Page 129 of Broken Mafia Bride

It was the dayoursdid.

It set Enrico on a warpath of revenge against my family, escalating the feud and tearing Giulia and me apart before we even had a chance to be together. Now, after all these years, there’s nothing left standing in our way—except for the fact that a madman has our daughter in his grip. I can’t even begin tounderstand why. If he’s so obsessed with keeping his family intact, why would he rip Giulia away from her own child? No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make any sense.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Pepe’s question snaps me out of my thoughts. “Eleanora was the only person who died that day on the cliff.”

It takes a second for the meaning to register, and when it does, my blood runs cold.

“Valentina is alive?”

My ears start ringing.

My brain refuses to accept the words forming in front of me.

That means…

This fucked-up situation runs far deeper than I could have ever imagined.

“Where is she?” I rasp. “Where the hell has he been hiding her?”

My thoughts are shredded. Nothing makes sense—and yet, suddenly, everything does.

We’ve been chasing ghosts in the wrong shadows.

The second Lucio became our prime suspect, the locks started clicking. Doors opening. Truth bleeding out.

And now, every piece of this cursed puzzle is snapping into place—forming one massive, blinking arrow. Pointing straight to Noemi.

Then Pepe smirks. But it’s not amusement—it’s bitter. Haunted.

“I’d ask you to guess, but we don’t have a lot of time.”

He looks me in the eye. “Yeah… small detail I left out—I’m married to Giulia’s twin. Caterina is Valentina Montanari.”

The ground tilts beneath me. No. No, that can’t be.

I stagger back, and he chuckles darkly. “I did warn you to sit down.”

“What kind of sick joke is this?”

“It’s no joke.” He rises to his feet, hands stuck in his pockets.

“Does Valentina know?” I snap, my voice rising. “Does she haveanyidea what Lucio did? That he shattered her family? That hekilledher mother?”

I pace, every step fueled by the fire clawing up my throat.

“Giulia’s lived with that loss like a phantom limb—grieving a sister she doesn’t remember, carrying a silence that’s been eating her alive.”

I stop. Face him. My jaw locked so tight it aches.

“She’s beenhalfa person since that day on the cliff.”

He exhales slowly, like the truth is being dragged out of him.

“Cat doesn’t know,” he says. “She has no idea she’s Giulia’s twin. No idea her real name is Valentina.”

His voice tightens.

“Whatever happened on that bridge—the trauma—it wiped her clean. And Lucio? He didn’t hesitate. He saw the perfect opportunity. A blank slate to shape however he wanted.”