If there is no body…” He trails off, a breath sawing out of him. “If there’s no body, no proof that she’s dead, then maybe, just maybe…” He goes quiet after that.

I only realize I’m crying when it drops down my face onto the back of my hand. I glance down at the wet spot on my skin, feeling wrecked even though I know nothing about this woman he’s lost. What would it feel like to be loved in that way?

Tears continue to streak down my face long after the man is gone, taking with him the smell of his cologne and all the warmth from the chapel.

Eventually, I wipe my face and leave the building. After checking that those men have left the area, I continue on my way to the bar. I make sure I’m composed before I step into Dusty’s.

“Hey, we thought you got lost or something,” Sienna says as soon as she notices me. “I had to stop Marco here from calling you a million times.”

“I wasn’t going to call a million times,” he grumbles.

She raises a brow at him. “I had to confiscate your phone. You were going to call the station and report her missing.”

I force a smile on my face. “I took the Doc’s advice and decided to get my steps in.

I just took the long way around. I’m sorry for worrying you.

” I can only imagine what would have happened if Sienna hadn’t managed to stop Marco from calling, and my phone had gone off while the man was still in the booth.

I shiver, not even wanting to think about it.

Even though the man is capable of love, he also confessed to murdering people, and I refuse to be one of the people who romanticize bad people just because they are capable of emotions.

“I’m just so glad we finally have some info to go on.” The redhead’s face splits with a smile. “Even if the state investigator can’t give us the full story of where you came from, at least we can have some pointers to work with.”

I nod. “Yeah. It has to be better than all the dead ends we’ve encountered trying on our own.” We’ve also had to be very careful when trying to find my family because we didn’t want to tip off anybody who’s after me.

Speaking of people after me, I open my mouth to tell them about the men at the chapel, but change my mind. I don’t want to make them worried over something that might just turn out to be nothing.

“What are we waiting for?” I ask them. “Let’s go to the station and get this over with.”

“Hold on a second,” Sienna blurts out, turning to give Marco a meaningful look. “There’s something he wants to give you first.”

I blink at him in confusion. “What is it?” Suspicion moves through me. “If it’s another gift, then I’m sorry, but I can’t accept it. You’ve already done too much for me, Marco.”

“No, no. It’s not a gift.” He digs out a long box from the inside of his jacket and plops it down on the table between us. “It belongs to you.”

I glance between the box and him. “To me?”

“Open it,” he urges.

Carefully, I reach for the box and open the lid. Inside the box is a necklace. I pull it out and revise my earlier thought. It’s a medallion, not a necklace. I turn it over and trace my thumb over the letters engraved into it.

“We think those are your initials,” Sienna points out. “G.M.”

“It checks out, what you remembered about your initials beginning with G. You had it on when I found you at the lake,” he explains.

“It fell, and I put it aside. When I mentioned it to Sienna, we thought it would be better to keep it hidden for a while so it wouldn’t interfere with your recovery.

We decided it was too soon to give you something this significant—it might have disrupted your healing process.

But since you’re perfectly stable, I think this is the right time to give it to you. ”

“It might help jog your memory,” Sienna explains. “And allow you to be able to piece together whatever information we get from the investigator.”

I tune out the rest of their words, concentrating on the medallion. A part of me recognizes that it belongs to me, but I still can’t get past the fog in my head. A voice inside my head is urging me to remember, one that sounds suspiciously like the voice of the man from the chapel.

“Ariel, are you all right?” Marco’s worried voice cuts through my daze.

“Yeah, we should go.” I try to stand up, but my head spins, and my vision blanks for a second. I start to fall, but Marco is at my side in an instant, pulling me into his warm body.

“You’re not all right,” he chides. “Have you had lunch? Was the walk here too tiring for you? I knew we should have come to the house to get you.”

“I’m fine,” I sigh. “Just felt a little faint for a minute.”

“We can meet the investigator some other time,” he says sternly. “I’m taking you home right now.”

Home.

The house surrounded by lush vegetation had started to feel like home, but when he says the word, I have the sudden urge to tell him it’s not my home. It feels wrong now. This quiet, serene life here is all wrong.

“No,” I say firmly. “I’ve already come all this way. Let’s go meet him. I want to know the truth.”

He stares at me helplessly. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “Thank you for keeping the medallion for me. I’m sure it’ll help when the officer gives us whatever pieces of my story he’s managed to dig up.”

Nodding, Marco sets me on my feet, and together, the three of us make the short walk to the station. I’m surprised to see that the small police station is bustling with activity. Must be because it’s the only one for the few neighboring towns around.

“What’s going on?” Sienna asks one of the uniformed officers.

“Poaching season,” he grumbles. “Do you need something, Doc?”

“We’re supposed to meet the state investigator here,” she explains.

“He’s over there.” He points across the room where an average height man stands with his back to us, hands stuck in his pockets.

“Thanks,” Sienna tells the officer.

An excited smile begins to curl on my mouth until the investigator turns around, and I catch sight of his face. My smile freezes on my face, and I stop breathing.

“Oh god,” I croak.

“What’s wrong?” Marco asks, his voice full of panic.

The man begins to turn around fully, and I know that in a second, I’ll be right in his line of vision.

I turn on my heels and race out of the station like the hounds of hell are after me, ignoring Marco and Sienna’s startled cries.

I don’t stop running until my lungs feel like they’re going to collapse and my swollen ankles can’t take anymore.

I double over and empty the contents of my stomach all over the ground, eyes wide with horror.

The memory comes flooding back in a vicious torrent: being trussed up in the trunk of a car like a pig bound for the slaughterhouse, catching sight of the cop and daring to believe he was there to save me, only to realize, a heartbeat later, that he was in league with the monster who kidnapped me.

Discovering that the state investigator who was supposed to bring me good news today is the very same dirty cop feels like a brutal blow to my solar plexus. But that blow shatters the dam in my mind, unleashing memories that have been sealed behind a suffocating fog.

I remember everything now.

The accident on the cliff that stole my mother and Valentina. The origin of the medallion. The boy from the camp. The family feud. Falling in love. Plotting our escape. The mafia. All of it crashes over me in an unstoppable wave.

I fall to my knees as the sheer force of it hammers through me, my head spinning.

The fog lifts at last, and I see him—the faceless man from my nightmares, the shadowed figure in the confessional. They’re the same man. The man I love.

I can’t believe I was so close to him, that my heart hadn’t torn itself from my chest and landed in his hands.

“Raffaele,” I whisper, testing the name under my breath as tears sting my eyes and blur my vision.

His voice had trembled with such raw, aching brokenness because of me.

The thought of him suffering, carrying that unbearable pain, twists a knife in my chest. I can’t bear to imagine him out there, lost in a world where he wasn’t sure I might be dead or alive, his hope fraying with every passing second.

Searching blindly, hope waning as the days go by.

“Ariel! Ariel!” Marco is screaming, his and Sienna’s footsteps crunching against the gravel path.

I’m panting, my chest heaving with exhaustion and fear, when they finally reach me. “I need to leave,” I mutter. “I don’t want him to see me.”

“Who?” Marco asks, his voice filled with worry, his eyes searching mine for answers I can’t explain now.

“Inside. The man. Bad.” The words stumble out, barely making sense, but something in his gaze shifts, and I know he understands.

In an instant, his strong arms wrap around me, lifting me like I’m weightless yet infinitely precious.

He’s barking orders at Sienna to fling open the door of his pickup, to get me out of here, to shield me from whatever haunts me.

But in all this, my mind still goes back to the man in my dreams.

“Raffaele,” I breathe one last time, the name a soft like an anguished prayer on my lips. Then the darkness rushes in, claiming me, and I surrender to it with his face burning in my heart.