Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
I swallowed uncomfortably. Giovani avoided looking at me as he silently ate the rest of his breakfast. I had no choice but to do the same for now.
I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I plastered a smile on my face as Dahlia turned to me to chat about movies. I forced coffee down into my stomach where the guilt had settled and made its home. The small bites of food I took off my meal unintentionally turned the smile on my plate upside down.
My smiling breakfast wasn’t so happy anymore as he frowned up at me, looking exactly the way I felt right now.
*Giovani*
I was going to kill him. Figurately or literally, I was still deciding, but either way, I was going to fucking kill him.
I stared at my desk, seething in a complete rage. The absolute disrespect Alessandro had shown at the breakfast table had set off my temper. I could only stew in my anger, not able to do a damn thing about that brat.
If I had it my way, he’d be doing manual labor for the next year and a half for the way he was treating not only me but Olivia. I tried my best not to look at her all breakfast, but she was so damn beautiful, and I’d slipped a couple of times.
The guilty looks she kept sneaking at me were far from discreet, and I hated every bit of it. She wasn’t stupid. She’d probably figured out why I had let Alessandro go so far.
I sighed, rubbing my temples from the growing headache I was developing. Even in the darkness of my study, it still wasn’t enough to settle my growing need for murder.
The door opened without warning, a burst of light from the hallway hitting my eyes, and I groaned, slamming my head on the desk. The pain was only a slight distraction from the death metal screaming in my head.
The light disappeared as the door closed, and I heard the familiar footsteps of Gabriele as he stopped in front of the desk.
“So,” Gabriele started, “do I even want to know what’s going on with you and Alessandro now? ‘Cause what the fuck was that?”
I glared up at him before sighing. There was no point in keeping it hidden. Gabriele already knew, and now he had to work with both of us.
“He caught me sneaking out of Olivia’s room last night,” I muttered, kicking myself for being so clumsy. I should’ve installed locks on everyone’s doors and made up some excuse why they needed to be locked every night.
As if crazy Russians coming to kill us wasn’t enough.
“Oh, and what could you possibly be doing in her room late at night?” Gabriele said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “How’d you explain that one?”
“Broken sink,” I grumbled in response.
Gabriele shook his head in disappointment, but luckily, he knew to keep his mouth shut. He was shooting me a look that told me he thought I was an idiot, but at the moment, I couldn’t argue with that.
He was right. I was an idiot.
I seemed to lose all my brain cells whenever it came to Olivia. I’d probably jump off a cliff if she told me so. I groaned, throwing my arm over my face.
Dammit. I’d fallen hard for her. It was more than falling, my feelings for her were already deep. I had to get myself together before I ruined both of our lives.
The easiest way was to break off this thing we had going, but there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen, not with Alessandro still sneaking around, just waiting to jump in.
That bastard had already taken a bit of my pride. He wasn’t going to get Olivia too. At this point, he was more of a problem than the actual fucking Russians.
So much for family bonds.
“So what do we do about Alessandro?” Gabriele asked casually. “Should I just keep following his orders?”
“For the time being,” I growled, “until I can beat his fucking greed out of his head. I already spoke to James about Alessandro’s involvement, and he doesn’t want him in too deep. There’s only so much I’ll let him push me around before I snap. He’d better learn not to cross that line.”
“Understood.” Gabriele sighed. “But just so you know, I hate taking orders from Alessandro.”
Unfortunately for the two of us, Alessandro was a devil, and we’d spoken his name three times. The door burst open, hitting the wall as he strolled through arrogantly, a thick manila folder in one of his hands.
Fucking hell.
Gabriele rolled his eyes and shut the door behind him, keeping prying ears from hearing whatever he had to say.
“I told you to knock before entering,” I snapped at him.
“So?” Alessandro just shrugged, uncaring as he stopped right in front of my desk and slammed the manila folder onto the desk. “Somebody gave this to me. Scar on his cheek?”
“Gennaro?” I looked up with interest then grabbed the folder, opening it up. Inside was a thick packet of papers, but my eyes landed on the first one.
“Dmitri Zaytsev,” I read the name and then stiffened as I glanced at the photo next to the information. It was a young man, probably only a teenager at the time, as he glared murderously at the camera.
The most damning evidence, however, was the background–it was a mugshot. There were even records of his fingerprints.
“He’s just a fucking kid,” Gabriele scoffed. “How could he do so much damage?”
“No,” I shook my head. “This is old. He’s in his thirties now, but this was all Gennaro could find, apparently. This sheet is long–misdemeanors, vandalism, inciting riots, arson… it goes on and on.”
I spread out the papers, allowing Gabriele and Alessandro to take from it and read on their own as I kept searching through the new information we’d found.
“He wasn’t charged?” Alessandro said incredulously. “How could they not charge him for setting a fucking apartment building on fire?”
“Mikhail,” I said, stiffly. “Looks like every instance of arrest was wiped away by his cousin. But after Mikhail wasn’t there to wipe away his sheet anymore, he got arrested and was in prison for over ten years.”
My jaw clenched as I saw a few familiar faces on the sheet.
“Looks like his father was killed by our syndicate, too, and his mother died from illness while he was incarcerated,” Alessandro dropped the sheet in front of me. “Could that be a reason for all this?”
“Probably,” I said, rubbing my forehead as I dropped all the information. “He was released six years ago and dropped off the face of the earth since then. That’s probably when he took up his cousin’s old position.”
“He’s after revenge,” Gabriele said coldly. “Probably blames us for being sent to prison and his family’s deaths.”
“He would be right,” I sighed, leaning back in the chair. I had no qualms about what had happened to the previous head of the family.
Neither the Valentinos nor the Zaytsevs were good, law-abiding citizens. Our family were lawless people who did terrible things, but we never did anything without a reason. Mikhail dug his own hole, and he lost his life because of it.
But it was also true that Dmitri lost both of his parents at a young age and was deeply affected by our actions.
I could sympathize with him. I had never been close to my parents, but it seemed he had been different. Losing both of them had taken a toll.
But that didn’t mean I would accept what he had done. He had kidnapped Dahlia, injured her and tried to kill her… and he’d threatened my family and the organization I was in charge of.
Sympathy wouldn’t stop me from putting a bullet in his head once I found him.
I had never claimed to be a good person, and I never would.
“There’s no up-to-date information,” Gabriele remarked. “He’s hidden himself very well.”
“Or the Russos have done it for him,” I scoffed. I was still pissed about that tidbit of information. We couldn’t touch the Russos, and the fact that they were working with the Zaytsevs on this was bullshit.
