Page 149 of Broken Mafia Prince
“I know what’s at stake,” I insist.
Her gaze turns pitying. “Do you really? You’re choosing the side of a man you barely even know over your family.”
The thing is, even though I’ve only known Raffaele for a short amount of time, it feels like I’ve known him my whole life. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s the truth. I feel like I know him down to his bone marrow, his sense of justice, his loyalty, his kindness, how smart and intuitive he is, how thoughtful.
He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I know he wouldn’t.
He’s in love with you, not your father, a voice says in my head.Listen to your cousin. She’s the only one between you two who’s actually thinking.
I ruthlessly shut the voice up. I can’t start thinking like that when I’m so close to the end, so close to achieving everything with the man I love. I have to trust that Raffaele is who he says he is.
But it doesn’t change the fact that doubts are beginning to creep in, despite my best efforts.
I desperately want to go back to the Giulia of half an hour ago, who had a hundred percent faith in Raffaele.
“I just want you to know that if he’s actually playing both sides, and he hurts you, I’ll use every connection I have to destroy him,” my cousin says in a hard voice. “I won’t stand to see you shattered by another asshole.”
I offer her a shaky smile. “I’ve always known I was your favorite cousin. Thank you.”
She blows a kiss in my direction and I make a show of catching it and tucking it into the neckline of my shirt. Just then, my phone buzzes with a text. I grab my lunch and carry it over to the kitchen counter to transfer it into a Tupperware container and shelf it in the fridge.
“You’re not going to eat that later. Could have just tossed it in the trash,” Isa says from behind me.
“Says who?” I unlock the screen of my phone.
She starts to reply, saying something about how it’s one of my bad habits, but I’m not listening. My entire attention is on the text on my screen. It’s from an unknown number, but it doesn’t take too much thinking to know that it’s from Raffaele.
Make sure you stay away from the docks. It’s not safe.
I stare at the text, reading it over and over again. My new paranoia is trying to pick out any subtext from the simple text, even as the part of me that still trusts me tells me to let it go. It feels like Isa’s words have fractured me in two, leaving me conflicted.
On one hand, the text looks like he’s trying to keep me safe, which I’d expect from him of course, but he could also be trying to keep me away from witnessing the truth. What if he actually has no plans of helping us, and instead harms my father out there? The truth is that I’d never know.
He’d come back to me and tell me my father died in the war, despite him trying his best to save him. He’d offer me comfort, and I’d take it eagerly, grateful to him for doing his best. Grateful to the enemy.
I can feel a headache pounding, and my vision is starting to spin already. For so long, I’ve doubted everything good in this life, I’ve been so cynical and wary, and I really thought I was done with that. I want to trust Raffaele, but my cousin makes several good points. Points that I’d have thought to bring up if I wasn’t so in love.
In my defense, though, how am I supposed to think of betrayal and motive with his hands and mouth on me when I can barely even remember my own name?
Another thought strikes me: Has he purposely been keeping me distracted? All that talk about keeping the outside world where it belongs when we’re together—has it been a tactic? Have I been stupid and delusional?
I feel sick at the thought that I may have just handed myself and my father to the hands of a master player.
Shaking my head, I try to dispel the negative thoughts. I trust him, he loves me, he wouldn’t do this. There’s not a single manipulative bone in his body. He’s not like that.
Not manipulate?The voice in my head makes another appearance.What do you call paying off your ex-fiancé then?
That was for my own good, I argue.
Your father has brought you nothing but heartache, maybe Raffaele thinks getting rid of him will also be for your own good.
You’re wrong.
Am I?
“Shut up!” I snap.
“I didn’t say anything.” Isa glances around her, confused.
