Page 23 of Broken Mafia Prince (His to Break #1)

GIULIA

M y impulsiveness has always been a problem, and I’ve always known it would land me in serious hot water someday. As sharp pain shoots up my scalp, I have the thought that today might just be that hypothetical someday.

My eyes fly around in wild panic, trying to call for help without screaming for it outright.

Luca’s wrath is frightening, but if I cause a scene and this gets back to my father, I’ll be in even worse trouble.

There’s no way he’ll be willing to overlook me nearly getting my soon-to-be fiancé almost killed, and then holding his EpiPen hostage until he, uh, loaned me his signature.

I don’t regret coming up with this plan, even though I’m now in big trouble. On the contrary, I’m proud of myself for devising and going through this devious scheme.

“You fucking bitch,” Luca spits, hand tightening around my ponytail, yanking my head further backward.

It’s just my fucking luck that this is happening now. To any other person in the restaurant who hasn’t had the pleasure of dealing with my horrible date, it’ll look like we’re just in a heated lover’s embrace, with his mouth against my ear and my throat bared for him.

“Did you think you’d get away with this?” he snarls at me, yanking harder.

A dull ache begins to pulse in my head, and I feel strands of my hair snapping and tearing. Honestly, escaping his grip would be too easy, but I don’t want to make him feel even more foolish. The man nearly died—I’ll let him have this.

But I suddenly regret giving him that EpiPen. After he signed the letter addressed to my father stating his intention to end the arrangement, I should have walked away and let him go straight to hell, where he belongs.

“You thought you were so smart, huh? Pulling up with this little stunt,” Luca sneers. “Do you really think a stupid letter is enough to end our relationship?”

I let out a pained hiss. “I thought if you saw how desperate I was to get out of this arrangement, you’d grow a conscience or feel enough shame to bow out of it.”

His mouth twists into a derisive smirk. “You’re not half as desperate as I am to get out of this.”

That gives me pause. “W-what?”

Surprise lights up in his brown eyes.

“Are you stupid or something? Do you think I’ve been wasting so much important time of my life taking you on dates and catering to your whims because I’m interested in you?”

I’m not crazy enough to believe that Luca has feelings for me or anything like that. I’ve always assumed that he’s just playing the long game to be able to get into my panties and put another notch on his bedpost.

A look of disgust settles on his face. “I’d rather stick my dick in a hornet’s nest than anywhere near you.”

“Be my guest, then,” I croak. “I can find you a hornet’s nest or two if I put my mind to it.”

He brings his face closer to mine, and for the first time, I see the hatred burning inside them. Hatred directed at me. He must have been hiding his true feelings from the beginning.

“If I were you, I would give up on trying to sabotage this arrangement,” he warns me. “Nothing you can do or say is going to make me tuck tail and run, so don’t waste your time. My entire future is riding on getting you to walk down an aisle and say ‘I do’ to me.”

I let out a shocked gasp at the revelation. “You piece of shit.”

He laughs. “What else do you think you’re good for? You’re a spoiled, rude, untamable bitch, and even daddy dearest is desperate to get you off his hands. He’s willing to sell you to the highest bidder so he doesn’t have to deal with you for a moment longer.”

Tears spring in my eyes, a result of the pain in my scalp and the one in my chest at his words. “You’re lying.”

“I don’t need to lie to you, Giulia,” he spat. “You’re the key to my inheritance, nothing more, and as soon as I have my hands on it, I’ll find a way to untangle myself from you.”

Luca jerks me backward until my spine is almost at breaking point. I whimper, wondering how I’m going to get out of this mess. Every time I’ve managed to get myself into a mess, Isa’s always been there to clean it up. This time around, though, she can’t help me.

My cousin is a strong advocate of not messing with the betrothal, and I’ve promised her a hundred times that I won’t.

And yet, here I find myself.

“Let me go, you’re hurting me!” I cry out, trying to tear away from his hold, but it only makes him angrier, his eyebrows drawing down.

“Shut up, you’re going to cause a scene!” he hisses.

I’m beginning to prefer the option of causing a scene and inciting Father’s anger rather than letting Luca break my spine like a glow stick. “Let me go, you asshole. I’ll tell Father all about this and?—”

“You’ll tell him what?” he cuts in with an amused snort.

“Tell him that you tried to deceive him with fake documents? Enrico will be more than happy to leave disciplining you in my hands. He’s been done with you from the very beginning, and I know it still kills him that you got to live while he lost the two people he actually loved. ”

I freeze for a second before a full body shudder wracks through me. Luca’s words take me back to a lifetime ago, back to the beginning when I scraped and begged for Father’s love and attention. Words that I’ve heard Father use float in my head until they solidify into one solid mass before me.

“You’re lying! He doesn’t think that. He couldn’t be so cruel as to wish that I…” I trail off when I remember all the times Father has made it clear in conversation that he’s lost his family.

Oh god.

Luca stares down at me with pity, and it makes my spine crawl. “When he finds out what you’ve done here, Giulia, he’ll put a bow on you and deliver you straight to my doorstep.” His mouth curves into a winning smile. “Silly girl, you’ve only managed to sign your fate away faster.”

My heart is pounding hard and fast in my chest, and it feels like I’ll explode at any moment. I can’t believe my brilliant plan has so spectacularly blown up in my face, leaving me at the mercy of a toad like Luca.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” a clipped voice says.

I try to turn my head, but Luca’s hand tightens, keeping me in place. Another pained hiss slips from my mouth at the feeling of hair tearing from its root. My entire focus isn’t on the man who’s about to render me bald, though; it’s on the newcomer.

“Excuse me?” my betrothed scoffs, voice laced with impatience.

“I told you to get your dirty paws off of her, now,” the man says again. Even without seeing any part of him, I know exactly who’s standing there. The question is, what the hell does he think he’s doing here?

Luca releases me and climbs to his feet.

My head spins for a moment before I get my bearings back, and I don’t hesitate to turn to where the two men are squared off.

Raffaele Gagliardi stands taller and broader than my date, and I have a feeling that even if he wasn’t physically larger, he’ll still have dwarfed Luca with his domineering presence.

“Who do you think you are?” He narrows his eyes at the newcomer. “You have no right to come here and dictate to?—”

Raffaele doesn’t let him finish speaking. “You’ve got five seconds to walk away before I change my mind. After that, you won’t be walking anywhere for a long time.”

The other man lets out a strained laugh. “Do you know who I am? You can’t talk to me like that, and this is none of your business! She’s going to be my wife, you have no right to interrupt us.”

Raffaele’s only answer is to take a step forward. His eyes are as cold as chips of ice, and it turns his beautiful face into a deadly mask. There’s no hint of the scarred boy on that face now, and I fight the urge to grab my purse and escape too.

Luca whirls around, hard eyes catching on mine. “This isn’t over, Giulia.”

I watch in shock as he adjusts the lapels of his suit and takes off, trying not to make it obvious that he’s fleeing for his life.

“Are you okay?” Raffaele’s voice is different from just a few seconds ago, and it leaves me feeling like I’m on a rollercoaster. I turn to look at him and see worry shining in his eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

I take him silently, wondering how much of today he’s seen.

“What are you doing here?”

He stills. “What?”

“Are you stalking me?”

Raffaele crosses his muscled arms over his chest, one eyebrow curling up. “And why would I do that?”

“Who knows why you do what you do?” I glance around nervously. “Look, just stay away from me, okay?”

“Is that the thank you I get for saving you from that asshole?” he asks with surprise.

“I didn’t need you to save me,” I snap. “I was going to handle it.”

“I gave you more than enough time to sort it yourself,” Raffaele informs me. “But it seems your problem-solving skills are as bad as your taste in men.”

“What do you know about my taste in men?”

“That they’ll look better with a hole through their head and a gag over their mouth,” he says easily. “I’m disappointed, Giulia. You don’t strike me as the type who’ll settle for anything but a daydream.”

“I’m an adult now,” I tell him. “I have to be wide awake, I can’t afford daydreams.”

Disappointment flashes behind his eyes, there and gone, so fast that I barely register it, but it leaves a strange feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

Tamping it down, I make a show of checking the time on my phone and rise to my feet.

I pull out a few hundred-dollar bills from my purse and leave them on the table.

“I’ll drive you home.” His words are a clear order, and I bristle at being ordered.

“No, thanks.” I whirl around and march out, hoping he’ll decide that he’s had enough of me for the day. I hear his footsteps trailing over me a moment later, and I let out a groan.

“Is this not some kind of family violation?” I glance over my shoulder to ask him, almost tripping on the perfectly smooth sidewalk as I finally take in all of him.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but Raffaele has managed to get even more attractive since our encounter at the airport.

I catch several women and even men eyeing him.

The black silk shirt he has on stretches across his impressive frame, the top three buttons are open, and I catch the wink of a gold chain.

He looks like some sort of dashing pirate, the kind that will take every last thing you have without apology.

Staying as far from him as possible is self-preservation, and it’s not even about the fact that my father will probably marry me to the first available man if he ever finds out I’ve been in such close proximity to the enemy.

“Haven’t you heard? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” he taunts, his long legs allowing him to fall into stride with me.

I glare at him. “The last time we were close, I got shot at. I’m sorry if I’m not eager to recreate that magic. Go the fuck away.”

His jaw clenches. “We’re just going in the same direction.”

I halt in my tracks, and I’m not surprised when he stops walking, too. When he looks at me in confusion, I wave him ahead. “Please, don’t let me keep you.”

His mouth ticks up the slightest inch at one corner. “Stop being so goddamn stubborn and let me drive you.”

Over my dead body. There’s no way I’m getting in a car with a Gagliardi, especially him.

I pull out my phone and dial the first name on my contact list. If Isa doesn’t pick up, I’ll have no choice but to get in a cab, even though the thought of it makes my skin crawl. I blame Luca for bringing me all the way out here and scurrying away like a terrified rat.

“I didn’t know chauffeur was one of your qualifications, along with doctor.” I stare at him in faux surprise. “My, my, you’re full of surprises, aren’t you? What else are you hiding from me?”

“You’ll find out on the ride over,” he says seriously.

“My father will have both of our heads if I pull up to the house in your passenger seat, and I think I like my head just fine where it is.”

“He should put his decapitating efforts toward the asshole who abandoned you here.”

“You chased him off!” I hiss.

“The date didn’t look like it was going well,” he points out. “Where the fuck did you find that spineless pezzo di merda ?”

“Why? Are you in the market for one?”

Instead of replying, he drags his piercing blue eyes down my body in a slow perusal that makes goosebumps rise on my arms. He’s not even touching me, and yet everywhere his gaze lands feels like he’s imprinted his hands into that bit of flesh.

Raffaele’s eyes finally meet mine again. “I’m in the market for something very different.”

I swallow, my pulse fluttering at the base of my neck. “Good luck finding whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Desperation makes me raise my hands, flagging down an incoming cab.

I need to get away from this man urgently.

How can he affect me so much? I should be thinking of the shit I’m currently in with both Luca and my father instead of how it’d feel if the enemy’s son put his mouth on all those places his eyes had lingered.

“He was wrong.” The words catch me by surprise, but I refuse to turn and look at him.

“Who was?”

“Your asshole date,” he replies. “Your father doesn’t wish it had been you instead. And if he does, then he’s as big of a moron as my father says he is.”

Something inside me cracks open at those words, the poison Luca had put in my heart seeping out slowly but steadily.

I whirl around to face him just as the cab pulls over, and meet only air.

I turn my head either way, searching for a glimpse of him, some evidence that he had truly been there, but there’s nothing.

Raffaele’s gone.

This time around, though, I know I’m going to see him again.