Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
I still couldn’t square the image of my mother as Sal described her, queen of the New York bar scene, with the tired, overworked woman I knew.
“One night, I ran into this guy decked to the nines in diamonds. Told me he worked for the Costas, and they need a guy to drive a truck a couple times a week without asking any questions. The pay was–” He laughed. “Let’s just say, I knew I wasn’t going to be transporting Barbie dolls. But it would let me make good money and do whatever I damn well pleased. At twenty-one, that sounded perfect.”
I swallowed. Did he know I turned twenty-one recently, that when he was making reckless choices to spend more time at bars, I was raising a son and married to a Don?
When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I was low-level, of course, but despite all the cheap vodka I was pickling my brain in, I was pretty smart. There was an uptick in random cop stops, and I built a false back for my truck to cover the real merchandise. Even filled it up with crates of apples I bought myself. Within a week, it was standard across the city. Amanda thought I got into carpentry, I was building so many of those goddamn things.”
He grinned as if he were reliving past glories. Part of me was repulsed, but I couldn’t exactly judge. I’d heard Gio talk about some of his low-level men in the exact same way–small strokes of genius revealing future potential.
“How did you end up on the run?” I asked. If I was right about him, I wanted to hear all his stories, someday. But right now, as the sun sank below the horizon, I wanted to know if I should be here at all.
He huffed a sigh and smiled ruefully. “Right to the tough stuff, huh?”
I nodded.
“Alright. You deserve to know.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “After a few months, I got bumped from driver to supplier. Made a couple people mad, so I had to start taking weird routes to make my drops. One day, I found myself well outside Costa territory, heading down a back alley on my way to meet a dealer, when I see Vincente Costa, the Don’s second, talking to some thug. I must have some kind of anti-guardian angel because I walked up just in time to hear him settling a deal to take out Giancarlo Costa, the Don.”
I winced, and he chuckled bitterly.
“You can say that again. I snuck away and tried to warn Giancarlo. He’d always been kind to me.” He snorted. “That was my mistake. I was too late. Giancarlo wrote me down for a special commendation, and Vincente knew I was the reason his fight was so hard. I had to disappear before the Don brought the whole might of the family down on me.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth. He’d been hunted as a traitor for trying to warn someone he was loyal to, not any of the awful things Gio thought and implied.
He smiled indulgently at me. “Don’t worry too much. I got out quick. Missed you and your mom something fierce, and I never really had a home after that, but the Costas never caught me.”
“What did you do for all those years, though?” I had to ask. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”
“Odd jobs.” He shrugged. “I worked for whoever would take me. Then, a decade or so back, a man with a heavy Eastern European accent came looking for me in Paris.”
My mouth fell open. I’d half forgotten this was originally about his relationship with the Russians, and the mention of them sent my gaze skittering over the trees. There was nothing new, thank god.
“He said his boss would pay top dollar for information on the Costa operation, and he heard I might be the man to get it from.” He sighed heavily. “I couldn’t turn them down.”
I gnawed on my lip. I could picture him, a decade less haggard, happy to fall into the arms of any family who would take him. Maybe he’d only spent a little time with the Russians, and the tattooed man was an old friend.
But I knew that didn’t explain the bank discrepancies, or the fear in his eyes in those pictures.
“Do you still work for them?” I blurted.
He ran a hand through his thinning hair, then met my eyes. “Yes.”
My stomach sank. That was the one answer that could ruin him in Gio’s eyes, could keep him from my life forever.
“But they don’t know about you.” He grabbed my hand, his eyes shining. “I don’t even think they know about Gio. They haven’t asked anything.”
In the back of my mind, I realized that meant he knew exactly what Gio did, and all my careful talking about it had been a waste.
“What do you do?” I asked numbly.
“A little dealing,” he admitted. “I don’t have the sort of resume that lets me find other work, and Italy’s not cheap. But a dealer’s the lowest man on the totem pole. I’ve only ever met my supplier, Alexei.”
I stared into his eyes, searching them for the truth. The shine to them could have been sincerity, but it could also be tears brought on by fear of being caught.
Or fear of losing me.
His grip on my hand was desperate, trembling.
“I want a relationship with you, Olivia, whatever that means.” He swallowed. “Whatever you’ll give me.”
I disentangled my hand from his. “Sal—”
He smiled ruefully. “I thought we were on Dad now.”
I forced a smile. “I want you in my life, but—”
“But you can’t get over the Russian thing?” He released my hand, disappointment clouding his eyes. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew, since you told the story about the gelato, that you wouldn’t be able to see this for the innocent employment it was. I would never let anything hurt you.”
An instinct to grab his hand back, to comfort him, rose up in me. I hated watching his face fall, hated seeing him sad.
“I… don’t know,” I said. “This is big, and I need some time to mull it over. Can I have that?”
He nodded, excitement springing back to his gaze. “As much time as you want! I’ll be waiting for you whenever you’re ready.”
I stood. “I’ll call you.”
“I’ll wait by the phone!” He waved.
The walk back through the park was as silent as the walk there, and my mind swarmed with even more thoughts. I didn’t know if I could ever feel safe knowing he worked for the Russians, but maybe I could talk to Gio and get him a job in the Valentino organization.
I kicked a rock. It really seemed like he just wanted to be a part of my life. The way he collapsed when he thought I was saying goodbye forever, and perked back up when I said maybe, was the most emotion he showed the whole time. It reminded me a little of the way Elio slumped when I tried to feed him something he didn’t want and sat up when I offered him some fruit. He was, undeniably, my father.
If he was a liar, he was a damn good one. But then, he would have to be to survive the life he described.
I just had to decide whether I thought he’d lie to me.
*Giovani*
Tino alerted me as soon as Olivia had taken off. I decided it was time to step back a little. So long as she had Dom and Tino by her side, she wouldn’t be in danger, at least for now.
I relieved Dahlia of babysitting duties, heading to the living room to wait for my wife. Elio was more than happy to spend time with me as we waited.
I felt terrible for missing Elios’ first step and for making Olivia miss it too. Luckily though, now that Elio had gained his balance, he wanted to walk all the time. I hovered just behind him as he toddled around, often falling, but he never cried and only picked himself up like we had taught him to do.
Eventually, he got too sleepy to stay awake and I laid him down for a nap in his crib, turning on the baby monitor once he was asleep and heading back to the living room to clean up the mess.
I started flipping through the channels on the TV, just waiting quietly. Soon enough, I heard the rumble of a car heading up the driveway and I flipped off the soccer game I was watching, getting to my feet.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, rounding the corner into the foyer just as the lock turned and the door opened.
My wife walked in, looking ragged and run down. She didn’t even see me at first, her eyes focused on her feet. I cleared my throat to catch her attention and she looked up at me, startled.
She breathed a heavy sigh, kicking off her shoes.
“Carina,” I started cautiously, unsure of her mental headspace right then.
