Page 128 of Broken Mafia Bride

And then?—

I start to sing.

“Just a small-town girl… livin’ in a lonely world…”

“Stop,” she chokes out.

I press myself closer to the barrel. My voice trembles, but I keep singing anyway.

“She took the midnight train going anywhere…”

The gun behind me cocks, and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the sound of the end of my life.

Don’t stop… believin’…

40

RAFFAELE

Acouple of minutes earlier

I stare at Pepe, my face a mask of confusion. “I don’t think I heard you well. Did you just say that Lucio had a hand in Eleanora’s death?”

My cousin sighs, suddenly looking very worn and tired. He drops down onto the foldable seat I vacated. “I think you’re going to have to sit down for this.”

“I prefer to stand,” I bite out.

My fists curl. Every muscle in my body is tight, coiled like I’m about to be hit. Maybe I already have been.

He shrugs. “Your choice.”

“Spit it out. What the hell did you mean by that?”

His eyes meet mine, and a cold shiver runs down my spine. It’s the same look I saw in the eyes of the man from the parking lot of the underground fighting ring—right before he killed himself to escape whatever fate being a traitor would surely bring. It unnerved me then, and I’m not ashamed to say it’s just as unnerving now.

“You think Lucio is an evil bastard for kidnapping your kid?” he asks. “That’s barely the tip of the iceberg, Raffaele. I told youI joined his ranks at sixteen, but before then, I used to report to his second. I don’t know much, but I was thirteen when I accidentally walked in on a conversation between Lucio and his second-in-command.”

His throat bobs with a swallow. “They were talking about a kid. Not just any kid—Lucio’s granddaughter. I was confused at first because I didn’t think Re Ombra had any family. I’d never heard about him having one on the streets where I grew up.”

“They were talking about Giulia?” I ask, shocked.

He shoots me a look so sharp it could slice skin. My words die on my tongue.

“It wasn’t just any mission,” he says, voice low and lethal. “Lucio had a daughter. She ran from Sardegna years ago—cut all ties. He wanted her back. All of her. So he sent men to retrieve her… and her daughters.”

He pauses. A beat of silence so heavy it hums in my ears.

“It went sideways. Horribly. What was supposed to be a quiet extraction turned into a massacre.”

My breath catches. I already know where this is going—and it makes my blood run cold.

“They were run off a cliff,” he says flatly. “Eleanora didn’t make it.”

I reel back like he just slammed a fist into my chest.

“Fucking hell.” The words scrape out of me like gravel. “So Lucio’s the one who tore Giulia’s world apart. He killed her mother. Hersister.”

That wasn’t just the day Giulia’s life shattered.