Page 55 of Mine Again (Mafia Bride #2)

Chapter Fifty-Four

Luca

“ I hated watching you with Moretti,” I admit.

I need her to understand she wasn’t, isn’t, the only one who suffered. That I was close to the edge too. Closer than she could ever imagine.

Isa’s eyes turn glassy. She’s on the brink of tears.

“By the time I landed in Vegas, I was ready to tear the world apart. Especially after uncovering Hale’s final taunt. Though he would probably call it his pièce de résistance , the sick bastard.”

Isa’s wet, shimmering eyes lift to mine. She braces herself for the blow.

“Your marriage license.”

The words barely make it out. My throat’s too tight.

“Yours and Moretti’s.”

It was like being gutted alive.

“I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Just… noise in my head. Everything caved in.”

I rake a hand through my hair, pulling hard at the roots like I’m trying to rip the memory out. But it’s burned into me. Every frame. Every second of footage. Hale made damn sure of it .

“I knew what it meant. That if I didn’t stop the wedding, I’d lose you forever. And not just to Moretti.”

I lean in, fingers laced behind my neck, head hanging as I try to steady my breathing.

“Hale would have set you and his cousin up somewhere I’d never find you again.”

Isa’s hands are clenched so tightly her knuckles have gone white.

“The only thing worse than that marriage license would have been a wedding video. No, scratch that.”

A bitter laugh escapes me.

“A video of your wedding night would’ve driven me into freefall. And I’m sure Hale planned to let me find that too.”

My vision blurs from the heat behind my eyes. My body remembers the fury before I do. The shaking hands, the blood roaring in my ears, the wild, feral need to destroy something. Anything. To make the pain stop.

“Do you have any idea what it was like to sit there and watch your dates on video?” I ask, my voice quieter now, wrecked with the same grief I see on her face.

“You smiling at Moretti when you went riding. Kissing him. Throwing your arms around him. Even just holding hands on the beach…”

I swallow hard, the words catching in my throat.

“Him proposing there.”

I punched the screen. Put my fist right through the man trying to take what was mine.

“Hale was there, posing as a tourist ,” I spit the word, drawing quotation marks in the air, “to capture the moment.”

A broken cry escapes Isa’s lips. The tears are a steady stream now.

“He’d planned it like a damn military campaign. Multiple angles. Perfect timing. Maximum emotional damage.”

My voice drops to a rasp.

“And at the end of the clip, after Moretti kissed you like you were already his, the camera shifted… to show a hand. ”

I clench my fists, nails digging into my palms.

“A ring caught the light. The Jackal’s crest, carved into gold. His fingers lifted in a lazy little wave, smug as hell, like he expected I’d be watching.”

My whole body shakes with the memory.

“It was a Trojan horse. Beautiful. Strategic. Engineered to break me.”

I pause, chest heaving.

“It felt like you were slipping through my fingers. Like everything we were was being erased. And I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t reach you. I was screaming inside, and no one heard me.”

My voice breaks.

“I thought the night we were torn apart was the worst moment of my life,” I whisper. “But that… that topped it.”

Isa bends over in anguish, hugging her body as it shakes.

“I’m so sorry,” she hiccups through her sobs. “Luca, I’m so, so sorry. I truly believed you were dead. I would’ve never agreed to marry him otherwise. If I’d had even the slightest sign of life from you, I’d have waited. Forever. ”

The sound of her breaking pours salt into wounds already bleeding.

I’m already on the ground in front of her, already close, but it’s not enough. Not when she’s coming apart like this. Not when I’m barely holding it together myself.

I reach for her, my trembling hands brushing her arms. I give her every chance to pull away.

She doesn’t. She reaches back. Clutches.

In the next breath, I shift forward and wrap my arms around her, lifting her off the bench and into my lap. She collapses into me with a raw, broken sob that shreds through my chest like glass.

Her body melts into mine like it’s the only place she belongs.

And it is.

It always has been.

I bury my face in her hair and hold her like I’ll never let go. Because I won’t. Never again .

“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her neck. “I’ve got you, farfalla . I’ve got you.”

Her hands press into my back, her palms on either side of my spine, pulling me closer too, not letting go either.

I kiss the top of her head. Once. Twice. Again. Like maybe if I kiss her enough, I can undo some of the damage.

Her sobs come harder. Like her body is purging five years of pain all at once.

“I didn’t know you were alive,” she chokes out. “I was so alone.”

“I know.” My voice is a breath, thick with guilt. “ Farfalla , I know.”

I rock her gently, the way I used to when we were young and the world was still soft.

But now it’s sharp. Now it cuts.

And still, I’ll rock her through it.

Every second she’s in my arms, it hits me all over again. How close I came to losing her.

If Hale’s plan had worked.

If Moretti had married her.

If I hadn’t uncovered that last taunt in time…

She would’ve been gone.

A future without her isn’t a life. It’s a void . And I’ve already spent too many years inside it.

I pull her tighter. My cheek presses against the top of her head. My heartbeat is erratic, uneven, like it’s trying to recalibrate now that she’s here with me.

“I should’ve come sooner,” I whisper. “I should’ve tried harder.”

She grips me fiercer, like she’s afraid I’ll vanish again.

“No,” she gasps, shaking her head. “You… d-did what y-you had to…” Her breath trembles through every syllable. “You were… pro—protecting m-m-me.”

Then the dam breaks. Her sobs come louder, rougher. Her whole body quakes in my arms like she’s falling apart at the seams.

It guts me, cutting deeper than any blade.

“Shhh,” I murmur. “ Farfalla , I’ve got you. ”

I cradle her tighter, one hand at the back of her head, the other wrapped protectively around her spine. I wish I could take her pain into me, carry it for her, and burn it out of existence.

“Isa,” I whisper. “Breathe, baby. Please. Talk to me.”

But she can’t. Her whole body is convulsing. Shaking.

And all I can do is hold her through it.

I don’t know how long we sit like that. My legs are numb. My spine aches. But I won’t let go.

Some dark, fractured part of me clings to the way she’s melted into me, because for the first time in years, she’s here. Real. Mine.

Eventually, her sobs slow. Her breathing evens out, but her fingers stay latched to my back.

Without lifting her head, she whispers, “You and I… we’re really just puppets.”

Her voice is so hollow, so devoid of hope.

“I’ve never been more than a chess piece on someone else’s board. Moved around at their will. No matter the cost.”

She sniffs, her breath stuttering.

“First by my father, the one man who should have loved and protected his children, but didn’t. And when he was gone, I thought I was finally choosing for myself… but I wasn’t. I was being played on a new board. By someone I didn’t even know existed.”

She draws a shaky breath.

“I… I f-feel like I d-don’t matter.”

New tears fall, soaking into my skin.

“Insignificant. Ex-p-pendable. M-my life isn’t even m-mine.”

Her shoulders jerk again. “I don’t know w-w-what’s real anymore. W-w-what to believe. What t-to t-t-trust.”

The final word is lost in a sob that sounds like it’s tearing her apart.

I cup her face. My thumbs brush away the tears.

My voice doesn’t waver. Only one thing matters now.

“ Us, ” I say.

Just that.

I ease her back to look at her. Her face is blotchy and soaked, her eyes swollen and broken and so damn lost .

“You and I are real.”

My eyes hold hers.

“Sometimes it feels like that’s the only real thing in this world.”