Page 26 of Broken Mafia Bride
I turn around to face her. “No. You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do!” she insists, her voice breaking. “Giulia was my cousin—my best friend. She was the only person I had in my corner, the only one who ever really gave a damn about me. You don’t get to stand there and tell me I don’t understand.”
She shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“When she told me she was leaving with you, I was happy for her, I swear I was. But at the same time, I knew I was losing the one person who made this place bearable. My favorite person in the entire world. I had to stand there and smile and pretend I wasn’t breaking inside.”
Her voice drops to a whisper. “And now she’s gone. I’ve had to say goodbye to her twice, Raffaele. Once when she left, and again when she never came back.”
“Isa—”
“No.” Her voice is frosty. “I know you loved her and?—”
“I still do,” I cut in. “She’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to find her, okay? So stop referring to her in the past tense.”
A sad smile curves her mouth. “If you actually believe she’s out there somewhere, then you wouldn’t be such a mess.”
My chest constricts, so tight that it feels like all of my organs are being crushed to nothing. “She is out there.” The doubts are slipping out through the cracks, dark and thick as tar, rising up my throat and cutting off all my circulation.
Isabella stares at me for a long moment, terse silence filling the room, before she finally lets out a breath.
“Come on, let me look at your shoulder and leg.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re going to get infected and die before Giulia ever comes back.” She lets out a soft sigh and comes over to me. Too tired to protest, I allow her to pull me to the sink and grab a clean towel from the cabinet.
“Got a first aid kit anywhere around this dump?” she asks.
I huff and motion at the kitchen island. She retrieves the box and plops it down on the counter, then goes to work cleaning out my injury. I grit my teeth as she wipes the area down, pours rubbing alcohol all over it, and bandages it up. Then she does the same with my foot.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t a deeper wound,” she says quietly when she’s finished and returns to my side. “Raffie, I know you’re in pain—I am too. I want so badly to believe Giulia is still out there, that you’ll bring her home. But part of me can’t help feeling like she’s already gone. And it hurts more than I can explain.”
“But I can’t lose you too.” Her voice breaks. “Everything is already such a mess, and I’m trying to be strong, but it’s so hard. Instead of shutting yourself up and dealing with this on your own, I want you to know that you have me.”
Isabella reaches out, cupping my face in her hands, holding my gaze. “You have me, Raff. We’re going to get through this together.”
“I don’t know how to get through this,” I confess in a small voice. “I’m surviving it the only way I know how.”
Isabella pulls me down into a hug, my head dropping down on her shoulder. “Maybe what you need is a distraction, someone who’s always been there for you, someone who understands.”
Her words are soft as a breath, and for the first time since I watched Giulia plunge into the inky depths of the sea, I don’t have the urge to drown myself in another bottle of alcohol.
“I’ve always been here, Raffaele.” Her fingers rake through my hair. “And I’ll always be here. Always.”
There’s something in her voice, some sort of supplication. I’m not in the right frame of mind to figure it out, though, so I just allow myself to be held.
Hours later, I’m back on my couch. I’ve managed to get rid of the rotten food and gather all the clothes into a pile in one corner. I’m showered, I have clean sweats on, my hair isn’t greasy, and I no longer smell like a distillery.
Now that I’m sober for the first time in a long time, my body is no longer numb. One part of me, in particular, is far from numb. Damn, this is the first time in months I’ve even allowed myself to think of this.
I slide my hand down my body and cup my erection from my pants, palming the growing mound. My mind goes straight to Giulia, how she looked that first time in the back seat of my car.
I drag my pants down, allowing my cock to spring free and curl up to my belly. I wrap one hand around the stiff flesh, squeezing tight enough to be punishing. My hips jerk off the couch at the sweet pain. My body has been in a limbo for so long, and it’s come alive all at once.
My skin is buzzing, too tight and sensitive.
I move my hand up and down my length, slow at first, then faster and faster. My mind floods with image after image of her—her head thrown back, those desperate sounds spilling from her lips. The memory of how tight she felt around me, gripping and milking me dry.
