Page 61 of Broken Mafia Prince
I shudder at the thought of being around Luca again, especially after he attacked me.
“I don’t want to be back in bliss with him,” I point out. “I want this whole mess between us done and over with. He’s only with me for his inheritance, and trust me, Isa, if you’d heard the way he spoke to me, you wouldn’t want me anywhere near that asshole. He deeply detests me, and who knows what will happen next time Raffaele isn’t there to jump to my rescue.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you almost got Luca killed. Can we deal with that first before you remind me that a Gagliardi saved your life for the second time this week?”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Sorry.”
“Okay, so by now, Luca will have whined to anyone who will listen about the shellfish incident.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think he’d like to ruin his reputation by spreading that his eighteen-year-old soon-to-be fiancée got the upper hand and almost killed him. His ego would never let him, and he’ll be desperately trying to save this arrangement for the sake of his inheritance.”
My cousin purses her lips, thinking. “There’s no clear insult against your father in this letter, and that’s what we need to get him angry enough to toss Luca away.”
“What are we going to do then?” I ask, frustrated. “And how are we going to make sure Luca doesn’t mention Raffaele when this goes down? Why the hell did I think this was such a brilliant plan? Father is going to find out about everything, and I’ll be married to that asshole before I can say ‘ass.’”
Isa chokes on her wine, face turning alarmingly red as she begins to cough and hack to clear her airway. I stand up, go over to her, and pat her on the back while filling a glass from the sink.
“You’re not going to marry him,” she promises me when she finally stops coughing. Her watery eyes meet mine, and the conviction in them makes my earlier panic fade a little bit.
One thing about Isabella is that even though she’ll be scandalized at first, and then read me the riot act second, she always has my back. There’s not a single mess I’ve managed to get myself in that she hasn’t helped me slip out of.
I still remember how angry I was when Father brought her to my bedroom. At that time, I’d seen her as my father’s glorified babysitter, furious that he would foist me off on someone else just so I would leave him alone, but after all these years, Isa has gone far past just being a cousin. She’s become something more than a best friend, even—she’s become my sister, and I have no idea how I’d have navigated this world without her.
So when she looks at me now and says I’m not going to marry Luca, I believe her.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she sighs. “You’re going to be the innocent, hurt party in all this. This letter needs to get to your father through you. Which means you’re going to give it to him with tears in your eyes and devastation on your face.”
My eyebrows draw up in confusion. “You’ve met my father, haven’t you? My tears won’t move him. He doesn’t give a shit about me.”
Luca’s words from earlier echo in my head.“I know it kills him that you got to live while he lost the two people he actually loved.”
I feel an ache in my chest at the memory, and I raise a hand to soothe the burn building there.
“Yes, he does.” Isa’s fierce voice snaps me out of my dark thoughts. “He’s shitty at showing it, but he does care. I know you won’t believe me. You haven’t believed me the other hundred times I’ve said this to you, either.”
I scoff. It’s hard to believe he cares when he treats me like I’m one of the too-expensive pieces of furniture in the house. How can he care about me and give me off to Luca like I’m a mere commodity? If he cares at all, he would stop to consider my feelings; he would realize that his vengeance is hurting me almost as much as it’s hurting his so-called enemies.
“Giulia—”
“Don’t,” I tell her sternly, not wanting to listen to another lecture about giving my father the benefit of the doubt. “Just help me get through this mess, please.”
She sighs. “Anyway, you’re going to tell your father that you tried your best to make it work, but it’s obvious from the letter that you found in Luca’s phone that he doesn’t give two shits about you and is planning to embarrass you. You’ll have to spin it in such a way that your father feels like Luca is insinuating that he tries to dump his garbage with him. Your father won’t like to hear that Luca doesn’t think a Montanari is good enough for him, or that he did a terrible job as a father, and you’re worth nothing.”
I nod. “So make Luca look like the asshole that he actually is? Easy-peasy.”
She tsks. “Not so easy, and not so peasy. If you overdo it, your father might just force Luca to apologize and win you back, which might also cause him to panic and move the wedding date forward.”
I open my mouth to reply, but the sudden blare of opera music from my phone cuts me off. Isa glances down at the phone in her hand and then holds it out to me.
“That had better not be Luca,” I growl.
“It’s not.”
Accepting the phone, I consider not picking up the call, but something makes me swipe right. “Hello?”
“Miss Montanari,” a dark voice says from the other end of the line. “Did no one teach you never to answer calls from unknown numbers?”
“Only a Gagliardi will call someone and then chastise the person for picking up.” I roll my eyes. Isa’s jaw drops open, and she mouths at me, asking me who it is. “How did you get my number, Raffaele?”
