Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
When death was on the table, everything felt so much more heightened. Everything was sharper, every emotion stronger. Even my connection to Caterina felt deeper, something that I never thought possible considering how close we had been already. But everything we had been through had only served to push us closer together.
“I got a text,” Leo said after a few minutes of staring out at the city. “It’s that contact that Alessandro put me in touch with. He said we need to meet.”
“Alright, let’s get going,” I answered, heading out without another word. Finally, it was time for some real shit. I’d been craving this all day.
As I walked, I pulled out my phone and called the contact for myself. His name was Thomas and based on his texts, he was one ruthless motherfucker. I definitely never wanted to cross him, and I wondered where on earth Alessandro had managed to find him.
“Yeah?” he answered gruffly, as though he was annoyed that I had bothered him with a call.
“I was calling to confirm,” I said vaguely.
“I already confirmed with your buddy. We’ve secured a meeting.”
He hung up without another word. Although the bastard didn’t need to be quite so abrupt, I knew exactly what this meant. Leo and I both got into my car, and I drove us to the warehouse location that Alessandro had given me several weeks earlier when we first discussed this plan.
As we drove past the tall buildings of downtown and toward the rougher part of the city, I wondered what Caterina would think of what I was about to do. There was no doubt in my mind that she would support me, but in what capacity? I wasn’t sure if she was ruthless enough for the mafia life. And Alessandro had drilled into my head that ruthlessness was the only way to get ahead in this business.
‘If you aren’t willing to be the meanest bastard you’ve ever met, you might as well just stick with real estate development,’ he’d told me once not too long ago when I had hesitated about carrying out a particularly brutal plan.
His words had stuck with me. I’d let myself become hardened in the subsequent days. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. The last thing I needed was for Alessandro to think I was too weak and stop allowing me to make this transition. Caterina and I had decided that this was the life for us, and I was determined to make it happen.
I pulled up to the warehouse, not bothering to try to hide my car. Nobody would recognize it anyway.
“Be ready,” I muttered to Leo as I tucked the gun Alessandro had given me into the back of my waistband.
I had grown accustomed to it over time, wearing it more days than not. The weight of it was comforting, especially after what had happened to Caterina’s mom. Leo had his own gun in the shoulder holster that he had taken to wearing. He nodded at me, and we got out of the car quickly, walking with purpose into the warehouse.
Light barely made it through the grimy windows at the top of the nondescript building. The warehouse looked like it was one strong wind away from falling over completely, which is exactly why Alessandro had chosen it for this purpose. Nobody would ever suspect that the most powerful mafia family in Italy was running part of its operations out of this thing.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I could make out the figure of a man tied to a chair in the farthest corner of the building. I walked toward him confidently, Leo trailing behind and covering my back, although the man in the chair looked pretty incapable of doing anything at this point.
His hands were tightly bound together behind the back of the chair with duct tape, and his ankles were zip-tied to the legs of the chair. He had a strip of duct tape across his mouth.
He watched us warily as we crossed toward him, but he didn’t look fearful. His chin-length hair fell into his eyes and gave him an insolent look as he glared at us. He didn’t show any signs of being physically harmed, but then again, just because he didn’t have bruises didn’t mean he hadn’t been smacked across the face a few times.
I smiled at him, mustering up all the real estate mogul charm in my body. “So happy you could join us today, I know this will only take a few minutes,” I said, speaking in a tone that indicated that for me this was just another business meeting.
I turned around and grabbed a chair that had been tossed haphazardly toward the wall. I placed it only a foot away from the guy and sat down, staring at him.
Like a rabid dog, he met my gaze and refused to glance down. “I need this to be quick. I have a special date to get to,” I said cordially, glancing at my watch as if this was the most mundane thing in the world that we could be doing.
After staring at the man for a few more minutes, allowing the silence to build to an intolerable level, I reached out and roughly ripped the duct tape off his mouth. I let the smile fall from my face and the barely contained rage in my body rise to the surface just enough to show on my face.
The man in the chair moved away from me. It was the tiniest of movements, damn near imperceptible, but I saw it. I saw the way his eyes widened slightly. I saw the way he cringed away from me, even just by a few millimeters. He was scared of me.
My heart beat faster with the sudden rush of power that flooded my body. I could do anything, absolutely anything, to this guy. I could make him tell me what I wanted to hear. I could make him beg for his life. Whatever I wanted, he would give it, because he knew I had the upper hand.
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, keeping my posture casual and my face devoid of emotion. I didn’t want him to be able to figure out my next move. He smartly remained silent, although his mouth was now free of tape. There was a bright red mark around his mouth where the tape had torn at his skin.
Seeing that I had managed to inflict a real injury, even a small one, on him sent a thrill through me, given who this guy was. I would have to be careful to ensure I didn’t start liking this shit a little too much….
“So,” I finally said after another long silence, “let’s talk about your boss.”
*Caterina*
“I bet it’s a surprise trip. I feel like guys like Elio love to plan surprise trips,” Anna babbled next to me as we walked side by side down the steps of the lecture hall we had been in.
Sometimes I wondered if she was almost as invested in my relationship as I was. Maybe I’d have to find a mafia man for her… surely Elio had a single friend or two.
“I don’t know if it’s a trip,” I said. “He knows I have class and everything.”
If I was honest with myself, I’d have admitted that it had been torture to go to classes all day and wonder what big surprise Elio had planned for me, but I knew he would make the anticipation worth it. He always made things worth the wait. Hell, our entire relationship had been worth the wait.
“Maybe it’s like a ridiculous present, like a car or something! He seems like the kind of guy who would totally just buy you a car.”
Although it would be just like Elio to randomly buy me a car, I didn’t think that was it either. I really had no clue what his surprise could possibly be, but I was quickly coming to realize that the best part of being with an older man was his ability to plan and execute surprises.
He didn’t wait around for me to make plans. He just made them and knew me well enough to know I would love them. He was ridiculously good at spoiling me. I’d never been one who thought I wanted the princess treatment, but Elio knew exactly how to give it to me without being overbearing.
“I don’t know,” I said, a smile on my face that I couldn’t contain.
“Holy shit, Cat.” She stopped in the middle of the stairs and grabbed my arm to force me to stop next to her. Students continued to stream around us, a few of them shooting dirty looks our way as we blocked the quickest path to freedom.
“What?” I asked, trying to pull free from her grasp so we could continue down the stairs.
“What if he’s about to propose?!” she squealed, causing even more people to look our way.
I felt my face flush at the attention. “Hush. He’s not going to propose,” I muttered, dragging her the rest of the way down the stairs.
“You don’t know that!” she insisted, allowing me to pull her to the side and out of the way of all the foot traffic. “You know he’s going to have it be some kind of big surprise! He’s old-school like that, I’m sure of it. Someday he’s going to propose, and you’ll have absolutely no idea.”
She had a point, but again, I was sure that wasn’t the surprise. Although I was certain that Elio was my forever, I didn’t think we were ready to get married just yet.
“I’m sure he’s not proposing… not yet, anyway. I think there’d be more signs if that was in the works.”
Just as she opened her mouth to respond, she shut it again and waved.
I turned to see Elio waving back at her, a ridiculously charming grin on his face. His hair was slightly ruffled from where he’d obviously been running his fingers through it. He was wearing one of his usual work suits, but he had removed his tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons, revealing a triangle of his chest that damn near made my mouth water. Fuck, he was good looking. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed that before my return from New York.
I practically bounced over to him, Anna at my side. He leaned against his car as he waited for us, looking like he belonged on the cover of a men’s magazine. Possessiveness rose in my chest as I saw the way a few women did a double take of him while they walked past.
‘That’s right, ladies, keep on walking,’ I thought to myself, some primal part of me willing to fight anyone who tried to get in between him and me.
I walked over and reached up to grab the sides of his face, pulling him down for a kiss that skirted on inappropriate for such a public place. My tongue swirled against his, encouraging him to open his mouth and give me exactly what I wanted.
He grinned against my mouth, then pulled away slightly and glanced toward Anna, as if he was unsure whether I really wanted her to see this.
Anna coughed awkwardly. “So, um, I guess I’ll be going… you be good to my best friend, Elio!”
Elio chuckled and turned to open the door for me. “I’m always good to your best friend. I happen to like her quite a lot.”
Anna rolled her eyes and walked away before we subjected her to any more public displays of affection. Elio walked around the car and slid in smoothly, reaching his hand out automatically to rest on my thigh.
Heat spread from his fingers straight to my core. I rested my own hand on top of his and settled in for the drive. I had no idea how far we were going, but being with Elio filled me with a deep sense of comfort. I closed my eyes and relaxed against my seat, letting the light filtering through the passing buildings warm my face.