I Picked A Blind Match Husband — My Adopted Brother Showed Up With A Bomb Chapter 05
The Bomb
Luca’s fist hits the windshield, and cracks spread across the glass.
“Why are you marrying him?! Just to hurt me?!”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Two years away, and I still can’t read this man. The same eyes that looked at me with ice-cold distance in the chapel now burn with something desperate and raw.
His voice breaks. “I know you’re angry. I know you hate Sophie and the baby. Just come back with me. I’ll explain everything. Please.”
I look at him steadily without blinking.
Don’t you think it’s a little late, Luca Renaldi?
“No.”
That single word snaps whatever’s left of his sanity.
He tears open his jacket.
Explosives are strapped across his chest, wired and armed. A dead man’s switch under his thumb.
Damien’s expression goes ice-cold. He shoves me behind him and barks at the convoy: “Fall back! Everyone scatter! NOW!”
Dead silence fills the road, with nothing but wind moving through the dust.
Luca’s thumb hovers over the trigger, and his eyes lock on mine, desperate, unhinged, and shattered beyond repair.
“Sera. Come with me now.”
“Or I blow everyone here to hell.”
I look at Damien. He’s shielding me like I’m made of glass, standing firm with his shoulders squared and not a single tremor in his body.
Good. Most men see a bomb and piss themselves. This one didn’t flinch.
I pat his shoulder. He steps aside.
I walk straight toward Luca.
Every person on that road stops breathing.
My cold, steady fingers settle over the explosives strapped to his chest.
“You want to blow us up?” My voice is flat. Almost bored. “I’m right here. Press it. Go ahead.”
“If not, get out of my way. I have a wedding to get to.”
Luca stares at my face, calm and indifferent, as if I’m waiting for a traffic light to change.
His pupils contract. His chest heaves.
Blood erupts from his mouth, bright red as it spatters down his chin and shirt.
“Sera… how can you be this cruel to me?”
The next second, Damien pulls me back and steps in front of me.
He rips the explosive vest clean off Luca’s body.
Then he straps it onto himself and looks at Luca with a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Go ahead, old friend. Press it.”
“If you don’t, I’m taking my wife home.”
Luca’s hand hovers over the trigger.
Once.
Twice.
He doesn’t press it.
Behind him, dozens of armed men from his crew flood in and spread across the road.
Damien snaps his fingers, the sharp sound cutting through the air.
From both sides of the road, Marchetti soldiers emerge, moving quickly and silently, all of them fully armed. They form a wall, perfectly mirroring Luca’s men.
The air turns to gasoline waiting for a spark.
Luca wipes the blood from his mouth. “Take her. By force if you have to.”
Damien doesn’t flinch. Those fox eyes narrow, and when he speaks, his voice carries the kind of quiet that cuts deeper than shouting.
“Think very carefully, Luca.”
“That stunt you pulled in the chapel, dragging a pregnant nobody in front of the Don and begging to swap out his daughter like a defective product, has the entire East Coast still laughing about it.”
“Today is a union between the Marchetti family and the Ferrante family. It is legitimate and sanctioned by both Dons. And you’re an adopted son with a borrowed last name. On what grounds do you think you can stop this?”
His gaze sweeps over Luca’s men. Some of them are already shifting, exchanging uneasy glances.
“So what’s it going to be? Stay a Ferrante, keep your name, keep your crew — or tear it all apart today and lose everything?”
Luca stands frozen, his face white as paper.
“One more thing.” Damien’s voice drops. “You know Sera better than I do. Once she makes up her mind, not even God himself could change it.”