Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
“Mom–”
“Especially with what happened to Dahlia. I can’t watch you every second of the day. I fully supported you when you said you wanted to attend a university in Italy. That had been your dream, and who was I to discourage that… but ignoring me for an entire night? That is completely unacceptable–”
“Mom–”
“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady? No, I don’t even care what excuses you give me. You have to be responsible for yourself, and that includes answering calls and texts from your poor mother! You–”
“Mom!” I shouted in exasperation.
She finally fell quiet, only the sound of breath on the other end as I sighed and answered, “My phone died. I was out most of the night and didn’t get back until late, so I forgot to charge it. I’ll be better at keeping it charged in the future, okay?”
There was silence on the other end so quiet I almost thought she had hung up on me, but I knew my mom better than that.
“Okay,” she finally said, calm again.
“Now, what did you need?” I asked, leaning back on my bed. “Is there an emergency or something?”
“Of course not,” she said. “But I wanted to check on how you and Dahlia were doing. She got released from the hospital, right?”
“Yep,” I said. “She seems to be healing up well, but the pain meds they’ve got her on make her tired a lot. Giovani set her up in a room downstairs so she won’t have to climb the stairs and risk opening her stitches.”
“That’s a relief,” Mom sighed. “That Giovani seems like a nice man. I’m glad he’s taking such good care of you girls.”
In more ways than one.
I thinned my lips so I didn’t say anything I would regret. I had to change the subject, fast.
“Dahlia is scared about attending the university in a few weeks, though,” I said, disappointed at the reminder–not for her, but for myself, mostly.
I had been so useless at helping her conquer her fear. She’d always been the fearless one between us, and I had been the worrier, but with the roles changed, I didn’t know what to do. I was a failure of a best friend for not even noticing how much this was affecting her.
I just assumed she’d be okay like she always was.
“That makes sense,” Mom said softly. “It’ll take time to recover from what she’s been through. Trauma isn’t easy, but just give her the love and support she’ll need. If you guys want to take a year off school and start next year, that would be okay too. It’ll be difficult to start school when all this is still so fresh in her mind.”
“I know,” I admitted softly. “But this is our dream. I don’t want to just give up on it, and I don’t want Dahlia to give up either. She’s been so excited about this for years, and we’re finally here.”
“Well–” Mom hesitated.
I immediately knew what she was going to say.
“Maybe it’d be better if you girls did start next year,” she said, not subtle at all in her hints.
“Mom,” I groaned.
“I want you two to come home. It’s still dangerous over there with those maniacs running around, and you can always go back and start next semester. I don’t want you to rush this and put yourselves in more danger.”
I knew she was right. She was only thinking about us, but I just couldn’t agree.
“Mom,” I told her determinedly, “I know you’re worried, but I’m not leaving. Despite everything that’s happened, I feel like I should stay and see this through.”
My mind was made up.
Just the thought of leaving Italy made my heart ache… especially the sad brown eyes that would come with it.
No, I was going to see this through. No matter what.
*Giovani*
After sending Olivia back to her room, I decided to get a head start on my day. I pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt, clothes that would keep me from standing out, yet, ones that still made me look good.
I wasn’t much of a fashion snob, but I had learned over the years that the best way to go unnoticed was to look just clean-cut enough that people thought I was trustworthy, but not so dressed up that they would remember me.
I looked into the mirror to comb my hair. All my life I hadn’t really given a shit about my looks. I had always thought of myself as a tool to be used, first as a body when I was young and needed to fight, then as a brain as I got older and was given more responsibilities.
But now that I had a beautiful girl like Olivia sneaking into my bed at night, I suddenly found myself taking note of a couple of lines around my eyes and the small gray patches that had worked their way into my stubble before shaving. I knew that what we had transcended looks, but I also knew that she was young and had a lot of life ahead of her.
I worked hard to maintain my body and stay as physically fit as possible, but what would happen when the gray fully took over my hair, or worse, those lines turned into wrinkles that made their way to places she’d only see in the bedroom? Would she regret choosing someone so much older?
A knock on my door broke me out of my thoughts.
“Who is it?” I yelled out, hoping that maybe Olivia had come back by before starting her day.
“It’s me, I’ve got some news,” Alessandro’s smooth voice answered. I was disappointed but not surprised. I knew Olivia was determined to keep everyone from finding out about us. She wouldn’t risk being seen coming to my room when everyone else was up.
I pulled open the door to find Alessandro looking exhausted but proud. I hoped that meant he’d have good news for me.
“Come in, then.”
I shut the door behind him. Although we had carefully vetted every servant who worked in the house, I knew we could never trust them completely. We paid them well enough that I doubted money would get them to talk, but I had heard enough about Dmitri Zaytsev to know that he didn’t use money to get what he wanted. I made a mental note to ask every parent who worked on the compound where their children went to school. It couldn’t hurt to send a few guards to keep watch over them every so often.
“Alright, what have you got?” I asked Alessandro.
“We still don’t know exactly where Dmitri stays permanently, but we managed to locate a Russian safe house. It looks like they have about six guys living there now. My team and I have kept eyes on it since last night. There hasn’t been much movement yet, but I can work it out so that we have someone there around the clock.” He was his usual cocky self, but he seemed to be focused on something other than his own gain for once.
“That’s excellent. Does your team know what Dmitri looks like? If he ever shows up there, I want that bastard dead by any means necessary.”
If Alessandro could play nice, so could I. Maybe it would be possible for us to put everything that had happened between us into the past. I was still pissed that the only reason he had even been looking into any of this was because of a shitty blackmail attempt, but if he could actually be good at the job, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
“That’s the problem. This place is right downtown. If we go in there, and shots are fired, the police will be called like that,” he snapped his fingers to emphasize what he meant. “The only way we could ever infiltrate would be to do it at night when they’re all asleep. It looked like the idiots only had one guard. We could easily take him out quietly and then get in. By the time they knew we were there, they’d all have bullets in their brains.”
His inexperience made him unnecessarily cocky. I knew he hadn’t even considered the fact that they could have guards in hidden locations, but I decided not to call him out right then. This was the most civil conversation we’d manage to have in days. I was determined to keep it that way.
“If their security is that lax, I doubt Dmitri would ever sleep there. But maybe he’ll come by and we could put a trail on him.”
I was frustrated. It felt like every time we made any progress toward getting payback for Dahlia, something held us up. And I had been so distracted by Alessandro’s fucking antics that I hadn’t been able to focus on what really mattered.
“I’ll make sure my men know what Dmitri looks like,” Alessandro said through gritted teeth. “But I already came up with a plan. As much as I’d love to kill them all, dead Russians can’t talk. I know you don’t believe me, but I know what I’m doing, and I want to get those bastards as much as you do. Fuck them for ever trying to hurt one of our own. Nobody does that and gets away with it.”
I nodded in response. I may have done a lot of illegal shit in my life, but I would never hurt an innocent person. The Russians had crossed a line the second they chose to get Dahlia involved, and I would personally make sure that every last one of them regretted it.
It made me sick to think of what could have happened if we hadn’t managed to get her back. Even worse, they now knew exactly how far we were willing to go to rescue those we loved. What if they found out about me and Olivia? Bile rose in my throat as I imagined the horror of my sweet Olivia being dragged around with a gun pointed at her back. I promised myself that I would never let that happen. Olivia was right; nobody could know about us. If we managed to keep it a secret even from our own people, there was no way the Russians would ever be able to find out.
“Okay, what’s your plan?” I asked, refusing to let this devolve into an altercation, even though I could tell that was what he wanted.
