Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
“Thank you,” I nodded at Salvatore. “Get some rest. We may have more questions later.”
I turned to leave, plans already forming in my mind of how we were going to do this, when I heard a soft, “Wait,” from behind me.
I paused, my hand on the doorknob but I didn’t turn back. Tallon glanced at me with a frown but I just waved him off.
He did as told, disappearing down the hallway with his hands held casually in his pockets. He had matured greatly over the past few months, but there was still that carefree soul inside of him. Maybe that was just what this family needed.
“What?” I asked roughly, not in the mood for any more mind games from this man.
“Giovani.” Salvatore swallowed and I glanced over my shoulder. He was hunched over in bed, staring down at his bandaged hands like he had lost something important.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
I clenched my jaw, slamming my teeth together roughly until the pressure hurt from grinding them into one another. Emotions boiled inside of me like I was a furnace and he was gasoline. That raw part of my chest ached again, rough and angry, much like nails on a chalkboard.
It was unpleasant.
But I’d always been a master at ignoring pain.
“It’s worth nothing,” I spat out before I slammed the door shut behind me.
I took in a few breaths, trying to calm my racing mind. I don’t why I felt so agitated, but it was harder to suppress my emotions the longer I stayed here.
“Tallon,” I called out as I headed for the kitchen and sure enough, there he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a bowl of crackers in his hand. Munching away, he glanced at me with a curious expression, cheeks stuffed full of crackers.
“Get Gabriele and Alessandro and meet me in my office in one hour. We have to go over the plan of attack,” I commanded.
“Uh, sure.” He swallowed his food and then tilted his head with a calculating look in his eye. “But if you don’t mind me asking, what is the plan of attack?”
I sent him an irritated glance and he rolled his eyes, grabbing the bowl and moving past me. “Yeah, yeah, need-to-know basis. I got it.”
“Tallon,” I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
He looked at me with a confused expression.
“Thanks. I know all of this has been a lot, but you’ve dealt with it just like a real leader would. You’ve done a great job, Tallon.”
Surprise flickered across his features, and I spotted a deep-rooted pride as he grinned at me with a beam the force of the sun’s rays. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished behind a familiar mischievous look.
“Aw, Gio,” Tallon teased with a baby-ish voice, “that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. I knew you had to have a heart under all that tin!”
I rolled my eyes, but my lips pulled upward despite my best efforts. Somehow Tallon always knew how to ease the tension, to make the other person comfortable.
“Just go get Gabriele and Alessandro,” I shoved his head forward, ignoring his puppy-dog eyes that were sparkling with humor.
‘Yes, sir, boss, sir!” Tallon saluted poorly and then marched out of the kitchen, still clutching his bowl of crackers.
Once he was gone, I relaxed. My shoulders slumped and I pushed the hair back from my face, feeling like I’d aged ten years in the past month. All I wanted was to crawl into bed with Olivia and Elio and not move for a week.
But there was still more work to do.
There was always more work to do.
*Giovani*
I stood in my office, leaning over a map of Florence on a spare table we’d dragged in there a few days ago. My desk had been pushed against the wall to accommodate, but I hadn’t wanted to sit since then anyway. The map, push-pinned to hell and back, took precedence.
Tallon, Alessandro, and Gabriele had all been rotating in and out of my office for days. I didn’t take meetings outside the compound anymore. I couldn’t, not until I knew Lorenz was six feet under.
I sighed and smoothed out a wrinkled corner of the map. Lorenz hadn’t made a peep since we took Sal back. The man clearly had more information than he could’ve wanted out, so Lorenz’s silence unnerved me. What was he planning?
Could we have been wrong to trust Sal?
Again?
The door swung open to reveal Tallon with a bag of chips in his hands. I straightened.
“Had to pull the heist of the century to get these without Maria appearing to make me something ‘more substantial,'” he said.
I forced a chuckle. I’d kept Tallon by my side these last few days, devoting the lion’s share of his time to parsing Sal’s information and planning, and he’d finally started to loosen up from that stiffness he acquired after I sicced Gabriele on Alessandro’s crew a few too many times. He kept that razor wit I’d noticed over the last month as well.
He still wore those Easter-looking suits, though. Right now, he only had on a gray button-down and the salmon pants of today’s pick, his jacket abandoned over a chair.
“When will the others be here?” I asked.
We were nearly certain we’d gotten everything we could out of Sal and were running out of further extrapolations to make. It was time to pick a plan and set it in motion.
I glanced at the video receiver of the baby monitor. Olivia and Elio sat on the floor of the nursery, coloring in a massive coloring book together in the evening light. I hadn’t left my office before midnight since Sal woke up, and this was my compromise to keep from losing my mind. The more days passed without a contact from Lorenz, the more nervous I got.
Tallon checked his watch. “Couple minutes. Got any early thoughts?”
I almost laughed. I’d fallen asleep dreaming of this map, planning entrances and escapes. “A few, but I’d rather not repeat myself.”
He nodded and lapsed into silence.
A couple of minutes, just a couple minutes, and then I’d know when my family could be safe again, when we could let Elio sleep through the night without checking on him every couple of hours… when I could move my gun from the locking holster I’d attached under our bedframe back to its case, and when I could breathe without the weight of the world on my shoulders.
As Tallon casually perused the map and munched, it struck me suddenly that a regular operation like this never felt like the weight of the world before. I’d turned myself over to the same goddamn Russians with less angst.
Olivia’s eyes came back to my mind, nearly dead with exhaustion, as she asked me if I’d ever consider retiring.
Someone knocked on the door once, then opened it without an invitation. Gabriele and Alessandro stepped together into the room.
“Evening.” Gabriele inclined his head.
Alessandro rubbed his hands together. “Let’s plan a raid.”
My lips twitched, but I nodded. “Yes. Come see what we’ve figured out.”
Gabriele and Alessandro walked closer. On all four sides, we leaned over its pocked surface.
There were at least thirty pins in the map, covering every quadrant of the city. Sal had given up every location where he knew business went down, and I grimaced every time I looked at just how much of a hold the Russians had established in my city under my nose. But most of them were plain metal push pins. Only eight, scattered across the city, bore colored tops.
Gabriele pointed at one and quirked an eyebrow at me.
