Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
Tallon nodded.
I raised an eyebrow. “Should I come with?”
Dahlia grabbed my arm. “You literally can’t leave me alone in a situation this ominous.”
I looked at Gio. The hard mask of the Don was starting to settle into place, but I could still see my husband at the edges.
My husband looked tired and worried, but not like he was blocking me out.
I nodded. “Tell me everything when you’re done.”
He squeezed my hand and left with Tallon. Dahlia and I drifted into the living room with Elio in tow, abandoning our suitcases to be picked up later.
“Okay, so last I saw you, you were going on a fun apology sex trip with Gio.” She kissed Elio on the head. “What changed?”
I collapsed on the couch. “Everything and nothing, you know?”
“Olive, if I have to wring details out of you, I will.” She sat on the couch across from me.
I put my hands up. “No wringing needed! I’m just tired.”
She smiled comfortingly. “Fair enough. I’ll respect your snail-like pace.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want to tell the story at a snail’s pace. I kind of didn’t want to tell it at all, but I needed it out of my head to make sense of.
“So, Sal was lying about the bathroom, right?” I said.
She nodded. “Is it Sal now, not your dad?”
I hadn’t even realized I changed the way I referred to him. I covered my face and groaned.
“I don’t know!” I took a deep breath and steadied myself. “I really, really don’t know.”
“I won’t mention him directly,” she said in the overly chipper tone I knew meant she was worried about me.
I flipped onto my stomach and tried to figure out how to tell this in order without getting sidetracked by my feelings.
Elio rattled his keys enthusiastically.
“I guess… the bathroom was the last straw,” I said finally. “There was all this mounting evidence he wasn’t just here for good reasons, and that was the thing that finally got it through my thick skull.”
Dahlia made a small, sympathetic noise. “What do you think he’s doing?”
What an impossible question–I could barely think about the man without hurt and nerves and anger balling together into roiling nausea in my gut.
“Gio thinks he’s a spy for the Russians. Dmitri’s second, to be specific,” I said instead.
Dahlia blanched and clutched Elio a little closer. She’d survived Dmitri’s last reign of terror against Dmitri’s best efforts, and I could understand why she especially didn’t want to face him again.
“So he’s Russian,” she said a little shakily. “And they have to take him down quickly, before the Russians catch wind? Is that all?”
I shook my head. “Alessandro had people tailing a few Russians, and one of them got spotted or something. We’ve lost the element of surprise.”
Dahlia grimaced and bounced Elio. “Not ideal, but they can figure it out, I’m sure.”
I flopped facedown on the couch. People kept saying things like “figure it out” or “handle it” and I didn’t know how to square those phrases with the images I had of Sal, his eyes soft as he thought about my mom. I didn’t like thinking about the raids and guns and sprays of blood that tended to accompany phrases like that.
“Olive?” Dahlia said, suddenly closer.
I turned my head to the side and found her crouching next to my couch with Elio still in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
I furrowed my eyebrows.
She brushed some hair away from my face. “You deserved a really good dad–like, the best dad. And I’m sorry Sal didn’t turn out to be that.”
Under her gentle ministrations, tears slipped silently down my face. I hadn’t taken very long to grieve him yet, or to grieve the concept of a dad since I never really knew him, and that sorrow overwhelmed me suddenly.
Elio’s small, sticky hand landed on my cheek, harder than I might’ve liked.
“Mama?” he said.
I sat up and smiled at his concern. “Yes, Elio. Mamas cry too sometimes. But I’m all right, see?”
I wiped away my own tears, just like I would have his. He tried to help, messily and a little painfully, but my heart overflowed with love for him. Maybe I didn’t have the perfect dad, or even an okay one, but I had my perfect son.
“Sal—” I started.
My phone rang. I pulled it out, but as if I’d summoned him, Salvatore Montgomery blared across the display once more.
Dahlia peeked at the screen as I ignored the call.
“He’s called every day since we left,” I said, “sometimes more than once.”
She joined me on the couch. “What does he want?”
I laughed wetly. “I don’t know. I haven’t read any of his texts or listened to his voicemails.”
She nodded. “Every day is kind of intense.”
“I know.” I stared down at the phone in my hand, still showing his name though it didn’t ring aloud anymore. “It’s kind of like he’s getting desperate to see me.”
She frowned. “That’s not a great word.”
“It’s probably just that the Russians are back in the mix.” I shook my head and turned my phone over. “I spent weeks getting to know him. I don’t think he’d do anything stupid.”
Dahlia ran her hand up and down Elio’s back, and her face grew serious. A brief surge of protective instinct I thought I’d killed when I realized Sal wasn’t what he seemed raced for my mouth.
“I’m not worried about it,” I said quickly.
“I’m not either,” she said slowly. “Because if he does do anything stupid, and one of us gets hurt, Gio and my brothers are going to make him pay.”
My heart leaped into my throat. I didn’t like the careful way she moved, how quickly Sal became the enemy, someone to “make pay.”
