Page 44 of Mine Again (Mafia Bride #2)

Chapter Forty-Three

Isabella

I storm out of the room, not caring how loudly the door crashes against the wall behind me when I shove it out of the way.

Let it. Let him hear it. Let it echo through every corner of his perfectly controlled kingdom how mad I am.

I don’t stop. Don’t think. I just move.

My bare feet slap against cold floorboards as I barrel down unfamiliar hallways.

I need air. Space. I need to be away from Luca.

The irony. Only yesterday, I would have given anything to have him back. Now I’m not sure if I should scream or sob.

God, I thought I’d never see him again. I grieved him like the dead man I believed he was.

And now my world is overturned. Every part of me is in revolt. My skin still burns from his touch, yet my chest aches like it’s caving in.

How am I supposed to make sense of any of this?

I reach the end of the corridor, and my escape comes to an abrupt halt. A massive door looms ahead. It’s clearly the way out, but there’s no handle. A seamless slab of steel and glass stares back at me like a bulletproof middle finger .

Seriously?

I smack my palm against it. Nothing. No response. I spin around, frustration clawing up my throat, my hands curling into fists.

He locked me in. Asshole.

I run my fingers along the edge of the door, searching for a hidden latch or button.

Nothing. Of course, Luca would have an over-the-top security setup.

A flicker of light catches my eye. To the right of the frame, a narrow panel glows faintly. I step closer and spot the faint outline of a hand.

I hesitate. No way this will work. But I press my palm to it anyway.

A soft click. The door unlocks with a mechanical sigh, cracking open wide enough for me to slip through.

Ha.

He scanned my biometrics.

When? I was unconscious.

What else has he done? Retinal scans? DNA swabs while I slept?

I step through the door. The cold hits me immediately.

A sharp wind slices across my bare legs, and my whole body shudders. The air smells fresh and wild, full of salt and pine, and something untamed. The kind of untouched wilderness you only find in the absolute middle of nowhere.

Where the heck has Luca taken me?

The sky hangs low with heavy clouds, dull gray and brooding, pressing against the treetops like a threat.

The air is thick with mist and the faint scent of rain.

A storm must have passed through recently.

The stone landing beneath my feet is wet, and the wind keeps shifting, biting one moment, tugging the next, like it hasn’t decided whether to settle or tear everything apart.

A bit like me, really.

February. Somewhere remote. Somewhere wild. This doesn’t feel like anywhere I’ve ever been. Not that I’d ever left Sicily before going to Las Vegas.

I wrap my arms around myself. I’m still wearing nothing but Luca’s oversized shirt. One of those soft, lived-in ones that hangs past my hips but does absolutely nothing to protect me from the cold.

Dammit, I need more clothes.

Teeth chattering, I duck back inside and scan the entryway. No way am I going back to his bedroom for anything. I won’t.

A narrow outline catches my eye, a vertical seam in the wall beside the door. Almost hidden. Maybe a storage closet?

Again, no handle. What is it with him and handles?

I press my palm against the smooth surface. The panel slides open without resistance.

Inside hang a couple of black parkas, a beanie, and on the bottom shelf, a pair of rugged boots and trail shoes.

All of it is too big for me, but I don’t care.

I grab the first coat and shove my arms through it, nearly swallowed by the heavy fabric.

It falls almost to my knees. The boots are stiff, and I have to jam my feet in.

I slide around inside them, and they clunk awkwardly when I move, but at least they’re warm.

Next, I tug the beanie down over my head to cover my ears.

Behind me, the front door shuts again. I step back toward it and press my palm to the scanner.

The system hums and the door slides open again, smooth and silent. Like it’s nothing. Like I’m free to come and go as I please.

The ease of it unsettles me.

He’s really letting me walk out?

For a second, I hesitate, but then step through the door anyway. Because if he thinks I’ll stay and play the good little captive, he doesn’t know me at all.

And how could he? He missed the last five years.

I’m not the na?ve, obedient girl he grew up with. That version of me died, little by little, starting the day he disappeared. And I don’t miss her. She was a pushover.

Cold air rushes over me as I step out onto the landing. I brace for the bite, but the too-large coat does a surprisingly good job of keeping me warm. At least one thing is working in my favor on this shitty day .

The house is surrounded by gravel, stretching out in every direction. A deliberate buffer between the building and the wilderness beyond. No grass. No trees near the walls. Just wet, gray stone crunching underfoot.

A security measure, probably. So no one can sneak up without being heard… or seen by the cameras I spot, strategically placed around the place.

I bet he’s watching me now.

I circle the house, refusing to look at the building itself or admire how well it blends into the rugged terrain. My gaze surveys the edges, scanning the shrubbery for any sign of an opening, a way out.

My borrowed boots slip a little with each step, but I’m starting to get the hang of them.

Eventually, I find a narrow path that disappears into the forest.

I don’t stop to think. I just keep going.

Even if I have to walk for hours, even if there’s no one else for miles, I’d rather be alone in the woods finding a way out than trapped inside with Luca.

The cold wraps around my bare legs and drifts upward, prickling my skin with every gust of wind. I keep walking, pulling the jacket tighter around me. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

My thoughts drift back to Luca, to the bombshell he dropped without flinching.

There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to be married to Luca.

For so long, we both counted down the days to my eighteenth birthday, the day we could finally be together, forever.

Even after he disappeared, I held on to that dream. I pictured our wedding over and over, convinced he’d come back and we’d have this big, beautiful reunion… like something out of a movie.

But not like this.

Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine waking up thinking I’d gone through with a wedding I wasn’t even sure about, only to find out I’m actually married to someone else entirely, while my official, so-called fiancé is being tortured by the Russian mob.

I should probably care more about Sebastian being missing, but all I can focus on is my own twisted reality. Clearly, I didn’t know him, just like I feared last night before the ceremony. And something tells me his hidden debt is only the beginning.

I can’t go there right now. Not when some psychotic tattooed his name on my finger, and I have no idea where I am.

Rage flares all over again, and I stomp harder than I need to, boots slamming against the path.

And then he had the audacity to look proud of his handiwork, marking me like cattle.

I bet he expected me to throw his ring in his face. That’s probably why he did it, to make sure his claim on me can never be erased.

Stupid, arrogant jerk.

I keep moving, boots slipping on the uneven path. The gravel is long behind me. Now, I’m on a narrow trail that twists through dense underbrush. Damp leaves squish beneath my boots. A branch snaps underfoot. The forest smells wet and alive, like moss and bark and secrets.

I have no idea where I’m going. I just need to get away. Far enough to clear my head. Far enough to figure out what the hell comes next.

It feels like I’ve been walking forever, though it probably hasn’t even been five minutes, when a structure appears through the trees up ahead. My heart lurches.

A building.

Maybe there’s someone who can help… or at least there’s a phone so I can call Mamma.She must be worried sick by now.

She’d know something was wrong because she would have tried to check in on me. I’d planned to call her once Sebastian and I were married and there was nothing anyone could do to undo it. I was going to explain everything, make her understand.

But now?

What am I supposed to say?

Hi Mamma. Guess who waltzed back into my life? Oh, and by the way, turns out I married him and don’t remember a damn thing.

I press forward, heart thudding, but as I get closer, my hope dims. The building is no house. It’s a shed. Massive, the size of a barn.

Damn.

But some people live in converted barns, right?

“Hello?” I call out as soon as I reach it. I knock on the door, louder this time. “Anyone in there?”

Only silence greets me. It must belong to Luca because the door has no handle, just a security panel with biometric scanners.

Hmm, perhaps my handprint will work here too. But nothing happens when I press my hand against the panel.

I suppress the urge to swear and instead step up to the side window and peer in.

A helicopter sits right in the middle.

It’s the last thing I expected to see.

A fricking helicopter.

Is this Luca’s?

How can he even afford that? Who is he now?

And then it hits me. If that’s his helicopter, there has to be a pilot somewhere nearby. There has to be another house.

My pulse kicks up.

I turn to keep walking but not before flipping off the camera tucked beneath the roof eaves.Let him watch that.

The trail curves uphill now, steeper than before, winding through thick trees. My thighs burn, the borrowed boots rubbing against my heels, but I keep going. Twigs whip against my legs. The wind hisses through the trees like it’s warning me back. But I don’t stop.

At the top, the forest opens into a wide clearing, a lookout of sorts. There’s even a bench, like it was made for watching sunsets over whatever view waits on the other side.

I step forward and turn in a slow circle. The full scene hits me all at once.

Ocean… stretching far into the distance, with only the faintest trace of land on the horizon. Towering trees. Endless sky. Ro cky cliffs dropping into churning waves.

No roads. No buildings, other than the two I’ve already seen. And most definitely, no people.

Gobsmacked, I stumble to the bench and drop onto it. My legs give out more from disbelief than exhaustion.

I sit there, strands of hair whipping harshly into my face, and stare out at the jagged coastline and the restless, gray-blue sea.

No wonder it was so easy for Luca to let me walk out the door.