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Home / Mafia / SUBSTITUTE BRIDE FOR THE MAFIA DON / Chapter 421 - Chapter 430

All Chapters of SUBSTITUTE BRIDE FOR THE MAFIA DON: Chapter 421 - Chapter 430

445 Chapters

Chapter 174

Andrea's POVDahlia led me down a cool stone hallway, our footsteps soft on the old worn floors, and then she pushed open a door and brought me into the baby's room.And oh, it was beautiful. The whole room was done in soft, gentle white — white walls, sheer white curtains drifting lazily in the warm breeze coming through the open window, a little white rocking chair tucked into the corner, soft white blankets folded neatly over the rail of the cot. A mobile of tiny stitched clouds and stars hung above the crib, turning slowly. Sunlight came pouring in through the gauzy curtains and lay across everything in long warm golden bars, catching the dust motes drifting in the air. It smelled of clean laundry and baby powder and something faintly sweet.It looked like a room an angel might live in.Which, of course, was exactly right. Because an angel did live here.Dee crossed the room to the little white cot and leaned over the rail, murmuring something soft and low, and when she straighten

Chapter 175

Andrea's POV"I'm so glad," I said, and I meant it with every single piece of me. "I'm so, so glad, Dee. You deserve this. You deserve all of it." Then, more gently, softer: "But what about you? How are you really doing? Not the baby — I can see she's perfect. You. How are you, really?"She let out a long slow breath, and gave me a small, honest, tired smile."It's beautiful," she said. "It really, truly is. Being her mother — it's the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life. I look at her and I don't even have words for it." She paused, and her smile turned a little rueful. "But I won't lie to you. It's also completely overwhelming. She's so small, and so new, and I'm terrified all the time that I'm going to get something wrong. That I'll miss something. That I won't be enough for her." She reached out and gently straightened the little blanket tucked around Dove. "I didn't exactly have the best example of what a mother's supposed to be, you know? So I'm a

Chapter 176

Dante's POVAfter Dahlia and Andrea disappeared down the hall toward the baby's room, their voices fading into soft laughter, I turned to Luca."I need to talk to you," I said. "Alone."Something moved behind his eyes. He knew me too well — better than anyone alive, really — and he heard the weight sitting under those few words. He studied my face for a second, then gave a short nod."Come with me."I followed him through the old stone house, our footsteps echoing off the worn floors, until we reached his study. It was a beautiful room, the kind of room that had held a hundred years of serious conversations — dark wood everywhere, tall windows thrown open to the vineyards rolling gold and green in the afternoon sun, shelves of old books climbing the walls, the whole place smelling of leather and paper and dust. He crossed to the big desk by the window and lowered himself into the chair behind it, and gestured to the seat across from him."Sit.""I'm fine standing," I said.He looked a

Chapter 177

Dante's POVI'd rather stand here having finally said it, I thought, than live one more day as the coward who never did.The gunshot cracked through the room, enormous, deafening, ringing off the old stone walls.And I waited.Nothing came.I opened my eyes.The gun was no longer at my forehead. It was pointed past me, at the wall, a fresh hole punched clean through the old plaster, a thin drift of white dust sifting down through the golden light. And Luca was staring at me with an expression I had never once seen on his face in all the years I'd known him.Surprise. Real, genuine, undisguised surprise."You didn't flinch," he said slowly, almost to himself. "You stood there ready to die for her and you didn't even flinch.""No," I said. "I didn't."He lowered the gun the rest of the way, let his arm drop to his side, and shook his head slowly, something almost like wonder settling over his hard, scarred face."I spent my whole life believing love was a weakness," he said quietly. "A

Chapter 178

Dante's POVAfter our talk in his office — after the gun, and the blessing, and the resolve that had settled hard and certain in my chest — Luca clapped me once on the shoulder and said, "Come. Come and meet my daughter."And there was so much pride packed into the way he said my daughter, so much warmth from a man who spent most of his life giving away nothing at all, that it made something ache deep in me.I followed him back through the old stone house, down the cool shadowed hallway, toward the baby's room. The door stood open. Warm golden light spilled out of it into the corridor, pooling on the worn stone floor, and I could hear soft voices drifting out — Dahlia's and Andrea's, low and gentle, the hushed careful way people talk around a sleeping child.We stepped inside.The room was all soft white. White walls, white curtains stirring lazily in the breeze from the open window, sunlight lying across everything in long warm golden bars. Dust motes drifting slow through the light.

Chapter 179

Dante's POVI would kill for her. That was the first clear thought that came, plain and absolute and immediate. This tiny bundle asleep against my chest — I would kill anyone who ever raised a hand toward her. I would burn the whole world down to the ground. I would put my own body between her and any danger that ever came for her, without a heartbeat's hesitation, and I would call it the easiest trade I'd ever made. The ferocity of it stunned me. I'd known I was capable of violence my whole life. I hadn't known I was capable of this — this fierce, tender, world-rearranging thing that had just detonated quietly in my chest over a sleeping baby.Right there, standing in that white sunlit room with Dove breathing slow and warm against me, I understood with total certainty that this little girl was going to have me completely, utterly, hopelessly wrapped around her tiny fingers for the rest of my natural life. Uncle Dante. God help me. She'd only have to cry once and I'd give her anythin

Chapter 180

Dante's POVI took a deep breath, standing there among the roses in the golden evening light, and I finally said the thing I'd been too much of a coward to say the last time she asked."You asked me a question once," I said. "Back in New York. You asked me if I loved your daughter." I met her eyes and held them steady. "And I couldn't answer you. I stood there like a fool and said nothing at all, and I have regretted it every single day since. So let me answer you now. Properly. The way I should have done it then."Her hands stilled where they were folded in front of her. She went very quiet, and very still, and she watched me with those steady eyes so much like Andrea's."I love her." My voice came out rough and low, and I didn't try to smooth it over. "I'm in love with Andrea. I have been for years. Since the very first time she came to New York. Since she tripped and fell flat on her face on that airport floor and looked up at me all furious and embarrassed and beautiful, with her

Chapter 181

Dante's POV"I love your daughter more than I love my own life. More than anything. And I'm not asking you to just trust that, not easily, not after everything I've already done to her. I know I have to earn that back, from her and from you both. But I'm standing here asking you for your blessing. Because Andrea deserves a man who is brave enough to fight for her, out loud, in front of the whole world." My voice steadied. "And I am finally that man. I'm ready to be him. For her. For the rest of my life."For a long, long moment, Mrs. Marino said nothing at all.She just looked at me, the tears sliding down her face, the roses nodding gently around us in the warm evening breeze, the last of the golden light going soft and rose-colored over the garden walls. Somewhere the fountain trickled on. A bird called out and went quiet.And then she reached out and took both of my hands in hers, and squeezed them tight — tighter than I'd have thought her small hands could."Do you know," she said

Chapter 182

Dante's POVI found Andrea still in the nursery, sitting in the little white rocking chair with Dove cradled in her arms, Dahlia perched on the arm of the chair beside her, the two of them bent close over the baby in the last of the soft golden evening light.I stopped in the doorway.And my heart was going harder than it had when Luca held a gun to my forehead an hour ago. I'd stood there and faced down a loaded weapon without flinching. And now, faced with this — a woman in a rocking chair — I could barely make myself breathe."Andrea," I said. My voice came out lower than I meant it to. "Could I speak to you? In private?"Because I wanted her to have the choice. That mattered to me more than almost anything — that I wasn't cornering her, wasn't backing her into a wall, wasn't forcing a single thing on her. If she said no, then I would wait. I would wait a day, a week, a year, however long it took. But I wanted to ask her honestly, out in the open, and let her be the one to decide.

Chapter 183

Dante's POV"When I crashed that car — I wasn't just being reckless, though I was. I was coming after you. I woke up and I read your message, the one you sent from the runway, and I couldn't breathe. The thought of you flying away believing that I didn't love you — I couldn't stand it for one more second. So I got in that car to catch you at the airport. To finally, finally do the brave thing. And the last thought I had before everything went black—" My voice broke clean apart. "It was you. Just you. Your face. And this grief bigger than the fear, bigger than the pain — that I'd wasted it. That I'd had the single best thing that ever happened to me, the only good thing, and I'd thrown it away because I was too afraid to say three words out loud. And you were never going to know that you'd been right about me the whole time. That I did love you. That I always, always did."The tears were streaming down her face now, running freely, and she made no move to wipe them, and she still hadn'

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