Page 98 of The Wrong Mafia Bride
Someone I love is going to die, and it is going to be my fault.
Unless.
"I need a third option. A way to free Erin and Dolan without Patrick’s shadows seeing me move. If I can get them to safety—if I can just get them past the city limits—then I can stay here and face whatever hell Patrick has waiting for me. I can handle his wrath. I’ve handled it my whole life. But I can't let them die for my silence. Unless I..."
Unless I stop fighting the men in this house and start using them.
What? Fight Patrick? He is the head of the Irish mafia now, surrounded by loyal men, protected by the same organization that raised me. I am one woman with a set of skills designed for protection, not assassination. Even with Dante, Gabriel, and Luca backing me, going after Patrick directly is suicide.
But so is planting that bomb.
So is doing nothing.
A car passes too close, headlights sweeping across me, and I flinch instinctively, my heart jumping into my throat. Just someone driving home. Not Patrick. Not danger. Just a car.
I am losing it. Completely losing it.
The walk stretches on, each block bleeding into the next. I pass the Italian restaurant—Vittorio's, with its red awning and windows still lit despite the hour. The bodega comes next, the orange cat curled in its usual spot in the window display, sleeping peacefully among scattered newspapers. Then the park, dark and vaguely threatening with its clusters of shadows and the occasional flare of a lighter.
My feet carry me forward on autopilot, my body knowing the route even as my mind continues its endless spiral of impossible choices and terrible outcomes.
I think about Erin, probably asleep right now in her room at the O'Connor estate, one hand resting protectively on her stomach where a baby is growing. Does she know how much I love Dante? That I don’t know if I can sacrifice them for her? Does she know this decision isn’t as easy as it used to be? I miss the days when I only loved her. The days when living without her felt like the end of the world. Like I’d rather be dead than alive without her, but now I have Gabe, Luca and Dante. If I died for her they would never forgive me.
I think about Seamus, lying in his coffin at the funeral home, his hands folded peacefully on his chest. Would he be proud of the choice I am about to make? Or would he be disappointed that I am choosing my own happiness over the family he built?
I think about the bomb in my closet, wrapped in innocent brown paper, containing enough explosives to turn the Salvatore mansion into rubble and everyone inside it into?—
No. Do not think about that.
But I can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop imagining the explosion, the fire, the destruction. Can’t stop seeing Dante's face, Gabriel's steady gray eyes, Luca's infectious smile—all of it gone in an instant because Patrick handed me a bomb and told me to choose.
The gas station appears in the distance like a beacon—harsh fluorescent lights cutting through the darkness, the red and yellow Shell sign bright enough to hurt my eyes. I have been walking for twenty-seven minutes according to the clock I glimpsed in a shop window, my legs burning with the exertion, my lungs aching from breathing cold air.
I push through the doors, the bell overhead chiming cheerfully despite the hour, and the blast of heated air hits me like a wall. The store is mostly empty—just a clerk behind the counter reading a magazine with the glazed expression of someone working overnight shifts, and the ever-present hum of refrigerators along the back wall.
I move on autopilot toward the pharmacy section, my eyes scanning the shelves until I find what I am looking for. Pregnancy tests. Only two brands available at this hour, both promising quick and accurate results.
I grab the one in the pink box because it is closest, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop it twice before making it to the counter.
The clerk—a young guy with acne and tired eyes—barely glances up as he rings it up. "Two forty-nine."
I fumble in the pocket of Luca's hoodie, pull out crumpled bills I shoved in there earlier, count out three singles with numb fingers. He hands me back the change, drops the test into a small paper bag, and immediately returns to his magazine.
"Bathroom?" My voice comes out rough, barely used.
He jerks his thumb toward the back corner without looking up.
I walk to the bathroom on legs that feel disconnected from my body, push through the door into a space that is exactly as disgusting as I expected—harsh overhead lighting that makes everything look sickly and yellow, dubious stains on the linoleum floor, graffiti covering the stall door, a mirror so scratched and dirty I can barely see my reflection.
But it has a lock. That is all that matters.
I engage the deadbolt with a decisive click, the sound echoing in the small space, and lean back against the door for a moment, just breathing.
This is insane. I am standing in a gas station bathroom at two-forty-five in the morning about to take a pregnancy test while hiding a bomb in my closet at home and facing an impossible deadline to commit murder.
My life has officially gone off the rails.
I rip open the box with more violence than necessary, the cardboard tearing under my bandaged fingers, and pull out the test. The instructions are printed in tiny font that I have to squint to read in the harsh lighting—or maybe my hands are just shaking so badly the words keep blurring.
