My Mafia Ex-Boyfriend Went Crazy After Learning of My Death Chapter 03

My Mafia Ex-Boyfriend Went Crazy After Learning of My Death Chapter 03: Assassination and Protection
After the gala, Dante’s convoy left the estate.

I floated on the roof of his armored Maybach, watching the Manhattan neon lights streak past. The late-night streets were quiet, just the low growl of the engine.

Then I felt a chill — not the cold of being a ghost, but that instinctive shiver before danger strikes.

The next second, a black SUV with no plates shot out of the intersection and cut across the front of the convoy.

Then came the gunfire.

It was relentless, popping like a string of firecrackers from every direction.

Dante’s driver cranked the wheel, but another SUV slammed into their side. The bulletproof glass spiderwebbed but didn’t shatter.

I screamed and floated down from the roof to Dante’s side, trying to block the bullets with my body.

The rounds passed right through my spirit and hit the seatbacks. Splinters flew.

I couldn’t stop anything.

I was a useless ghost.

The shootout lasted three minutes.

Dante’s bodyguards returned fire, killing four of the attackers. The rest drove off.

Rocco took a bullet in the arm. Dante’s forehead was sliced open by flying glass. Blood smeared half his face.

He pushed open the mangled car door and stood in the street. He wiped the blood from his eyes with his shirt. His expression was terrifyingly calm.

“It’s the Lucchese family,” he said.

Rocco clutched his bleeding arm and looked at Dante. “We’ve been investigating for three years. Recently we found out that Miss Nora might have had contact with them before.”

Dante was silent for ten seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was flat. “Back to the estate. Call the doctor.”

I followed him home. The family doctor stitched his wound. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t even take numbing meds.

After everyone left, he sat alone in his bedroom in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. In his hand he gripped a photo — the one where we were happiest, both of us laughing. In it, I held up a bellflower with one arm and wrapped the other around his neck, laughing into the camera.

And he looked at me with the softest, most loving eyes in the world.

Back then, we were the happiest people on earth.

He pressed the photo to his chest and dropped his head.

Then suddenly he looked up, straight at where I was floating.

I froze.

He couldn’t see me. But his eyes locked right onto my spot.

“Nora,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Where the hell are you?”

He stood up, walked to the wall, and slammed his fist into the drywall. Left a dent.

“If it really was them, I’ll make them pay.”

I floated beside him and reached out to touch his face. My fingertips passed through his skin. Nothing.

I cried. Do ghosts cry? My tears evaporated into mist the second they formed.

He couldn’t hear me. But he seemed to sense something. He went quiet, then murmured.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

I shouted with everything I had. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

He didn’t hear me.

But he smiled. That was the first time in three years I’d seen him smile.

“Just another hallucination? How could a living person just appear out of thin air?”

“Is it because I… hate her too much?”

No.

Dante, when you learn the truth, please don’t suffer too much.

The next day, Lena came to Dante’s family estate. She brought Luca with her.

She’d seen the news about Dante getting attacked. Not because she worried about him — but because if he died, no one would ever know the truth.

She held Luca’s hand and stood in front of the estate’s iron gate. She rang the bell three times before anyone answered.

Rocco saw her cheap clothes and the five-year-old boy through the camera. He was about to send her away.

“I’m a friend of Nora Rossi,” Lena shouted at the camera. “I need to tell Don Dante something about her.”

The gate opened.

Dante stood on the steps of the main house in a black bathrobe. The gauze on his forehead was stained with blood. He looked down at Lena and Luca, his eyes like ice.

“You’re her friend?”

“Yes.”

“She’s such a gold digger. How does she have a broke friend like you?”

Lena’s face flushed red, but she didn’t lash out. She pulled Luca behind her.

“Mr. Visconti, I’m not here to fight. I came to tell you that Nora —”

“Rocco. Release the dogs.”

Two Caucasian Shepherds charged out from the side gate, snarling and barking at Lena. Luca burst into terrified tears.

Lena didn’t back away. She covered Luca’s ears and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“She gave my son her heart before she died! Don’t you even have the courage to hear me out?!”