Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
I’d let her stay until the doctor arrived, I decided. However responsible she felt for the man, she didn’t need to see his insides. I grabbed one of her hands and held it tightly.
“Update Gabriele,” I instructed the brothers. “Put the whole house on alert. If there was a scuffle getting out, they know you have him, and we have to be ready if they guess he’s here.”
Alessandro scoffed. “Do you really think they want a rat like him back?”
Olivia’s breath caught.
I squeezed her hand and glared at Alessandro.“They might assume we’re distracted. They might want him back. It could be anything.”
Tallon pulled out his phone and began typing. “Better to be ready. I’ll warn Dahlia, too.”
Alessandro shook his head but didn’t say anything further, perhaps cowed by my glare.
Matteo knocked on the doorway into the parlor. “Patcher’s here. Send him in?”
I nodded and stood. Olivia stared at me with wide eyes.
“We have to go now,” I said softly. “The next part is going to get ugly. But I’ll sit with you until it’s over.”
“But–” She furrowed her eyebrows. “I’m his only family here.”
I smiled softly. “And you’ll be here when he wakes up. That doesn’t mean you need to watch the doctor open him up.”
She grimaced and cast one last glance in Sal’s direction before standing.
“We’ll be in the bedroom,” I told the brothers. “Get me when there’s news.”
They nodded. As Olivia and I exited, we passed a surprisingly young man in a white coat with a dark, wispy goatee. He nodded at me, and I remembered vaguely seeing him bent over me during some patch-up before I’d met Olivia. He hadn’t had the goatee then, but he’d done a good job.
As Olivia wandered, zombielike, toward the room, I said, “He’s good, that doctor. He put me back together at least once.”
She nodded absently. She remained quiet and distant when we reached the room, staring at nothing and barely responding when I spoke to her. I remembered the tense moments after we’d rescued Dahlia. She’d been much like this then, so wound up with worry she could hardly uncoil a finger. I’d barely known her as more than a fling then.
I swallowed. I couldn’t deny I was a little surprised that the father she told me to kill with no reservations evoked so much emotion.
I was more worried about how bad he looked. No matter how good the doctor was, at a certain point, there was no going back. And the Russians weren’t exactly known for their personal restraint.
After pacing a little, trying to talk to her, putting on a show neither of us watched, and opening up the door to Elio’s room so we could see him sleeping peacefully from our couch, I simply sat next to her and held her hand in the tense quiet.
She accepted my touch gratefully, as though she’d been waiting for it.
I didn’t know how long we sat like that. The sun sank lower in the sky, but it had been afternoon anyway. But after interminable minutes, someone knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I called.
Tallon swung the door open and leaned in, looking grave.
*Olivia*
I stared at Tallon, my heart beating in my throat. I’d been wrong, so wrong when I told Gio I didn’t know whether I wanted my dad rescued, when I told him I didn’t care if he died. Of course, I cared.
How could I not care? My flesh-and-blood father lay in the other room, maybe dying or already dead, and I couldn’t think about anything other than what I’d say to him… if I ever got to say anything again.
Tallon inhaled. He was going to tell us Sal died. I knew it. I could see it in the set of his shoulders, the heavy downturn of his mouth. I had a father for a few short months. He betrayed me, and then he died because I said to leave him in Russian custody longer.
“He’s resting,” Tallon said.
The balloon of tension holding me up popped, and I slumped against Gio.
Resting.
Resting meant alive, meant okay, meant I would get to say something other than screaming profanities at him.
Gio held me up, warm and strong and safe. God, I was so lucky to have him.
“Doc got the bullet out,” Tallon continued. “Stitched a couple of cuts, set a couple of bones, and left him with some painkillers.” He shrugged. “He’s not awake yet, but he’s stable.”
Tears gathered in my eyes. I believed Sal really only ever meant to hurt Gio. I couldn’t forgive him that either, not without serious making up for it, but at least I could tell him I believed him. That would be enough for me.
I looked in at Elio, still sleeping. I couldn’t forgive Sal for anything he did that quickly.
Gio rubbed my shoulders. “He’s alright, carina. Everything is alright.”
The tears spilled over. I thought I’d be all out after days of crying about Elio, but I had more inside me still. Everything was alright, or it would be once they figured out how to eliminate Lorenz for good.
But I had to admit I was getting damn tired of always having to tack that on at the end of my joy.
Gio squeezed me close and turned to Tallon. “What happened? How did you get him? Any collateral?”
I flinched. I hoped to God there wasn’t collateral. I wanted my father alive, wanted it worse than even I knew, but I didn’t want anyone else hurt for his sake.
Through Gio’s arms, I saw Tallon glance at me and raise an eyebrow. Then, I felt Gio nod.
Even as tears tumbled down my cheeks, a wave of frustration flowed through my system. I’d done my time on the outs, earned my way in. I just wanted to share everything with my husband, not always need permission to hear the details of his work.
“Lorenz kept a little house a few blocks over from where Sal lived. Looked like any other row house, except for the bulletproof windows. We followed him there and spotted Sal when they lifted him up during an–” he glanced at me again. “During an interrogation.”
I grimaced. They only found my father because he’d been beaten within an inch of his life for choosing at the very last moment to side with me. Guilt spurred another wave of tears, and I fought to keep them quiet.
Gio noticed anyway and held me a little tighter. He didn’t judge me for breaking down anymore, and that steadied me a little.
Tallon cleared his throat. “We didn’t lose anyone. Most of them were armed with automatics, and we got too close for them to be safely used in a row house pretty quickly. Couple of knife wounds, but nothing that took more than three stitches.”
Gio shook his head. “Rookie mistake in this town. We’re all piled on top of each other. You have to be smarter than that.”
Another wave of relief broke over me–there were no casualties, no serious injuries, even. We hadn’t pulled the doctor away from one of Gio’s men to treat my father. From what I’d seen of mafia men, most of them could probably do three stitches by themselves.
Suddenly, violently, I had the strangest feeling of looking at myself from the outside. A few years ago, I’d been Olivia Robinson, art student abroad, with no more serious concerns than how I was going to keep track of Dahlia as she slept her way through half of Italy.
Somehow, in two short years, I’d become Olivia Valentino, mob wife, well enough versed in the business to know what sort of injuries foot soldiers could patch up on their own. I loved Gio and Elio, loved my life in Italy, but I suddenly, didn’t know if I loved that transformation.
Worse, I was about to be Olivia Valentino without my best friend around to remind me who Olivia Robinson had been.
The thought startled me out of my tears. I wiped my eyes and disentangled myself from Gio. If I was going to be a mob wife, I had to do it properly.
