All Chapters of The Mafia Boss's Estranged Bride. : Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

The gunshot was still ringing in Lorenzo's ears when Sofia burst through the door, Isabella a few steps behind her, both of them stopping dead in their tracks at the sight that greeted them. Ferro say slumped against the restraints with Marco still standing over him with the weapon in his hand and no visible intention of lowering it any further than he already had."What happened?!" Sofia screamed, though the sight that greeted her already gave enough answers."Marco shot him," Lorenzo said coldly, still trying to process the sight before him.Isabella's hand flew to her mouth. She didn't scream, didn't step forward, she just stood in the doorway with her eyes moving between the body in the chair and her look she couldn't quite read on her husband's face."He was talking," Sofia said, stepping further into the room despite the smell of gunpowder still hanging thick in the air. "He was in the middle of giving us a name.""I know what he was doing." Marco said finally, lowering the weap

The silence stretched for so long that Andre almost thought she wouldn't answer him at all. Lucia's hand stayed loosely folded in his, trembling faintly with her gaze past his shoulder at nothing in particular, and when she finally pulled away it wasn't sharp or sudden, just the slow and deliberately careful retreat of someone putting distance back between herself and something she'd let get too close."I should finish the bread," she said, turning back to the counter."Mother.""It'll burn if I leave it much longer.""The bread isn't even in the oven yet." Andre's voice stayed gently but firmly, his patience had finally run its course. "You're not walking away from this conversation because of bread."Lucia's hands stilled against the counter's edge, she didn't turn around, and Andre watched her shoulders rise and fall like someone steadying themselves before they said something they'd rather not say at all."What do you want me to tell you, Andre?" she asked finally, still facing th

The market on Tuesday morning looked the way it always had as Lucia when she stepped into it with her basket under one arm. The cobblestones were still damp from the early morning rain and the smell of bread and citrus drifting from the stalls the way it had every Tuesday for longer than she cared to count. Still, nothing had changed and that was the trouble with it. She walked her usual route without thinking, just the way her feet had memorized it over years of repetition. She stopped by the fishmonger first, because he sold out early, then the bakery and whatever fruit looked worth the price that week. It was only when she got to the flower stall at the corner, the one she never actually buys from, that she realized she'd stopped walking and was simply standing there, staring at a bucket of yellow tulips as though they might talk to her if she kept staring at them hard enough. "Signora?" The flower seller, a heavyset woman with flour-dusted forearms from the bakery two stalls

The security officer's voice crackled through the intercom at eleven that morning, and Marco, who had been grimly reviewing the perimetwr logs from the previous night at the kitchen table looked up sharply at the tone of it. "Sir, there's a vehicle at the main gate requesting entry. It's an older model and the driver identifies herself as…" A pause, static crackling faintly. "...as Lucia De Luca." The room went still. Isabella, who had been helping Matteo with a stubborn shoelace on one of the kitchen chairs , froze mid-motion with her fingers still curled around the lace looked up to find Marco already on his feet, the tablet in his hand forgotten on the table's surface. "Confirm it," Marco said into the radio carefully. "Make sure you confirm the identity before anyone opens anything." "We're confirming now, sir. She's alone and there are no visible escorts. She says…" Another longer pause, this time. "She says she was invited." Isabella's breath hitched. She looked towar

By morning on the third day, Lucia had already learned the rhythm of the kitchen well enough to know which cupboard held the good olive oil, she'd learned it not because anyone had shown her but because she'd spent two days quietly watching, the way she'd spent thirty years learning to read rooms from a careful distance, except now the distance had collapsed down to nothing and all that watching had simply turned into belonging.She stood at the counter that morning with flour dusting all over her apron, just the way she had every Thursday in her own small kitchen for years, except this kitchen was larger, brighter, filled with early sunlight pouring through windows that looked out over a garden instead of a narrow street, and instead of cooking for an audience of one who would arrive precisely on schedule and leave precisely on schedule, she was cooking for a house that seemed to wander in and out of the kitchen at will, drawn by smell rather than appointment.Matteo arrived first, a