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Chapter 16
Huling Na-update:
2025-04-15 07:00:00ROSA’S POV
The silence in the house after Vicenzo left was maddening.
It wrapped around me like an old, heavy coat, suffocating in its weight and yet impossible to shrug off. The clock on the wall ticked louder than it should, every second a sharp stab to my nerves. Hadn’t I heard Mateo call my daughter’s name? What were they up to? What was going on?
What was worse was that Sofia hadn’t said a word in ten whole minutes. Which, if you knew my daughter, was practically a lifetime.
I peeked over the rim of my teacup, quietly watching her where she sat cross-leg
Kaugnay na kabanata
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 17
VICENZO’S POVIf there was one thing that was certain about me, it is that I’ve been to hell and back. Rosa left me. It was my undoing. My hubris. But here I was sitting in silence, the familiar warmth of hell wrapping around me again. Silence was dangerous. Especially in my world.And tonight, my office was too damn quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the city outside and the soft clink of ice in my glass as I sat there, staring at nothing, thinking about everything.Sofia isn’t mine. I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, trying to process the ache in my chest. How could those blue eyes not be fro
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-15The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 18
ROSA’S POVVicenzo’s mouth on me was my undoing. There was something about that kiss that sent me tethering between sense and wanton need.I didn’t know when I stopped fighting him. Maybe it was when I opened that door and saw him standing there, hard, tall, and dangerous. Or maybe it was when he kissed me like he’d never stopped wanting me, like I still belonged to him. And I wanted to belong to him. I wanted him to make reckless love to me. But the moment Vicenzo’s mouth found my skin, any resistance I thought I had shattered.“Enzo…&rdqu
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-16The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 19
VICENZO’S POVThe first thought that came to my head was Rosa. They had followed me here, they knew where she lived. My blood was boiling with rage and I turned to stare at her door. Rosa knew better than to open it. She was safe, the shot had been for me. I took out my gun and walked calmly to my car. I could still taste the metallic sting of blood in the back of my throat as I gripped the steering wheel, the leather slick against my palm not from sweat, but from the thin line of blood running down my forearm. A graze. Close enough to piss me off.Close enough to remind me someone out there had finally grown the balls to come for me.
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-16The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 20
ROSA’S POVFear gripped me but I knew it would be completely foolish of me to step out the door so I walked to the window and peered outside. I didn’t know I was holding my breath until I let it out. Vicenzo was alive and now he was walking towards his car stealthily and I could tell he was holding a gun.I should’ve trusted my gut.That car the other night, Bianca’s call…I should have known that those were just a herald of things to come. I had thought I was being paranoid but girls like me don’t get to be paranoid. Girls like me get to be right.
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-17The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 21
VICENZO’S POVI watched my father limp towards Don Ricci and watched as they clasped each other’s backs in a hug. They were friends. It was as simple as that. The Moretti House owed its loyalty to the Riccis and vice Vera’s.“These legs don’t make me move so much anymore, my friend but I hear everything, nothing bad with my hearing,” my father was saying. “Ah, Alessio, always eager to talk business. Relax! We’re family or soon to be,” Don Ricci said with a short laugh as he winked at me. My father laughed too but I said nothing and we sat in silence as my mind wandered back to that day I had found my father lying on the cold floor. The day he had lost the use of one leg and I thought of everything that day had made me become. It was in this room that smelled like old leather and older whiskey. The kind of room built to remind you what men like my father were made of with its marble floors and the ornate carvings on the walls. My father and Don Ricci had been talking at length but I
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-17The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 22
ROSA’S POVBianca didn’t answer me but she just twisted her lips like she was trying to hold something back, like the words were too big for her throat.“What did you do?” I asked again, my voice low and tight.She turned her face slightly, pretending like she hadn’t heard me, she was using her silence as some sort of shield but I wouldn’t have it. Not when my daughter was involved. I snapped then and shouted, “If you touched my daughter, I swear…”
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-18The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 23
VICENZO’S POVI slammed the door hard enough to wake up the dead as I stepped into my penthouse, my blood boiling with rage. “Where the fuck is Mateo?” I roared as I stepped into the room, the city lights behind me glaring like fire through the tall windows. The living room was dim, heavy with silence. I didn’t bother shedding my coat, just kept walking, my heart hammering wildly against my chest desperate to burst.Mateo emerged from the hallway, face tight. “I…I’m here, boss.”I crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed him by the collar, shoving him back into the wall so hard the picture frame beside his head fell with a crash.“She’s gone,” I growled. “How is she fucking gone? With the little girl who could possibly be my daughter…you hear that, Mateo? My daughter, Mateo. You want to explain to me how?”His face was flushed red and his hands came up in surrender, struggling under my grip. “Boss, wait… me explain…”“Explain?” My voice cracked. “You were supposed to have e
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-18The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 24
ROSA’S POVAfter what seemed like a lifetime of deciding if to pack some things or not, entering my apartment, leaving with a small bag and Sofia in my arms, a black SUV pulled up in front of me. It stopped just at the edge of the curb, its headlights dimmed, the windows tinted too dark to see inside. I held Sofia tighter, her small fingers wrapped in my coat, and glanced back once at the apartment building we had left behind.I hadn’t cried. Not yet. Not even when I packed everything with shaking hands or when Sofia had asked if we were going to see Enzo. I had told her no and her face had fallen in that quiet way children do when they don’t fully understand, but know enough to feel hurt.
Huling Na-update : 2025-04-19
Pinakabagong kabanata
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 33
ROSA’S POVHow had I gone from being an independent woman struggling to pay my daughter’s hospital bills to his? Vicenzo’s mistress? How had everything fallen apart so fast? I should have known. Should have known the minute I decided to return that I would bump into him.The new apartment was nice. Too nice. The floors were polished, the walls pristine white, and furnished with sleek furniture that had probably never been touched. It had no soul. No warmth. Just the echo of Vicenzo’s control in every detail. Nothing to suggest that it was a home.He’d picked it, no doubt. Had his people furnish it, stock the fridge, arrange the security. I had wanted to do it but he claimed it was too dangerous for me to walk around the city and only he and his men knew the safe places in the city. I hated it all but here I was, trying to settle in with Sofia while pretending this wasn’t just another gilded cage. Sofia was in her room, playing quietly w
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 32
VICENZO’S POV“I am not your bloody mistress, Enzo,” she yelled at me. “I am worth more than that!”I stared at Rosa across the kitchen counter. The rose she brought back from the ball still sat there, proud and red like it meant something.“You are.” I said without missing a beat. “If I can’t have you, no one else will.”She wouldn’t look at me now. She stood with her arms crossed, the calm fire in her eyes daring me to argue again.“I’ll get you the apartment,” I said finally, my voice low. “But there will be rules.”She blinked, wary. “Rules?”I stepped closer. “Only I come to visit. No one else. And when I call, you answer. When I come, you open the door. You still belong to me, Rosa. I won’t have another man breathing the same air as you.”Her jaw tensed, but she didn’t speak. Just nodded once, slowly. Maybe it was compromise. Maybe it was defeat. I couldn’t tell.“And you will do what I say,” I ad
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 31
ROSA’S POVThe air changed before I saw him. I noticed people in the crowd start to whisper and stare at usand I knew that Enzo was about to do something crazy.I turned my head just slightly and there he was, cutting across the dance floor like he owned theroom. His eyes locked on mine, but they weren’t soft. They burned. And they were aimed at DonSalvatore.“May I cut in?” Vicenzo asked, his voice sharp beneath the smoothness. He didn’t try to maskthe disdain on his face.Salvatore didn’t flinch. He merely smiled, charming to the last second, and released me with agentleman’s grace. “Of course, Signor Moretti,” he said, inclining his head. “Though I fearyou’ve interrupted a very good story.”“I’m sure she’ll remember it,” Vicenzo said coolly, already placing his hand at the small of myback. His touch sent a rush up my spine, but I stiffened.Salvatore’s eyes lingered on me for a moment longer. “Ti rivedrò Rosa,” he said in perfectItalian, "I'll see you again, Rosa. Soon.”I
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 30
VICENZO’S POVHer breath hitched under me as her fingers tangled in my hair. Her skin was fever-warm and flushed beneath my mouth. I was high on lust and wanted to consume every part of her as my mouth latched into her nipples, hard and erect. She was beneath me but she wasn’t small. She never had been. She met every kiss, every graze of my teeth with something wilder. Her legs wrapped around me, her back arching, her lips parting with a gasp that made my blood thrum.“Enzo…” she whispered, voice wrecked, pulling me deeper, like she couldn’t get close enough.
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 29
ROSA’S POVI needed a distraction. I was yet to recover from my interaction with Vicenzo in his study and I didn’t think I would be able to face him so I kept busy. That’s what I told myself.I poured cereal for Sofia, wiped down the counter that didn’t need wiping, folded the same towel three times just to have something to do with my hands. I hadn’t seen Vicenzo since last night. Not really. But I felt him, I felt him everywhere.He was a shadow at the edge of the kitchen when I turned too fast. A weight in the hallway when I passed by the study. His presence pulled at me like a thread I didn’t want to tug but couldn’t stop reaching for. U was dro
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 28
VICENZO’S POVI needed to know, I needed her to say it, to clear every doubt in my heart because I wanted to lay in her arms forever. Rosa was my heartbeat, cuore mio.She flinched instead and I saw a shadow pass over her face; my shoulders drooped. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t ask me that.”I frowned. “Why not? It’s a simple question and the answer
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 27
ROSA’S POVI didn’t answer his question. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t tell him everything. Not yet. There was so much that he didn’t know and I wasn’t sure I could say them…yet. Vicenzo’s voice was rough with confusion, anger, and something else I couldn’t name but I couldn’t give him the truth. Not like this.“It’s nothing,” I said quietly, brushing past him. “Forget it.”He stepped into my space, towering, dark eyes scanning my face like he could force out every
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 26
VICENZO’S POVMateo had told me that they had found them and they were bringing them to the penthouse but I was restless and couldn’t wait to lay my eyes on her. Yesterday afternoon when I was making love to her seemed like a lifetime ago now. I heard the soft shuffle of feet hit the marble floor, and I turned just as the door opened and there she was.Rosalinda, pale and silent, with Sofia curled against her shoulder, fast asleep. Her tiny hand clung to Rosa’s shirt like she was afraid the world might split open again. I took one step forward, but Rosa didn’t move. She looked exhausted. Haunted. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
The Mafia’s Runaway Bride Chapter 25
VICENZO’S POVI didn’t say a word because I was boiling inside of me and I knew that saying something to Bianca in that state would catapult her into depression. I just stood there staring at her like the ground had shifted underneath us.Pregnant.Her arms were folded over her bare stomach, but I could see the tremble in her hands. The way her lower lip wobbled, just slightly. She was scared. Not of me—Bianca was strong and didn’t scare easy—but of losing.“You’re lying,” I finally said quietly.&nbs
