Page 40 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
She searched my face like she was trying to understand.
I smirked, breaking the heaviness in the air. “And besides, if I left, I wouldn’t know that me being surrounded by women made you jealous,”
Maria groaned. “Lorenzo.”
I laughed.
For the first time that night, she smiled.
And just like that, everything she was feeling was making her tension soften, settling into the familiar and easy part of her that I was used to.
Maria leaned against the desk, letting out a long breath. “I still think you’re an idiot.”
I grinned. “I know. No news there.”
And maybe I was. Or I was becoming one for her.
But at that moment, standing there with her, I didn’t care.
Maria’s question still lingered in the air, wrapping around me like a noose.
When did I start all of this? I had given her a generic answer, but the answer wasn’t that simple.
Because the truth was—I hadn’t started anything.
It had started before me. Before I even had a choice.
And suddenly, I wasn’t in my office anymore.
The walls of our home trembled with the weight of my parents’ voices.
“You’re not the man I married, Alessandro Bianchi!” My mother’s voice cracked, raw with rage and heartbreak. She always called him his name when she was angry at him.
I stood outside their bedroom door, too young to understand and too old to ignore it.
My father’s voice was quieter. Tired. “Everything I do, I do for you. For him.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” my mother spat. “You think this is for us? You think we asked for this? I look at you, and I don’t see my husband anymore—I see a monster!”
Silence.
I pressed my ear to the door.
When my father spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Do you think I wanted this? That I had a choice? This world doesn’t let you choose, Isabella.”
“Then leave.” My mother’s voice wavered. “We can leave.”
A bitter laugh. “And go where? You don’t just leave this life, Isabella. You survive it.”
I remember the sound of glass shattering.
“You could have been different,” my mother whispered.
I never heard my father respond.
Maria’s voice pulled me back.
I blinked. The office came into focus—the dim light and the woman standing just feet away, watching me.
