Page 142 of Broken Mafia Prince
“Right, Raffaele?” The sound of my name pulls my attention back to the conversation with the men.
They’re staring at me expectantly, and I have no idea what they’ve been talking about or what I’m being asked. I give a faint nod.
“Exactly.” I raise my glass to my lips, pretending to take a sip. “I’m not a paranoid person, but please, excuse me.”
I slip away before they can rope me into more conversation that I have no interest in. I make my way to a corner from where I have a direct view of Giulia. I chuckle when she takes a sip of her drink, makes a face, and dumps the contents of the glass.
“Something funny, Gagliardi?” a hard voice asks.
I can’t believe I was so distracted watching Giulia that I failed to notice her father stepping up beside me. If he intended to harm me, he’d have succeeded. No wonder my father always says love gets you killed in this world.
I don’t spare him a glance, merely raise my glass in a salute in his direction. “Just glad to be here. In the Montanari estate. Who would have ever thought?”
“Trust me, your presence here is the last thing I want.”
I slant an amused look at him. “And yet here we are.”
“What was that?” he snaps.
A chuckle slips out of my mouth. “A leader who can’t even decide who gets to be under his roof and who doesn’t. Does your family know what a pushover you truly are? Or did you somehow convince them that our presence here is of your own doing?”
I’m aware I’m baiting him, and this can’t end well. I can see the fury pouring out of him. It’s in his clenched fists, tight jaw, and narrowed eyes. I don’t want to get in a fight with my fiancée’s father. Cutting all ties neatly when we disappear is the plan, but I can’t help but want to break the bastard’s nose for trying to sell off his only kid.
He chuckles. “Forget my family. Do you know that your men are counting down the seconds until Edoardo is back in the seat?” His mouth turns down at the corners in the semblance of pity. “The heir who nobody wants. You are weak, incompetent, and, let’s face it, deep inside, you’ll always be that scarred little boy.”
If he thinks bringing up the scar will make me cry, he better think again. I shrug. “Aren’t you glad about that—that I’m so incompetent that I’ve managednotto sink your entire legacy six feet under?”
His jaw grinds together, fire spitting from his eyes. I laugh and give him another salute. “Nice talking with you, Enrico.”
“You’re a disgrace to your father’s legacy,” he sneers as I turn to walk away. “But then again, it’s becoming common for kids these days to disappoint, just like my own daughter.”
I still, rage bubbling up the surface. There are so many ways to kill a man, but as I stare at the older man before me, the only thing that comes to mind is putting a bullet through his mouth and shutting him up forever. I can’t believe Giulia wastes even a second of her day worrying about him.
“She—”
“I’d be careful about the next words that come out of your mouth if I were you,” I snap.
Confusion washes over his expression and he cocks his head, staring at me like I’ve gone crazy.
I can’t help but glance over at her when she lets out another bark of laughter. The sound calms the sudden violence that thrums within me, the tension in my shoulders easing slowly.
“What kind of bastard talks about and treats his own daughter like she’s a piece of gum?” I snarl at him. “I don’t care if the Montanaris are all a bunch of wild animals in the zoo, but we don’t talk about women with derision.”
“I’ll talk about her how I like.”
Without saying another word to him—knowing that if he opens his mouth and talks about Giulia in any way that doesn’t make it clear she’s the loveliest, kindest, most perfect woman on the planet, I’ll be driven to put a hole in his head—I turn and walk away.
I don’t want to start my marriage with the blood of my soon-to-be father-in-law on my hands. As I walk away from him and the house entirely, the sound of her laughter echoes behind me, filling me with a lightness like helium.
46
GIULIA
Iglance up from the book I’ve had my head buried in all day when I hear Papa bark at someone for the hundredth time in the space of a minute. I adjust uneasily on the couch, trying and failing to go back to the book. I shut it with a sigh of frustration, my concentration shot to hell.
I don’t know what’s so different about this new shipment, but Papa has been acting like it contains the holy grail. Though I doubt he would be excited to find the holy grail. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s another new drug prototype that he’s sure will take to the streets like an epidemic.
“There are three guards at the north side already,” someone reports.
