Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
“Sorry, just got good news,” I muttered to them.
“Yeah, apparently the Natalia that your brother knows didn’t even exist three years ago. Her real name is Natalia, but her backstory is completely made up. She’s not at all who she said she was.”
“Holy shit.” I felt tingles on the back of my neck as I realized how close my brother could have come to death. He had been alone with this woman many times, and none of us had truly thought she was dangerous.
“That’s not all. We were able to find her real identity, and this is where it gets crazy. Natalia is Dmitri Zaytsev’s granddaughter.”
My mouth dropped open. I had thought that perhaps Natalia had loose ties to the Zaytsevs, that she might be a cousin or something. I had never suspected that she could be the granddaughter of our biggest nemesis. This was so much worse than I had even begun to consider.
Natalia wasn’t just our mole.
She could be our biggest enemy.
“I have to talk to my brother,” I said, then I hung up.
I sat for a moment, thinking about what I had just learned and wondering how to best use it for my benefit. I decided that there was only one course of action I could take.
Unfortunately, Tallon wasn’t going to like it.
*Tallon*
My nerves were still coiling the second Natalia ended our call. The beating of my heart stammered and crashed against my ribcage like it was trying to escape.
Hearing her broken voice through the speaker of my phone, left my palms sweating and a deep ache in my chest. What could possibly have happened that caused her to nearly break out, sobbing over the phone?
I snatched my phone off of my desk and headed straight for the car without giving it another thought. Out of pure habit, I packed my gun into my back holster and struggled not to think for the worse.
The sound of my heavy footsteps echoed madly throughout the house. I called one of the guards near the front doors to bring the car around. I wasn’t going to waste another moment. I needed to get to her. I needed to pull her into my arms, to feel her warmth and ease her stress.
Amongst the anxious feeling swelling between my lungs, I somehow felt a strain of pride rushing through me. Even though I loathed the sound of her crying, I felt honored that she chose to call me in the first place. She purposely chose to reach out to me.
And here I’d thought she wanted nothing more to do with me. In between those soft, shattered whimpers was a flicker of hope. Part of me wanted to tell her the truth about who I was, who my family was, and what I ‘really’ did for work. But God only knew what would have become of the conversation then.
There was no way in hell I could have possibly dumped that on her after all that’s been going on. Everything would end between us for sure.
And who could blame her if she were to end our relationship and turn me away?
Even though I knew it would crush me to no end, I couldn’t allow any harm to come to her.
“I love her,” I thought undeniably.
It sounded so simple, but it was quite the contrary.
Natalia became one of the many things that consumed my thoughts. She was my first thought in the morning and the last thought at night.
Alessandro had no right to accuse Natalia of being involved in the mad shit that had been happening. For Christ’s sake, she was just a college student from California who was just trying to get through her semester classes.
Why the fuck would she have anything to do with the Zaytsevs?
Lately, life had been nothing but a complete shit show, yet having Natalia in the back of my mind always made the darkest times seem a little bit brighter. As delusional as it sounded, I didn’t care.
But it sounded no more insane than him and Vinny practically accusing her of working with the goddamn Russians.
Oh, yeah. I was fully intending to collect on my brother’s apology when the time came.
I quickly slid into the backseat of the vehicle and instructed my driver to hit the gas pedal with no intention of slowing down. The other cars on the road were wise to stay out of our way.
About halfway there, I heard my phone begin to buzz. My blood curdled with the thought of it being Natalia again. Her first call was enough to send chills down my spine in the worst way imaginable. And if this was her trying to call again, then I’d know that something was horribly wrong.
Yet when I finally glanced down at my phone screen, it was my brother’s name that appeared. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
Our last conversation hadn’t exactly ended on a high note. The moment he suggested Natalia’s potential involvement with everything that’s happened, feelings between us had been strained. Then again, these past few weeks had been hard on everyone.
Vinny was still in the process of reaching out to the respective families of those who’d lost their lives–under my leadership.
I knew I would never forget that ungodly sight when Vinny opened the door of the house to a front lawn filled with lifeless bodies. Those lives would forever hang over my shoulder until the score was made even. We may not have known who the mole was, but we knew enough that the Russians were the cause of everything.
I was convinced that he was calling to inform me about Natalia being a dead-end. I was ready to hear the exasperated, sullen tone in his voice when he’d tell me that he was wrong all along for suspecting her.
I hit the ‘answer’ button on my screen and held the phone up to my ear. My mouth twisted into a knowing smirk.
“So, are you ready to accept that I was right about Natalia?”
That irritated tone I was fully anticipating to hear from Alessandro was nowhere to be found. In fact, the guy sounded far too chipper for my liking.
“Oh, little brother… You could not be any further into a rut had you dug the fucking hole yourself,” Alessandro slithered.
My heart slammed inside of my chest as I proceeded to place my brother on speakerphone.
“The fuck are you talking about?” I hissed.
I didn’t need to see my brother to know that he was wearing his infamous shit-eating ‘I told you so’ smirk on his face.
“I finally got around to checking out that little girlfriend of yours.”
My blood was on the verge of boiling from the sharp, unforgiving tone in his voice. A long moment of silence passed between us before he spoke again. Now was not the time for someone to play on my nerves.
“And?” I growled.
“And it turns out that your ‘precious’ Natalia is not who she says she is.”
I felt my stomach twist into knots. “You’re lying.”
“Oh, believe me, Tallon,” my brother sighed through the phone. “You have no idea how badly I wished I was wrong about her.”
Oh God. No. No, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know what Alessandro had discovered.
The ache in my chest grew worse with every passing second that I wasted not asking the million-dollar question.
“What–” I cleared my throat the best I could. “What did you find?”
“Based on my sources, you Natalia did not exist anywhere before three years ago,” his brother said.
My brows pulled together in pure confusion. “The fuck do you mean she didn’t exist until just three years ago?!”
