All Chapters of The Substitute Bride of the Ruthless Mafia Boss: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The rain had stopped, but the air still tasted like rust and gunpowder. I pressed my palm against the cold windowpane, watching dawn bleed into the sky. Behind me, the others moved like shadows—Valerie checking her ammo, Dawson muttering curses as he strapped knives to his thighs, Esther pacing with the precision of a metronome. Ace leaned against the doorframe, his gaze a physical weight between my shoulder blades. Julia’s laugh cut through the silence, sharp as shattered glass. “Nervous, Brie? You look like you’re about to piss yourself.” I didn’t turn. “Save your energy. You’ll need it to scream when this goes sideways.” “Optimism’s a bad look on you,” she drawled, chains clinking as she shifted. “But then again, so’s martyrdom.” Valerie slammed her magazine into place. “You’re one to talk. At least she’s not hiding behind a wedding ring and a dead man’s name.” Julia’s smile faltered. For a heartbeat, I almost pitied her. Alm

The smoke clung to my lungs like a second skin. I crouched behind the shattered remains of a stone pillar, Ace’s grip bruising my wrist. Valerie’s coughs echoed through the rubble. “We need to move!” Dawson barked, hauling Julia up by her collar. “Unless you’re volunteering as Haemir target practice.” Esther limped into view, blood streaking her temple. “Tunnels are collapsing. East exit’s our only shot.” Ace’s eyes locked on mine. “You lead.” I swallowed the tremor in my voice. “Stay close. And someone gagged Julia before she started quoting Shakespeare.” Julia smirked, ash coating her bobbed hair. “*Once more unto the breach, dear friends*—” Valerie shoved a scrap of fabric into her mouth. “Not. Another. Word.” *** The forest swallowed us whole, moonlight slicing through pine needles. I counted steps to steady my pulse—*eleven, twelve, thirteen*—until Esther grabbed my shoulder. “The

The safe house door creaked like a warning, but the silence inside was worse. No gunfire. No Julia cackling over a new scar. Just dust motes floating in the stale air and Ace’s boots scuffing the floorboards behind me. “Home sweet hell hole,” I muttered, toeing a bullet casing under the couch. Ace tossed his keys onto the cracked kitchen counter. “Could’ve been a grave.” “Poetic.” “Practical.” He didn’t look at me, but his voice softened. “You’re alive.” I kicked off my boots, the leather still damp from the river. “Barely.” “Barely enough.” The fridge hummed like a dying insect. I yanked it open—empty except for a half-rotten lemon and a bottle of vodka. “Charming.” Ace leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. His shirt clung to his chest, still streaked with river mud. “We’ll restock tomorrow.” “*We*? Since when do you grocery shop?” “Since you nearly stabbed Esther for s

I didn’t sleep that night.Maybe it was the threat of betrayal hanging heavy in the air. Maybe it was the memory of Ace’s arms around me, warm and protective. Or maybe it was the fact that tomorrow night, we were walking straight into a meeting that could either end in a deal… or a bullet.By the time morning hit, I’d made two cups of coffee, none of which I drank. I just stood in the kitchen, staring at the steam as it curled and vanished, the way peace always seemed to in this world.Esther was the first to stir, stomping into the kitchen like she owned every tile.“You look like shit,” she greeted, pouring herself coffee from my untouched mug.“Morning to you too,” I muttered.“Are you up all night writing your will or just thinking about how to kill Gideon more creatively?”I shrugged. “Bit of both.”She sipped, then grimaced. “This is awful.”“Didn’t make it for the taste.”Ace came in next, shirtless and still half-asleep, his buzzed hair tousled in a way that made me ache a lit

The safehouse felt too quiet.Not the comforting kind. The kind that feels like something is creeping just out of view. That haunting hush after the storm, when you’re not sure if you survived it or if this is just the beginning of something worse.I sat at the window, staring out at the street where nothing moved. Not even the wind.Valerie dropped a granola bar in my lap. “Eat something before your stomach eats itself.”I looked at it like it was a foreign object. “I’m not hungry.”“You say that every time,” she muttered, plopping down on the armrest of the couch beside me. “And then two hours later, you’re raiding the kitchen like a raccoon.”I tore open the wrapper anyway. “Only because you hide the good stuff.”Valerie smirked. “I don’t hide them. I strategically misplace them.”Esther walked in, still drying her hair with a towel. “If either of you touches my chocolate stash, I’ll put a bullet in your coff