Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“You were worried I’d be upset about the graffiti,” I said.
He nodded. “And some other things.”
“Don’t.” I crossed my arms. “If you can’t stand here and tell me you did something with total confidence, don’t do it. Other than that, I want my reports without the flinching.” I eyed him. “If you flinch here, you flinch there. Break the habit now.”
“Of course.” He nodded enthusiastically. “I just didn’t want to—”
I shook my head. “Don’t explain yourself like that either. Not until I ask.”
He lapsed into silence.
I stared at the folder and let him sweat a little. I’d probably have hit a warehouse, but their team had been tailing personnel, so they made do with what they had. The hit was clean, precise, and clear in its intent. Lorenz, or whoever the hell ran their operation, couldn’t miss it. And I didn’t have to give up my vacation to make it happen, either.
I’d been relying on Alessandro for a long time, but he retained some difficult personality quirks. Perhaps Tallon could be a promising way forward for that team.
“What would you do next?” I asked. I wanted to see his mind work in real time.
“We can keep hitting these low-level guys forever.” He shrugged. “But it’s like playing whack-a-mole. It’s never going to end. I think we have to go top down.” He swallowed. “And we have to be sure we’ve cleaned house this time.”
It made sense, but it wasn’t perfect. The Zaytsevs were like vampires. Leaving low-level guys meant they, too, might come crawling back someday.
“You and your brother were in charge of taking out Lorenz,” I said as I leaned back in my chair. He took small criticism well, but I wanted to see him really squirm.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and dropped his gaze. “I know. That’s why I’m going to work double-time to take him down now. I owe the family until he’s gone.”
No apologies. No explanations. He learned quickly, at least.
“That’ll do,” I said. “Thank you, Tallon.”
He nodded.
“Contact Alessandro and Gabriele. Tell them we need to meet tonight. Here.” My gaze drifted off the folder to the lopsided clay penholder Olivia made me on her brief foray into pottery. “I have a few things to handle first.”
He turned on his heel and left without another word.
I flipped the folder back open and stared at the remains of the Russian house. Mob wars weren’t pretty. They looked like this, scorched land and blood and eye-for-an-eye moves. If I looked at the situation from purely a Don’s perspective, I knew exactly what I had to do next.
Information always came at a premium, especially information on the sort of high-level people Tallon wanted to target, the high-level people anyone smart would want to target–people like me.
And that meant my first move should be to take out the spy I’d identified. With open war on the horizon, any leaks could be deadly.
But I couldn’t step that far back. The spy I’d identified was Olivia’s father, however angry she was with him right now. My fingers itched to pick up the phone and just send a few guys to his house to find out what he knew, but I had to be more careful.
If she gave the word, and said he should be hurt or killed, I just knew her tender heart would bleed. Hell, if she found out about it after the fact, I didn’t know if she’d ever get over it.
So, how did I eliminate a spy before his information got me killed without touching him?
*Olivia*
“I win!” Dahlia cheered, throwing her arms above her head.
“Dally!” Elio cried, pouting unhappily as he crossed his arms and stared at his godmother like she had just greatly insulted him.
I sighed, glancing at my overly excited best friend as she gathered up the plate of chocolate candy pieces we’d been wagering over. She dumped the wooden tic-tac-toe board again, letting the pieces fall to the floor and Elio huffed, turning away with teary eyes.
“You know, don’t you think you have an unfair advantage? You should at least let our team win one. This is an advanced game for a one-year-old,” I told her, frowning as she purposefully gloated by popping the chocolate into her mouth and making an “mmm” sound.
“I’m not going to just hand him a win,” Dahlia scoffed, “That’s not how life works. He’s got to work if he wants to win the prize.”
I rolled my eyes at her overly competitive nature, especially against a one-year-old. On our turn, I’d been alternately putting the game pieces on myself and then letting him put the Xs and Os anywhere without any understanding of the game, so it wasn’t exactly fair.
But I knew very well that this was exactly how James had taught us when we were kids, though his particular choice was Go Fish and we never won against him ever… until Becca had thrashed him in one game and declared everyone got sweets but him. But Elio was taking this lesson a bit harder than we did. We had been much older before James had tried to teach us how to lose constantly.
“Mama!” Elio whined, turning to me with his wide sad eyes filled with shiny tears. Like a puppy left on the side of the road in the rain, I could never resist him and he knew that.
“Aw, baby,” I cooed, grabbing him and plopping him in my lap. I hugged him around the middle, rubbing his curls as he buried his face in my chest. He wasn’t actually sad, just upset that Dahlia wasn’t letting him have his favorite candy, and we all knew that.
But still–I glanced at Dahlia as she grinned, popping another candy in her mouth, and narrowed my eyes at her smug look.
“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll kick Aunt Dally’s butt for you,” I smirked.
Elio looked up at me with wide, uncomprehending eyes. He seemed to sense something was happening though as Dahlia paused in her munching, sending me a challenging smirk.
“Oh, you think you can, Olive?” She leaned back, crossing her arms confidently.
I grabbed the three X blocks and flipped over the board, simply gesturing to the Os for her to take.
“Who knows? I remember that one of us was the poker champion of 2012 and it wasn’t you, was it, Dolly?” I smirked. She bristled, just as I knew she would at the reminder.
I’d beaten her by two points and she had never forgotten it.
“Oh, you’re on,” she smirked. “Xs go first, Olive.”
And the game was on. Dahlia and I glared at one another from opposite ends of the board as I made my first move, sliding the X into position. She was quick, slamming her O down to block me from across.
Elio watched us, seeming to somehow understand that it was just me making the moves this time. He blinked with wide eyes as we went back and forth until I was down to two pieces and she was at her last, staring determinedly at one another.
“This is just going to end in a tie, Olive, and you know it,” Dahlia smirked, twirling her last O block around her pointer finger. “It’s going to be a stalemate forever.”
“That’s what you think,” I smirked, setting my X into place. “Go Fish, Dolly.”
“That’s not even the right game. What are you–” She glanced at the board and her eyes widened. There was the perfect set-up. With only two pieces remaining, one X and one O, there was no way for me to lose. Either way she placed her next piece, I had three in a row.
Elio blinked up at me and I grinned, triumphantly.
“That’s right, baby. Mama wins,” I said confidently and proudly. “That’s how you beat Aunt Dally.”
Elio cheered in his baby babble, throwing his arms up. He turned in my arms, standing to give me a big smooch on the cheek.
Dahlia stared at the board in sheer horror, her mouth open as I snatched up the remaining candies and handed them to Elio.
“You son of a–” She began, but then she halted at Elio’s innocent eyes stared at her. “Gun,” she finished lamely, crossing her arms as it was her turn to pout.
