Signed To The Mafia King - Chapter 78: Chapter 78

ALINA
My hands trembled so violently that the box nearly fell from my fingers.
The beeping filled my ears like a countdown to death. My breath hitched.
I tried to suck in air, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. The room was shaking around me.
The words on the note blurred before my eyes, but they were already burned into my memory.
I staggered backward, knocking into my desk. My knees gave out and I sank to the floor, the cold tile biting through my dress.
Was this real? Was this actually happening?
“Alina!” Ethan’s voice sounded miles away. “We have to move now!”
But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even blink. My whole body felt frozen in place, locked in that moment with the ticking sound of death.
I had just tried on the most beautiful dress of my life.
And then, someone wanted to make sure I wouldn’t live long enough to wear it.
“We need to get her out of here. Now. I think she’s in shock,” he told Mikhail, already moving toward me.
Mikhail was already dialing someone. His face was pale, jaw tight, eyes moving from the ticking box to me. “Mr Marino? You need to come to the club. Someone dropped a bomb and a note for your wife.”
I froze again at the word bomb.
It sounded too foreign; something that shouldn’t be happening to me.
“What if it goes off?” I whispered, my voice cracking under the pressure. “What if it’s really a bomb and it explodes? We’re still here!”
Ethan stepped close, gently holding my elbow.
His usually cool expression was gone, replaced with concern. “We don’t know for sure yet, but we’re not going to wait around to find out.”
Mikhail had already moved to the intercom, speaking quickly to staff. “Get everyone out. Quietly. Now. The club needs to be empty.”
He turned back to us. “Good thing it’s daytime. If this had been the evening crowd,…” He shook his head and didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
If the club had been filled with party goers, it would have been a disaster.
As we rushed toward the back entrance, my legs finally found strength again, but my mind was still spinning.
The last time I was in this building, I’d gotten into that fight with Riot Alvarado.
Could this be his family's retaliation?
I glanced at Ethan. “Do you think… Do you think the Alvarados did this?”
He didn’t answer immediately, but glanced at Mikhail, whose jaw ticked. “Could be,” Ethan said at last, his voice tight. “But whoever it is wants you to be scared.”
I sniffled, shaking my head. I already knew that. I was scared.
But I didn't think this was the Alvarados. It didn't seem like something they would do.
A single tear fell from my wet eyes, then another.
By the time we stepped outside into the sunlight, I was shaking. Not just from fear, but also from fury.
First, I had gotten a single bullet just before my wedding ceremony, and now they had sent a bomb. What were they planning? What would they send next?
The thought was too much. My vision blurred again, and I barely heard Ethan’s voice as he said something to Mikhail about securing the perimeter.
My hand trembled as I pulled out my phone and called Luca.
He answered on the first ring.
“Alina?”
“It’s real,” I choked out. “I think someone is trying to kill me.”
There was a pause. Then his voice came hard and fast. “I’m on my way. Don’t go anywhere.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.
Barely five minutes passed, but it felt like hours before a sleek black car came screeching to a halt at the curb.
Luca jumped out before it fully stopped, his eyes locking onto mine immediately.
I didn’t wait. I ran straight to him.
His arms wrapped around me, and the dam inside me finally broke.
I sobbed against his chest. “I’m scared,” I cried. “It was right there on my desk, Luca. Right there in my hands.”
His arms tightened, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other wrapped around my waist like he was afraid someone would rip me from his arms.
“They won’t touch you,” he said, voice low and deadly. “I swear on my life, Alina, they won’t ever touch you again. Wait here, I'll go check the box.”
I didn’t want him to go in.
I held the front of his shirt like a child. “Luca, please…what if it explodes?”
He didn’t answer me right away. His eyes were fixed on the building and I saw the war waging behind them.
The ruthless man I married wanted to tear the building apart to find whoever dared to threaten me.
“We’ll stay here,” he said at last, pulling me to his side, “until we’re sure.”
We waited inside his car. An hour passed.
There was no explosion. I watched the clock on the dashboard like it might suddenly flash zero, but nothing happened.
I started to feel silly, like maybe I had overreacted.
Luca ran a hand through his hair and finally turned to me. “I need to see it for myself. I need to know exactly what was in that box.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
His voice was firm and absolute.
“You’ve had enough of a scare today, Sunshine.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against my temple. “Wait here. Please.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the look in his eyes made the words shrivel in my throat.
He wasn’t just asking me, he was begging me not to follow.
So I watched him go. Watched the wide black doors swallow him whole.
And I waited.
Again.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
Then fifteen.
My anxiety bubbled over, hot and acidic. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sit still while Luca was inside, possibly facing whatever threat had been meant for me.
It was my office. My building. My fight.
I slipped from the car and walked over to the office. Luca was there.
So were five of my men, standing in a loose circle just outside my office door. Tension dripped off them like sweat.
Luca stood in the center, holding the box in both hands like it had personally offended him.
When he saw me, his face didn’t soften. It hardened.
He looked like the man people whispered about; the one whose name made rivals shake in their shoes.
He looked like The Monster.
“Luca,” I breathed, stepping toward him.
He met me halfway. “It’s not a bomb,” he said, voice like ice. “Not a real one.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “What?”
He held out the open box.
The wires were still there. The timer too. But it wasn’t beeping anymore.
None of it had been real. Whoever had sent it depended on the knowledge that I wouldn't know what a real one looked like.
He closed the box with a loud snap and looked up at me with eyes that burned.
“They’re playing with you,” Luca growled, his jaw clenched. “Testing the waters. Seeing how far they can scare you before they attack. I'll send this to be tested. Maybe we'll find their fingerprint. Or anything else we can use.”