Page 133 of Broken Mafia Bride

That’s when I hear it.

Footsteps.

Gasping, I spin away from the door, frantically searching for some sort of weapon, anything at all to defend myself. I leap forward to grab the leg of the bed, yanking at it to try and break it off. I don’t know what is about to walk through those doors, but whatever it is, I have to be prepared for it.

I hear the doorknob start to turn, and I freeze, heart pounding against my rib cage.

I watch in frozen horror as the door pushes inward and a figure appears. I blink in confusion as the woman stares at me with a nervous smile. It’s only when I hear a sniffle that my gaze shifts downward—and I finally register the much smaller figure at her side.

“Noemi!” I cry, leaping to my feet.

The woman winces as my daughter bursts into a furious, ear-splitting wail. But nothing else matters in that moment—except the fact that I’m finally seeing my daughter after what’s felt like half a lifetime of searching for her.

Tears roll down my face, and I spread my arms. “Come here, baby girl.”

She barrels forward on slightly pudgy legs until she’s falling into my arms, clinging to me desperately and sobbing into the crook of my neck. I wrap my arms around her small body, breathing her in.

Oh god. My baby. She’s fine and she’s safe and that’s all that matters.

“Mama,” she whimpers.

I pull her away briefly to assess her. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—bruises, maybe, or some sign that Lucio has messed with her head. When I heard what he did to Val, I was terrified that my baby might have been subjected to the same horrors.

I’m relieved when I don’t find any signs of abuse and trauma. She looks clean and well fed, and someone’s even been brushing her hair regularly and making her wear her lip balm. My daughter is in a neat, light pink dress with matching shoes, and her hair is done up in two cute pigtails.

The outfit is so unlike her, but then again, I guess that’s a part of Lucio’s plan to erase her identity.

I wipe my tears with the back of my palms. “I’m here, baby. Mommy’s here.”

“I missed you,” she says as her wails finally quiet down. “Pops said you were going to come a long time ago, and then you never came.”

And because I can’t exactly explain to her that her pops is a manipulative, self-important son of a bitch, I paste on a smile. “I’m sorry, baby. I wanted to come for you. I never planned forus to be apart for so long. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

She searches my eyes with a look of seriousness that has no place on her too-young face. “Promise?”

I nod. “I promise, baby.”

“You must be Giulia Sanna,” the older woman says with a careful smile. I note that she’s not moved an inch from her position at the door. She must have been warned to stand right there.

If I can lure her in, I can take her out and get out of here. I’m so distracted by my escape plans that it takes a moment for her words to register.

“Over my fucking dead body,” I snarl at her.

Noemi gasps. “You said a bad word, Mama.”

“I’m sorry about that, sweetie.”

“You have to put a dollar in the bad word jar,” she chides.

I smile at her, but half of my attention is on the woman by the door. I’m not giving her even a second of opportunity to take my daughter away from me again. I’d love to see her try, though.

A lack of weapon has never stopped me in the past, and it won’t stop me now, not with my daughter’s safety in the balance.

The woman looks taken aback. She blinks at me. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s what I was told. Aren’t you Re Ombra’s granddaughter?”

I scoff. “Did he tell you that too? My best advice is to stop listening to whatever bullshit he’s feeding you. Re Ombra is not my family. He’s nothing to me.”

He stopped being anything the moment I found out he had Noemi this whole time. All the heartache, all the pain her absence caused—he watched me spiral, watched me go crazy searching for her—and yet he was content to go ahead with his half-baked, nonsense plan.