Page 68 of Broken Mafia Bride

I regret the words the second they leave my mouth—but it’s too late. Giulia sucks in a breath. “You’re an asshole. Maybe I was right not to bring you into her life.”

“You couldn’t have hidden her from me forever, and you know it.”

“I wasn’t hiding her from you,” she clarifies. “I was hiding her from this life, not you.”

“And yet here you are.” I spread my arms out. “Seeking help from the very place you’ve been running from for the past few years. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Her eyes narrow to slits. “I was doing what was best for my child.”

“No, Giulia,” I tell her. “Let’s face it. A part of you was doing what was best for you.”

She goes still, eyes flaring. “Th-that’s not true. I was protecting her. If I’d brought her back to Chicago, what do you think would have happened? Well, let me tell you exactly what would have happened. The Montanaris and the Gagliardis would have used her to play tug of war.”

She continues before I can retort.

“You think this was easy for me? You think that being away from you was easy? That I was living my best life while you were falling apart? Doing what was best for me would have been barging right back home, fuck the risks, and coming right back to you.”

Her voice breaks, and she wraps her arms around herself.

“You don’t know how many times I almost did that. How many times I nearly convinced myself we’d be fine back home.”

She lets out a shaky breath. “There were nights I had our bags packed, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the door and trying to work up the courage to walk through it—then I’d fall apart before I could even stand.”

Her eyes glisten as she continues, “Once, I even took the train. I stood outside your apartment building, Noemi in my arms… but I couldn’t make myself knock, I couldn’t face you. I just stood there, frozen, until the sun started rising. And then I left.”

Her hazel eyes meet mine, searching. “Can you honestly say we would’ve been safe if we’d come back?”

I open my mouth to give her an instant yes, to tell her that it’s not like we planned to stay there forever, and that I’d have kept us safe, but the words die on my tongue.

A memory of Gino’s cold body lying in a box flashes in my head. That could have easily been me if he hadn’t stepped in.

And then I remember how Giulia had been kidnapped. The echo of that gunshot at the cliff still rings clearly in my head up until now. I hadn’t been able to save her, nor had I been able to save my cousin, so what assurance can I honestly give her that Noemi would have been safe?

I sigh. “You were right to keep her away,” I finally admit. If I weren’t so blinded by rage from the beginning of this conversation, I’d have realized that.

“But after she went missing, there was nothing else keeping you from telling me the truth,” I point out.

She shakes her head. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I was scared, and ashamed, and a coward. Telling you about her in these conditions felt wrong. I was already worried sick about how to break the news of my being alive, and I didn’t want to cause you more pain.

“Giulia—”

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” she finally admits.

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

Our eyes meet and hold, and something moves between us. I want to close the gap, take her into my arms and hold her, reacquaint myself with the feel of her slight figure against me, taste her, just once more.

The world is a blurred image around us as our gaze stays locked. The ever-present hole inside my chest is being glued together slowly.

“Who took her?” Isabella’s words are like cold water doused over us, and she tears her eyes away, trying to look anywhere but at me.

Giulia clears her throat. “I don’t know. Or maybe I do.”

“What does that mean?” I ask her, confused.

“We tracked the woman who took her to an abandoned house, and found a coin with a symbol that I was told belonged to La Rete Rossi,” she explains.

My blood runs cold at the name, stomach churning with horror.