Page 173 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
His voice cuts across the stone with ragged insistence. "Gianna, please?—"
The guards pause, waiting for Dante’s nod.
They give him a moment.
Rafa jerks against the men holding him.
He stumbles forward one step before they tighten their grip.
"You don’t understand what you’re doing. This isn’t justice. It’s an execution."
I say nothing.
"You think they’re going to let you go back to being a wife after this? You think the Salvatores won’t hold this over you for the rest of your life?"
I look past him.
The tree line.
The cracked bell tower above the monastery.
Anything but his face.
"I built it for you," he shouts. "For our name. For the girls! I bled for this, Gianna. I bled so you could raise them with something more than servitude in silk sheets."
My stomach tightens like something inside me is folding in on itself.
"I didn’t betray you," he says. "I saved you."
Dante steps beside me.
His presence is calm, anchored, but I can feel the heat radiating from him.
One small tilt of his head, and the guards begin to move again.
Rafa’s voice rises, frantic.
"You know me. You know I never would have hurt them. You know I was never going to let it get that far."
He’s thrown forward.
The open door yawns wide like the final word in a sentence no one wants to finish.
"You said you’d always believe in me," Rafa yells. "You said that!"
His voice is hoarse now, cracking.
"You’re my sister. You’re all I have left!"
He’s shoved into the car.
The door slams shut with finality.
The glass is blackened.
I no longer see his face.
Even then, I hold the tears back.
