Page 150 of Broken Mafia Prince
Damn it. Am I really arguing with an imaginary voice in my head? This entire situation has driven me to the brink of madness and back. I scrub a hand over my face, trying to arrange my thoughts into something logical.
At that moment, I hear my father screaming at someone. My legs carry me forward before I’ve even had time to think about it, and I find myself approaching him where he’s standing at the foot of the stairs, checking his watch every few seconds.
“Where the hell is Elio?” he snaps. “He’s fired after today.”
The long-awaited shipment arrived a few hours ago, and if I thought my father was agitated this entire time waiting for it, he’s even worse now that it’s here. He looks like he’s aged ten years since earlier today when he got news of its arrival. He’s set up measures for everything that can possibly go wrong, but none of it has succeeded in putting him at ease.
He glances over at me. “What?”
“I’ll drive you to the docks since Elio’s not available.”
“No,” he announces, marching away from me in the direction of the front door.
I rush after him, swiping my jacket from the coat hanger. “Yes. I’ll feel better knowing that you have the best shooter in the city at your side, in case anything goes wrong.”
“Nothing will go wrong,” he spits, green eyes flashing.
I don’t point out that if he actually believed that, he wouldn’t be strung up tighter than a violin. “You need all the hands you can get, and I’m more capable than most of the men you have on the ranks anyway.”
I’m surprised when he nods a second later. “Let’s go.”
My stomach cramps with nerves, hands clammy as I pick up the keys to the SUV. Around me, the men are running around, doing last-minute preparations. Raffaele’s warning comes to mind again as I climb behind the wheel of the car.
It’s not too late for me to step out of the vehicle and hand the keys over to someone else. Father is particular about who drives him, and he hasn’t touched a steering wheel since that day at the cliffs, but I’m sure he can make do with one of the other men.
I have a bad feeling about today, one I can’t shake.
I’m not sure if it’s Isa’s words, Raffaele’s warning, or my father’s paranoia, or perhaps a combination of all three. I have to know for myself if Raffaele can be trusted, and if he’s actually playing both sides, he’ll have to go through me to get to my father. My hands tighten around the steering wheel as I navigate us through the wrought iron gate.
Even though there are two other cars in front of us and one behind, each one with at least four of my father’s soldiers, I still feel naked, like an easy target.
“All those who’ve ever looked down on us are going to eat their words after today,” Papa crows. “I’m going to wipe those Gagliardi scum off the face of the earth.”
I ignore him, eyes shifting to the rearview mirror and then the side mirror for the millionth time. Sweat beads down my spine, a bitter taste of foreboding at the back of my tongue.
Something’s wrong.
Something’s very wrong.
49
RAFFAELE
The first explosion rocks through the docks, a ball of fire rising high into the air and lifting a metal container with it. There’s a sound of metal grinding as it’s thrown into another container. Someone barks out orders to regroup in rapid-fire Italian and someone else responds.
I turn my head to see Tommaso’s eyes shining at me from the dark where we are standing at the far end of the action. There’s a question in his eyes, and I nod in response. He digs out one of the customized radios we stole earlier and turns it on.
A muffled crackle sounds out from the device, and a second later, there’s nothing but a low, dull buzz.
“Jay’s cut off the signal,” he informs me. “What now?”
“Now, we take out as many Gagliardi men as we can,” I tell him. We’ve already gone through this a few times, and after some debate, we decided that instead of killing the men, we’re going to be knocking them out. Unfortunately, getting up close to knock a man out is far harder than putting a bullet in his head from a distance.
But that’s the risk I’ll have to take. As much as I want to protect Giulia and her family, I can’t also completely betray mine by killing them.
“Let’s do this,” I say. Just as we move forward, I hear a familiar voice screaming something. Everything inside of me freezes at the sound of that voice.No fucking way.
I whip my head around and reel back in shock as I watch Giulia race right into a hail of smoke and gunfire.
