Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
My appetite felt vastly diminished, given my current surroundings as well as seeing the unknown man tied to a chair. It felt wrong even to just stand where I was.
Then again, I was the one who had told Elio that I needed to be kept in the loop. I insisted on knowing what was going on, but it hardly ever occurred to me that he would want to physically bring me into his business like this.
“Come here, Cat,” he spoke softly.
By the looks of it, it appeared that Elio had sandwiches delivered. They looked great, but my stomach was still swirling with uncertainty.
“Has he still not said anything?” I dared to ask.
I picked up one of the sandwiches and diligently unwrapped it. Elio took a long sip of his drink before turning his head toward the window. He shook his head while his expression grew grim.
“Nothing of any use lately,” he said. “I told you that he somehow managed to escape, and we found him and brought him back here. Bastard put up a decent fight but ultimately gave in when he realized how outnumbered he was.”
I plopped down into one of the chairs and forced myself to take a bite of my sandwich.
“And still nothing,” I muttered under my breath.
I felt a mixture of dejection and growing impatience toward the situation at hand.
‘All that pain and he still refused to give up anything pertaining to either Antonio or Junior,’ I thought bitterly.
That particular kind of loyalty had to have been founded by fear. Whatever Elio and his men tried to use against this nameless guy was clearly not worthy of the consequences that he would potentially face if he were to let something slip.
The mere thought of Antonio’s thought process about punishment made my skin crawl with uneasiness. For once, I wanted to believe that we had the upper hand in the situation, yet the outcome was not as productive as it should have been.
From what I could quickly gather, Elio and I appeared to be alone. Granted, there were a few men roaming about, patrolling the grounds, but the two of us were able to speak freely.
I quickly turned my thoughts to another apparent figure.
“Well, any news on the safe houses that Alexi gave us?” I asked.
Elio’s expression only seemed to darken from there. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Elio wasn’t fond of the stranger. To say that he was skeptical of Alexi’s true intentions was truly an understatement. Why, out of complete nowhere, was a random man from Antonio’s side so willingly come forward when there were terrible consequences to be faced from either side?
Regardless of the real reasons, I could tell that it infuriated Elio beyond comprehension. To think that the only real link we had to Antonio and his band of misfits was through a man that was free as a bird, whereas the captive they’ve been holding has remained silent.
“According to the locations he’s given us, I’ve gotten word back about a few sightings of Junior’s men, but none of him specifically,” he said.
I nodded my head and bit the inside of my cheek as my bout of impatience grew even deeper. My body unconsciously tensed at the thought of Junior still roaming about wherever. Finding a way to cope with what happened to my mom was one thing, let alone having that creep out there free. I realized that not many people knew about the mental and emotional issues I’d been dealing with for the past few months.
Ever since I was told the honest truth about “Paul” and his true identity, my willingness to trust and believe new people had become near to impossible. I dealt with constant moments of anger and partial self-hatred for allowing myself to be controlled by someone like Junior for so long.
All that time, I’d believed that he cared for me. I shuddered at all the sad ass excuses I had made for him and myself, only to make the painful discovery that I was nothing more than a pawn in father’s game.
I was a firm believer that no one wanted to see Antonio taken down more than Alessandro and Elio. But what I wanted, was for Junior to be taken down and face the consequences of his actions. The thought of him inflicting that same pain on some other woman was revolting.
God, I hoped that Elio and his men would find a way to get the man they have downstairs to talk soon. Anything at this point would be useful to work with as opposed to nothing at all.
I finished the last few bites of my sandwich and grabbed one of the sodas off the desk.
“Well, although this was not entirely what I was expecting when you said you wanted to do lunch together… still, I’m happy that you called me,” I told him.
Some of the tension around Elio’s features started to lessen. The corners of his mouth pulled up into a heart-warming smile that made me shiver in a glorious, needy way.
“But, while we’re on the topic, why did you ask me to come here?” I asked.
It wasn’t as though Elio couldn’t have just simply told me all this while at home. It probably would have spared me the anxiety I felt when I first pulled up to the warehouse.
Elio swept what trash was left over from our lunch and tossed it back into the bag it first came in. He leaned against the desk and eyed me carefully.
“I thought you’d want to be here if our little guest finally decides to start talking,” he said. “We’re about to interrogate him again.”
I physically felt myself go pale.
‘Oh, God. Am I seriously ready for something as big as being a part of this?’ I asked. ‘No, probably not. But I was the one who made it a point to tell Elio that I needed to be included in things from now on.’
As easy as it would have been for me to make up some sort of excuse that would allow me to skip out on this unsettling activity, I needed to stick by my own word.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and slowly got up from my chair, hardening my resolve.
“Alright,” I mumbled.
The sooner this happened, the quicker I would be able to return to the apartment and continue to study.
I tried to convince myself that I needed to do this. For the sake of my father and my mother, I needed to take a firm stance against all the madness that had done nothing but wreak havoc on my life.
Silently, I followed close behind Elio as we both descended the stairs down to the main room. He gave an unspoken look to some of the men who continued to circle the area, and they immediately joined us from a few feet away.
He led me over to the man, giving me a better chance to look at him. Elio broke away from my side to lean down into the man’s personal space. My earlier calculations were correct. The guy didn’t seem to be injured at all, just severely uncomfortable.
The air around us filled with a terrible, spine-chilling tension. The moment Elio opened his mouth to speak, I knew that something was different. The Elio I knew disappeared and a harsher, darker version has taken his place.
“Last chance,” he snarled to the man in front of him. “Where is Antonio?”
*Caterina*
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think straight.
I couldn’t even find the strength to make it through the whole interrogation.
Somewhere between, what seemed like, the tenth and twentieth attempt to get Antonio’s man to give us even just a piece of viable info I left the room. I had to.
There was no way my nerves were capable of handling another moment of it all. Between the agonizing silence and hearing Elio lose his temper, I was fairly certain that it was going to end up in another bloodbath.
I was just waiting for the final nerve to snap inside of him and watch him send his fist hurling through the air. Or maybe one of the men was getting ready to pull a gun or throw a blade at the guy.
I didn’t know what frightened me more—the unbreakable tension or the way that Elio shifted his entire demeanor for the sake of potentially gathering information.
Where did this side of him come from? Did it always exist? How come I’d never seen it growing up?
Growing up with Elio protecting me, I was certainly enough of a pain all on my own that I could have undoubtedly brought this side of him out.
But no. This unseen version of Elio was cold… unhinged… disturbingly ruthless. It was almost impossible to think that he was the same man I’d fallen in love with.