Page 25 of Broken Mafia Prince (His to Break #1)

GIULIA

I stare at my flushed face in the elevator’s mirrored walls and try to regulate my rapid breathing.

When that fails, I start counting down from one thousand while trying my best to block out sharp blue eyes from my mind.

Raffaele is the last thing I should be thinking of right now.

I have more pressing issues at hand, like the fact that Luca may currently be on his way to making a full report about brunch to my father.

The elevator stops with a ping at the top floor, and the doors slide open, revealing an illuminated hallway with only two doors on each side. Steeling my spine, I make my way to one of the doors and press the buzzer.

The concierge has already called to inform Isa that I’m on my way up, so I’m not surprised when the door is torn open a second later.

My cousin stares me down, looking more dressed than anyone in their own home has a right to be.

But then again, there is nothing homely about the gigantic piece of real estate she calls home.

“What have you done?” She narrows her eyes at my face. “Tell me you didn’t knee Luca in the balls.”

“I didn’t knee Luca in the balls.”

My easy response only makes her eyes narrow further. “Come on in. Do you want some coffee?”

I trail after her, walking past the TV in her living room, which is approximately the size of a New York billboard on Times Square.

Every corner of her apartment screams money and luxury, but it’s just about as lived-in as my bedroom back at home.

There are no pictures on the wall, a throw blanket left on the couch, or books open on the table; it looks like something from a magazine catalogue.

“Do you have hard liquor?” I ask.

She glances at me over her shoulder. “Oh, honey, it’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Not that bad.” I wince. “Well, let’s see—I tricked Luca into going to a restaurant whose specialty is made with shellfish, even though I know he’s allergic?—”

“Oh god.”

“And then I let him nearly asphyxiate until he signed a letter to my father ending our betrothal. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

I guess I hoped he’d be afraid of marrying a woman who might secretly slip shellfish into his food and eventually call off the wedding. ”

Isa stares at me, mouth agape for a long moment, and then she shakes her head as if to clear away the memory of what I’ve just told her, and then she whirls around and continues to the kitchen.

“Vodka or whiskey?” she calls back at me.

“How about a time machine?” I groan, following her into the kitchen. I drop down onto one of the stools pushed against the kitchen island and bury my face in my hands.

“Start from the top. Tell me everything, and then explain how you came up with this idea.” There’s no censure in her voice, but I have a feeling she’ll be a lot more judgmental when I add the best, or maybe worst, part of the story.

Just as I predicted, when I get to the part where Raffaele showed up mysteriously, her eyes almost bug out of their sockets.

“You mean Raffaele Gagliardi!” my cousin screeches.

I toss back the rest of my drink and reach for the bottle again. “That Raffaele, yes.”

She blinks rapidly, her expression going from shock, to horror, to confusion, to mischief, to resignation. “Is there a way you can pass this off as being his fault somehow?”

I giggle into my glass of alcohol, then pull out my phone. I navigate to the letter I composed for my father and managed to get Luca’s signature on. I hold out the phone to Isa. Her wide-eyed gaze drops down to it, and she accepts it reluctantly.

Clearing her throat, she begins to read the letter out loud.

“Montanari, I think it’s time the truth was said.

A marriage to your daughter is not and will not be plausible now or in the future.

I thought I could manage her strong opinions, hard-headedness, and lack of a natural, feminine submissiveness, but it has become clear to me that I can’t, and I doubt there’s a single man on the planet who can. ”

She pauses to arch an eyebrow at me. “‘Lack of a natural, feminine submissiveness?’ Who helped you write this? Snapchat AI?”

I glare at her. “It’s the kind of horseshit that testa di cazzo would say, trust me.”

“Back to it.”

“ In light of this, I’m calling an end to this betrothal and any further plans and association with your daughter.

What Giulia needs is a correctional facility, not a husband.

I pity any man you can trick into tying themselves to her.

In fact, I’ll advise them to put their efforts into a stray bitch than your daughter.

In case you still have doubts about the purpose of this letter, this is my way of saying I’m done with this pathetic arrangement . ”

Silence fills the room after Isa is done reading, and I hang my head.

The letter didn’t sound quite so horrible when I had been writing it, but hearing it from someone else’s mouth now makes me want to go out back, dig my own grave, and never be seen again, because I have no doubts that’s the same fate waiting for me from my father’s hands.

“It’s salvageable,” Isa says.

“Really?” My voice is full of hope.

She hums, dragging her gaze through the letter again. “I mean, you weren’t outright rude to your father. It sounds more like Luca’s angry at you than insulting your father. It can be dismissed as a couple’s spat, and you two will be back in lovers’ bliss in no time.”

I shudder at the thought of being around Luca again, especially after he attacked me.

“I don’t want to be back in bliss with him,” I point out.

“I want this whole mess between us done and over with. He’s only with me for his inheritance, and trust me, Isa, if you’d heard the way he spoke to me, you wouldn’t want me anywhere near that asshole.

He deeply detests me, and who knows what will happen next time Raffaele isn’t there to jump to my rescue. ”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you almost got Luca killed. Can we deal with that first before you remind me that a Gagliardi saved your life for the second time this week?”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

“Okay, so by now, Luca will have whined to anyone who will listen about the shellfish incident.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think he’d like to ruin his reputation by spreading that his eighteen-year-old soon-to-be fiancée got the upper hand and almost killed him. His ego would never let him, and he’ll be desperately trying to save this arrangement for the sake of his inheritance.”

My cousin purses her lips, thinking. “There’s no clear insult against your father in this letter, and that’s what we need to get him angry enough to toss Luca away.”

“What are we going to do then?” I ask, frustrated.

“And how are we going to make sure Luca doesn’t mention Raffaele when this goes down?

Why the hell did I think this was such a brilliant plan?

Father is going to find out about everything, and I’ll be married to that asshole before I can say ‘ass.’”

Isa chokes on her wine, face turning alarmingly red as she begins to cough and hack to clear her airway. I stand up, go over to her, and pat her on the back while filling a glass from the sink.

“You’re not going to marry him,” she promises me when she finally stops coughing. Her watery eyes meet mine, and the conviction in them makes my earlier panic fade a little bit.

One thing about Isabella is that even though she’ll be scandalized at first, and then read me the riot act second, she always has my back. There’s not a single mess I’ve managed to get myself in that she hasn’t helped me slip out of.

I still remember how angry I was when Father brought her to my bedroom.

At that time, I’d seen her as my father’s glorified babysitter, furious that he would foist me off on someone else just so I would leave him alone, but after all these years, Isa has gone far past just being a cousin.

She’s become something more than a best friend, even—she’s become my sister, and I have no idea how I’d have navigated this world without her.

So when she looks at me now and says I’m not going to marry Luca, I believe her.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she sighs. “You’re going to be the innocent, hurt party in all this. This letter needs to get to your father through you. Which means you’re going to give it to him with tears in your eyes and devastation on your face.”

My eyebrows draw up in confusion. “You’ve met my father, haven’t you? My tears won’t move him. He doesn’t give a shit about me.”

Luca’s words from earlier echo in my head. “I know it kills him that you got to live while he lost the two people he actually loved.”

I feel an ache in my chest at the memory, and I raise a hand to soothe the burn building there.

“Yes, he does.” Isa’s fierce voice snaps me out of my dark thoughts. “He’s shitty at showing it, but he does care. I know you won’t believe me. You haven’t believed me the other hundred times I’ve said this to you, either.”

I scoff. It’s hard to believe he cares when he treats me like I’m one of the too-expensive pieces of furniture in the house.

How can he care about me and give me off to Luca like I’m a mere commodity?

If he cares at all, he would stop to consider my feelings; he would realize that his vengeance is hurting me almost as much as it’s hurting his so-called enemies.

“Giulia—”

“Don’t,” I tell her sternly, not wanting to listen to another lecture about giving my father the benefit of the doubt. “Just help me get through this mess, please.”

She sighs. “Anyway, you’re going to tell your father that you tried your best to make it work, but it’s obvious from the letter that you found in Luca’s phone that he doesn’t give two shits about you and is planning to embarrass you.

You’ll have to spin it in such a way that your father feels like Luca is insinuating that he tries to dump his garbage with him.

Your father won’t like to hear that Luca doesn’t think a Montanari is good enough for him, or that he did a terrible job as a father, and you’re worth nothing. ”

I nod. “So make Luca look like the asshole that he actually is? Easy-peasy.”

She tsks. “Not so easy, and not so peasy. If you overdo it, your father might just force Luca to apologize and win you back, which might also cause him to panic and move the wedding date forward.”

I open my mouth to reply, but the sudden blare of opera music from my phone cuts me off. Isa glances down at the phone in her hand and then holds it out to me.

“That had better not be Luca,” I growl.

“It’s not.”

Accepting the phone, I consider not picking up the call, but something makes me swipe right. “Hello?”

“Miss Montanari,” a dark voice says from the other end of the line. “Did no one teach you never to answer calls from unknown numbers?”

“Only a Gagliardi will call someone and then chastise the person for picking up.” I roll my eyes. Isa’s jaw drops open, and she mouths at me, asking me who it is. “How did you get my number, Raffaele?”

My cousin looks like she’s going into cardiac arrest when I say his name, and I slap a palm over my mouth to keep back the laughter threatening to spill from my mouth.

He chuckles, the sound as smooth as silk in my ear. I tense my body to keep from shivering. “I have my ways.”

“So you’re a stalker, along with your other qualifications? Does your father know you’re too overqualified for the mafia?” I drawl. “Or do you need me to pass along the information when I’m returning the favor of being shot at?”

“Feisty as ever, Giulia.”

My jaw grinds together. “Are you going to tell me why you’re calling?”

He makes a humming sound that does something to my insides. “And if I say it’s because I miss you?”

Suddenly, it’s difficult to breathe properly, and everything inside me freezes, except for the butterflies in my stomach that take flight with vigor.