Page 87 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
Lorenzo had changed. Or maybe I was just now seeing him for who he truly was. Not the boy who used to tease me when I had pigtails, not the man who had disappeared when I needed him most, but someone who had sacrificed so much, his freedom and his life for the people he loved. Conversing with his mother and seeing how he adored her made me see him from an angle he tried so hard to hide. And now he had chosen me just like I did him. That thought alone sent a giddy thrill through me.
And my son adored him. That had always been my biggest restraint, the thing that held me back from even considering another man. I needed someone my son would love and someone who would love my son. And Lorenzo had slipped into our lives effortlessly as if he had always belonged there. Maybe he did.
Of course, Luca would grumble about me being with his best friend. But he would learn to live with it. Maybe this would finally force him to stop hovering over me like an overprotective bodyguard and find a girlfriend for himself.
“Maria, sit,” Uncle Enrico’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts the second I stepped into the living room. Luca was already seated, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. That was never a good sign.
“What is it?” I dropped my bag on the chair, feeling a slight unease creeping up my spine.
Enrico’s expression was grim, but there was something else there, something unsettling. Excitement? Anticipation? “I have something to show you both.”
Luca sighed, rubbing his temples. “If this is another one of your dramatic—”
Enrico raised a hand, silencing him. “I’ve been looking into who killed your father, as you and Luca already know. I know Luca was given the condition to do the same, but I felt it was my obligation.”
Obligation? Since when had Enrico ever cared about morality? The man thrived in murky waters. Now, he wanted to act like he had a moral compass? I almost laughed but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
“And?” My voice came out more impatient than I intended.
Enrico’s lips curled into a smirk. “I found out who Shade is.”
Shade.
That name alone sent a chill through me. It had been hovering over my life for years like a dark cloud. The ghost of a man who had haunted my family and destroyed it. My heart pounded against my ribs.
Shade. He was also the same man I had slept with and was the father of my son—I think. Considering there were a lot of bleary facts about that night, I wasn’t sure.
I could barely breathe with the number of times his name had been mentioned in a single minute. And now Enrico was saying he had a face to put to the name? I gripped the edge of the couch, feeling like the air had been sucked out of the room.
Luca straightened. “You’re serious?”
Enrico reached into a small bag and pulled out a tape. He held it up, waving it slightly. “See for yourself.”
My stomach twisted into knots as he placed it into the player. The screen flickered, and the grainy video played. There was a lit room and a man standing in the center. He wore a black mask, the same mask I had seen him in that night. Shade.
I gritted my teeth, watching the screen, waiting for the moment that would change everything.
And then it happened.
Slowly, almost methodically, the man reached up and pulled off the mask.
A face was revealed. The air left my lungs so violently that I thought I might pass out. The room around me faded. The voices blurred. All I could see was the screen. It was him. Lorenzo.
This is not true. I stared, frozen in a single moment that felt like an eternity. Lorenzo was Shade.
The man I had just kissed, the man who had just told me he wanted me, was the same man responsible for my father’s death.
A choked sound escaped me. I wasn’t sure if it was a gasp or a sob. My fingers dug into my thighs. No. No, this couldn’t be right. There had to be an explanation. There had to be a mistake. But the image on the screen told me otherwise.
Luca shot to his feet, his chair scraping against the floor. “No. No way. This has to be fake.”
Enrico leaned back, watching us like a predator enjoying his prey’s panic. “It’s not. That’s the truth. Your best friend has been lying to you, Luca. And Maria…well, I think we both know what this means for you.”
I wanted to scream. To cry. To run.
Memories rushed back in fragments, colliding like a storm in my head: he nights I had spent wondering about Shade, the pain, the betrayal, the loss, my father’s lifeless body, and the anger that had swallowed me whole.
And now, Lorenzo.
