Page 104 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
“Even before you knew she was your alibi?”
“Especially before.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, “Good. Because if we make it out of this, and you hurt her—”
“I won’t.” That was the only thing I was sure of.
His phone buzzed. We both jumped. He answered and put it on speaker.
Enrico’s voice came through, cold and smooth like oil. “Luca. I thought you’d never pick up.”
Luca tensed. “It was just one ring, you idiot. Where are they?”
Enrico chuckled. “You’re still so impatient. Come to the warehouse. Do you remember it? Good. Come alone. There is a bomb, so you have exactly thirty minutes, or she and that brat die.”
Click. A bomb. If this was anyone else, I would have assumed them to be bluffing, but this was Enrico.
Luca gripped the wheel tighter, speeding up. “We have to hurry and get to the warehouse. He said there was a bomb. We need to get there before it goes off.”
And for the first time, I knew exactly what I had to do. No more games. No more lies. I couldn’t waste any more time. I texted Dante, and my men were almost an hour out from my location, so I knew it was up to Luca and me now. I told him to inform the police and the anti-bomb squad. He told me I should wait till they got there, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t take that chance and risk their lives.
I had one mission and one thought. I just wanted to get my family back, even if it meant losing everything else.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
LORENZO
I would burn the world for her, even if it meant I burned too.
Smoke clung to the air like sweat on skin, thick and acrid, curling into my lungs as I crouched behind a rusted crate at the back of the warehouse. My heart thudded like a war drum.
I was in. Luca had drawn their attention out front, just like we had planned. No one suspected I was coming in through the rear. Not even Enrico.
My fingers trembled around the grip of the pistol tucked into my waistband. I didn’t want to use it. I hoped I wouldn’t have to. But if anyone got between me and Maria or Matteo, they’d regret it. I kept scrambling through doors, searching for them.
Voices shouted in the distance. I moved quickly, slipping through the shadows, the warehouse walls groaning around me like they could collapse from guilt alone. Every creak sounded like a scream. And then I heard it, Matteo.
“Mamma!”
That boy’s voice could cut through steel.
I followed the sound like it was a lifeline, weaving through crates and metal beams, kicking up dust with every step. I found them. Maria knelt beside Matteo, her arms around him like a shield, her face streaked with dirt and fear and something fiercer, something that said she’d burn the world to save her child.
She looked up. Her lips parted.
“Lorenzo.”
I crossed the room in three strides, adrenaline thundering in my ears. I scanned the room, and I saw it. There were a bunch of metal explosives in a corner of the room, far from their sight and held together with duct tape. Shit!
“Get up. We have to go. Now. There’s a bomb—”
I didn’t have to say it twice. She scooped Matteo into her arms so fast it was like instinct kicked in. There were no questions and no hesitation, just a mother’s grip on her child and fear in her eyes, the kind that spoke louder than any scream.
I took the lead, muscles locked tight, my heart pounding like a trapped animal. I could almost feel the seconds ticking in my skull. Thirty. Maybe forty, if we were lucky. Enrico hadn’t exactly left a countdown timer on the wall like in some cheap action movie. But there was panic in his voice during that call. Yeah, this wasn’t a bluff.
“Stay close. We are getting out alive, trust me,” I muttered, more to myself than them.
We hit the hallway. Every shadow looked like a threat, and every creak in the floorboards made my nerves snap tighter. Matteo whimpered. Maria hushed him, pressing his face to her shoulder, her body curled around him like a shield.
