All Chapters of The Mafia's Kidnapped Bride: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

ARYNIt took a few days before Lorenzo finally accepted that both Marcus and Arya were actually living with us. He was the one who suggested Arya stay, said it made more sense so I wouldn’t have to keep making unnecessary trips just to see her. Yet somehow, he stayed irritated all the time, tense and short-tempered, like the decision hadn’t been his. I didn’t get it. I really didn’t. So one morning, I woke up and decided to solve the problem myself. I walked into his office in a pretty sundress. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me “Lorenzo, we’re going on a girl’s trip,” I said casually, tossing my hair over my shoulder like it was no big deal.He gave me that look—half disbelief, half irritation, and all alpha male. “A girl’s trip? And… I’m supposed to just be okay with that?”“Yes. You’re supposed to be okay with it,” I said with a smirk, leaning against the counter like I owned the conversation. “Lily, Arya, Claudia, and me. Just four girls doing what girls do.”He pinched the

ARYN My hands crept up to his shoulders, holding on as my knees went weak. The cheers of my friends, the crash of the waves, it all faded again. There was only the heat of him, the solid reality of his body against mine, and the terrifying, glorious feeling of being utterly consumed.When we broke apart, the world was painted in the golds and pinks of sunset. The rest of the day passed in a fever dream. Lorenzo didn’t leave my side. He was a shadow, a possessive, silent sentinel. He didn’t engage with my friends, didn’t make small talk. He simply was his presence.I tried, for a while, to reclaim some semblance of my earlier freedom. I waded into the surf, letting the cool water lick at my ankles, and laughed a little too loudly at something Claudia said. I felt his gaze on me, a physical touch from twenty feet away. When a group of guys playing volleyball sent a stray ball skittering in our direction, I went to pick it up. One of them, all sun-bleached hair and easy smile, jogged ov

ARYNToday was Lorenzo's birthday and I had been overthinking what to give him as his present so I went to the inbuilt gym to take things off my mind. As expected, Lorenzo was there before me, half naked and training. I leaned against the cold metal of the squat rack, watching him finish his last set of curls. He was wearing a faded grey tank top clinging to the contours of his back and shoulders. The sight was distracting. Fuck, he was distracting. Every vein on his forearm stood out like blue wire under taut skin as he lowered the bar slowly, controlling the weight with infuriating precision.“You’re staring, Aryn,” he said, his voice a low rumble, putting the bar back in its cradle with a quiet clank. He didn’t look at me, but I knew he could feel my gaze.“I’m critiquing your form,” I said, pushing off the rack. “You’re relying too much on your traps. You need to isolate the bicep better, darling.”He turned, the smirk on his face wide and slow, eyes heavy-lidded. “Oh, you want m

ARYNThe first thing I was aware of was the pain. It wasn't a single, locatable thing. It was endless of agony, a dull, throbbing thing in my leg, a sharp, stabbing percussion in my ribs, and a high-pitched, screaming violin inside my skull. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton and sand, and a dry, metallic taste coated my tongue.The lights were too bright I squeezed my eyes shut against the assault, then slowly, carefully, pried them open again. Tubes snaked from my arms, taped down with clear expertise. Where am I?The thought was slow, syrupy, wading through a thick fog that filled my head. This wasn't my room. My room had peeling floral wallpaper and a draft from the broken window pane. This place was clean, quiet, and smelled of poison and bleach.Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle at the edges of the fog. I tried to move, to push myself up, but a fire erupted in my side, stealing my breath and pulling a weak, pathetic whimper from my throat. The movement sent a

LORENZO Numb. That was the only word that applied anymore. It had settled over me like a shroud the moment my Aryn had looked at me with those wide, clear eyes and nothing, absolutely nothing, flickered in recognition. No warmth. No spark of the wicked humor I lived for. Just a blank, terrified canvas staring back at a stranger.She had forgotten me. The one person in this goddamn world I had cleaved to, the one soul who saw past the Don and the power and the fucking fear, was gone. She was there, breathing, her heart beating, but she was a ghost wearing my wife’s face. And that ghost flinched. Every time I came near her in the hospital room, she’d tense, her shoulders drawing up to her ears, her eyes darting away. The raw agony of that instinctual repulsion had driven me out of the hospital, out of the safe room where the doctor had eventually discharged her.“Don’t force anything, Lorenzo,” Dr. Klein had warned, his voice low and firm. “She needs stability, calm. A soft environment