Page 94 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
“Can you please go straight to the point?”
Lorenzo took a deep breath. “The night your father got set up, I got a tip. Someone was trying to steal my merchandise. I hadn’t been in contact with you or Luca for a while. Not since I came back as...” he hesitated as if the word itself tasted bitter, “as Shade.”
I wanted to ask him why he became Shade. But something inside me already knew the answer. I had seen the scars life had left on him and the way the world had forced him to become someone he never wanted to be.
“Go on.”
He exhaled. “This is the hard part, Maria, because I know how it sounds. But I need you to believe me.” His hands clenched into fists as if he were holding something too fragile to break. “That night, I wasn’t anywhere near where your father was. I was at a club with someone. A stranger.”
My stomach twisted. “A stranger.”
“I was there for business, but I was being distracted, and she walked in. My men and I had a deal outside of town. I had spent the evening with her till Dante called. He wanted me to leave the city, the deal, ….”
My mind was spinning. “So, you’re telling me that your alibi...the thing that could prove your innocence...is some mystery woman from a club?” I was struggling to put it all together because I knew what that meant. But my brain was all over the place.
Lorenzo gave a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Pretty ridiculous, right? I have no proof. No name. Just my word.”
I remained silent because my mind was already wandering far. “Maria, please.” His voice was raw. “I can’t lose you. Not like this. Not without you at least believing me.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Because I had no idea what the truth was anymore. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if my heart or my mind was leading me into more danger.
I felt Lorenzo’s gaze on me. Everything inside me crashed at once.
For days, my mind had been tangled in a mess of emotions, but now, standing in front of Lorenzo, everything clicked into place with terrifying clarity. The man I had been with that night, the man who had haunted my dreams, the man who had unknowingly changed my life, he wasn’t Shade.
He was Lorenzo.
The realization knocked the breath out of me. My fingers curled into fists at my sides as my heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“You were the man that night,” I whispered, but my voice came out broken. I had known he was Shade for days, but somehow, I had convinced myself that he wasn’t the Shade I had spent the night with because there was no way the same person could be in two different places at the same time. Somehow, I had convinced myself that he had killed my dad but was not the man I was with.
Lorenzo’s brows furrowed. “Maria?”
I was supposed to say it. Just say it. Get it out like ripping off a bandage. But the words tangled in my throat like thorns. How was I supposed to explain this?
How was I supposed to tell him that I was his alibi? That the woman from that night, the mystery girl, was me.
I took a shaky breath, staring at the ground. My brain screamed at me to walk away, but my heart was stubborn, my body frozen in place.
Lorenzo moved a step closer, his voice softer now. “Maria, what is going on?”
Just tell him.
“I—” My throat closed up. I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his gaze. “That night at the club, I was there.”
His jaw tensed. “What do you mean, there? Like you came there?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not like that. I wasn’t just there. I was her.”
Confusion flickered in his eyes. I saw a man who was struggling to comprehend and catch the bomb I was about to throw at him. “What are you saying?”
I licked my lips, my heart hammering against my ribs. “I was the girl. The mystery girl.”
Lorenzo went still.
Not just still—frozen.
He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe. It was as if my words had slammed into him and buried him beneath it.
