THE MAFIA'S NEW BRIDE

A WARNING, DELIVERED

"What do you mean, something happened?" Nora's voice came out thin, breathless, the humiliation of the dinner completely forgotten in an instant. "Camila, what happened to my father?"

"I don't have all the details yet," Camila's hands were shaking around her phone. "Someone called the house line about twenty minutes ago. Said your father was found outside his apartment. Hurt."

The floor seemed to tilt under Nora's feet.

"Hurt how?"

"I don't know, I—"

"Where is he now?" Marco's voice cut through, sharp and immediate, all trace of the cold, careful man from the car ride completely gone.

"Mercy General. They took him in an hour ago."

Marco was already moving, pulling his phone from his pocket, barking something low and fast to whoever picked up on the other end. Nora barely registered the words. Her whole body had gone numb, adrenaline and terror crowding out anything like coherent thought.

This was my fault, she thought. If I hadn't asked questions. If I hadn't pushed him on the phone.

"We're leaving now," Marco said, ending his call, already reaching for his jacket. "Nora" Come on."

She didn't remember the elevator ride down, didn't remember getting into the car, didn't fully surface from the fog of panic until they were already speeding through the city, streetlights blurring past the window in long, smeared streaks of gold.

"Tell me what you know," she said finally, her voice barely steady.

"Not much yet." Marco's jaw was tight, eyes fixed hard on the road. "My people are already at the hospital. We'll know more when we get there."

"This isn't random, is it?" She turned to look at him fully, something cold and certain settling into her chest. "This is connected to whatever you and that man were talking about. The debt. The real reason behind it."

He didn't answer right away.

"Marco."

"Yes," he said finally, low, controlled. "It's connected."

"Then tell me." Her voice cracked, raw with fear and fury tangled together. "Tell me right now, because I am done being kept in the dark while people I love get hurt because of secrets nobody will explain to me."

He was quiet for a long moment, hands tight on the wheel, something visibly warring behind his careful expression.

"Your father's debt was never just a simple loan," he said finally, voice low. "It was arranged through a man named Vittorio. He's not someone who operates by normal rules. He's been circling my business for years, looking for leverage. When your father came to him for money, Vittorio saw an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"You." The word landed heavy, ugly, between them. "A connection to me. A way in, close enough to use if he ever needed it."

Nora's stomach turned over slow and sick.

"You're saying I was never really about the debt at all."

"I'm saying the debt was the excuse." His hands tightened further on the wheel, knuckles going pale. "I didn't know the full extent of it when I agreed to the arrangement. I found out after. By then it was already—"

"Already what? Already too late to just let me go?"

"Already dangerous to let you go." He glanced at her, quick, something raw and urgent in his expression that she hadn't seen from him before. "If I'd backed out once I understood what Vittorio was actually doing, he would've found another way to use your family against me. At least this way, you're protected. At least this way, I can keep watch."

"Protected." She let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Is that what tonight was? Protection? My father in a hospital bed because of a war I didn't even know I was part of?"

"That wasn't supposed to happen." His voice cracked slightly, the first real c***k she'd heard from him all night. "I had people watching your father's building. Whoever did this got past them somehow. That's not supposed to be possible."

"Well, it happened anyway." Her voice broke completely now, tears finally spilling over despite every effort to hold them back. "So forgive me if your protection isn't exactly reassuring me right now."

He didn't answer. Just drove faster, jaw locked tight, something dark and dangerous simmering just beneath his controlled surface.

The hospital had a harsh fluorescent light and antiseptic smell, the particular kind of quiet that only exists in places where bad news travels down hallways in hushed, careful voices.

They found her father in a curtained bay, bruised along one side of his face, an IV taped to his arm, looking smaller and older than she'd ever seen him.

"Papa." Nora rushed to his side, taking his hand, careful of the bruising along his knuckles. "Papa, what happened?"

"I'm okay." His voice was hoarse, thin. "I'm okay, Mija, don't worry."

"You're not okay. Look at you." Her voice shook, fear and love and lingering anger all tangled together at once. "Who did this?"

Her father's eyes flicked, quick and terrified, toward Marco standing silent near the curtain.

"Two men," he said finally, his voice dropping low. "They didn't give names. They just said—" He stopped, swallowing hard.

"Said what, Papa?"

"They said to tell Marco Reyes this was a warning." His hand tightened around hers, trembling. "They said next time, it wouldn't just be a warning. Next time, it'd be you."

The words landed like ice water down Nora's spine.

Marco went very still behind her.

"Did they say a name?" His voice was low, controlled, dangerous in a way she'd never heard from him before. "Anything at all?"

Her father hesitated, eyes flicking between them, fear plain on his battered face.

"One of them said something before they left." His voice dropped to almost nothing. "Said to tell you Vittorio sends his regards. Said he's tired of waiting for you to make a decision."

Marco's expression didn't change, not visibly, but something in the surrounding air shifted, cold and sharp and absolutely lethal.

"What decision?" Nora asked, looking between her father and Marco, dread pooling heavy in her stomach. "What decision is he talking about?"

Neither of them answered.

"Marco." Her voice hardened, demanding now. "What decision?"

He finally looked at her, and for the first time since she'd met him, she saw something close to real fear behind his careful control.

"He wants access to something," Marco said quietly. "Something I've refused to give him for years. And apparently, he's decided your father's debt, and you, are leverage enough to finally force my hand."

"Give him what, exactly?"

Marco's jaw tightened, and for a long, tense moment, Nora thought he wouldn't answer at

all.

"Information," he said finally, voice barely above a whisper. "About what really happened to Isabel."