All Chapters of The Mafia's Arranged Bride : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

NicoNaples, Two Months LaterThe rain hadn’t stopped for hours. It hammered against the roof of my broken-down Fiat, leaking through the cracks in the rusted frame, dripping onto the floorboard. I sat in the shadows, smoke curling from the cigarette between my fingers, the glow at its tip the only light inside the vehicle. The engine was dead, the heater long gone, but the cold kept me sharp.Across the street, the little liquor store spilled neon against the wet pavement. My gaze flicked to the photograph lying on the passenger seat. A young woman stared back at me, gaunt and frail, her shoulders hunched as if bracing against a world that had already taken too much from her. She had Mira’s eyes.I tapped ash into the tray and leaned back, watching.The door creaked open at last, and there she was. The woman from the photo. She hesitated under the store’s awning, scanning the street before tugging an old umbrella open. Then she started walking briskly, her head bowed, her thin frame

Gianna“And I might know a place that’s not listed there.” I stared wide-eyed at Amara. She seemed a bit distracted, as she always did when overworking herself.“Amara, what is it?” I asked, my entire almost-kiss-with-Maximus situation slipping to the back of my mind instantly, dwarfed by the urgency thrumming in my chest. I will apologize to him later though I was not sure if I needed to.“How about you get changed first and then we talk? You’re… kind of wet, Gi,” she said, nodding toward my damp clothes.I glanced down and realized she was right. My clothes were a tad wet.“I’ll be down in five,” I said, my voice tight with anticipation as I ran upstairs to my room. I quickly grabbed my night clothes from my walk-in and made a beeline for the bathroom.I peeled off my soaked clothes, shivering as the cold fabric fell away, then slipped into my soft nightwear. The familiar texture was a small comfort against the storm raging both outside and inside me.I pressed my hands to the vanity

NicoI can’t believe she found me here. I had been watching them through the CCTV for more than an hour now, and I was certain they wouldn’t find the entrance, give up, and go, but Gianna…she wasn’t ready to give up. And now here she was, standing in my pathetic excuse for a room, staring at her own photograph.I could have run, hidden in any nook of this god-forsaken place, and she would never have found me. But I…my urge to see her got the better of me. I knew I missed her, but when I saw her face in the CCTV and then heard her voice, even if it was a curse…the ‘how much’ really hit me.Plus, she needed to see me so she could just give up and live her life. Gianna was stubborn as hell, and if she was here, that meant she was far from living her life the way she was supposed to.And that was the whole point of my leaving. So she can be free from my mess. And I would not need to worry about her safety or even others, including the Ammassari, and figure this shit out.But she managed t

NicoI slammed the room door harder than I meant to once I got back. The empty beer bottles under my boot scattered and rolled across the floor with a hollow clatter. For a second, I just stood there, breathing too fast, palms slick, the anger inside me a live thing I couldn't quiet.“Fuck!” I shouted until the sound left my throat raw and useless.I wanted to break everything in the room—the bed, the board, the map with its needles and frayed strings. Instead, I stumbled, stumbled like a man who'd forgotten his own feet, and collapsed onto the mattress. My head hit my hands, and for a long, terrible minute, I couldn't tell where the fury ended and the pain began.It hurt in places I didn't know pain could live. A small, ugly sound—part sob, part laugh—escaped me. I hated that sound. I hated that I let it out. But the tighter I tried to clamp my jaw and harden my chest, the harder that pressure built until something in me gave. I pressed my palms to my eyes until the world went dark, a

“Get out,” I growled, voice deadly quiet now. “Now.”She turned, her hands trembling, and stalked toward the door. But before she left, she stopped and glanced back over her shoulder, eyes brimming with hate and heartbreak.“I was stupid to expect loyalty from a whore’s son,” she spat, her words slicing deep, right where she knew it would hurt. “But don’t forget this, Max—love like the one you’re chasing? It doesn’t save men like you. It destroys them.”The door slammed behind her, leaving me standing there, my chest heaving, jaw aching from the slap, blood pounding in my ears.I stood there long after the door slammed shut, my cheek still stinging from her slap, the echo of her words crawling under my skin like acid. Whore’s son. Always back to that. No matter what I built, no matter how high I climbed, that stain followed me everywhere.A growl tore out of me. I grabbed the nearest rail and yanked clothes until hangers slashed like broken ribs. Fabric and leather spilled to the floo