Page 24 of Broken Mafia Bride

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.

8

RAFFAELE

Two days after the chapel

I start to reach for the bottle of whiskey, but the pain in my shoulder stops me. I fall back onto the couch, hissing in pain.

“Goddamnit.”

I turn my head to stare at the ugly gash on my shoulder. I don’t remember getting the wound, but I sure as hell remember feeling the burn in my shoulder. I snatch the alcohol off the table and splash it over the injury.

I cry out at the burning sensation, putting the bottle to my mouth and taking a long gulp. I sigh when the burn of the alcohol rushes down my throat and settles in my stomach.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because the sound of the bloody doorbell ringing causes me to shoot upright, the half-empty bottle tumbling to the floor, contents spilling. I glare at the bottle, then turn the glare in the direction of the door, where some asshole hasn’t stopped pressing the doorbell.

“Fuck off,” I snarl.

The incessant buzzing continues. It’s beginning to make me wish I had one more bullet in my gun. Unfortunately, I wasted the last bullet on one of my men who?—

Shit. I can’t even remember what he did.

Realizing that the person at the door has no intention of leaving, I stumble to my feet, shards of glass stabbing into my bare foot.

My jaw clenches in annoyance, and I hop across the apartment and yank the door open, ready to explode at the unexpected visitor. My furious words dry up in my throat as I catch sight of Isabella.