Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 351 -

*Olivia*

I quickly gathered up my things and started walking out of the lecture hall, my eyes roaming the room wildly as I tried to figure out who could have left the note. There were only a few students still lingering in the classroom, but none of them looked suspicious. They didn't so much as glance my way as I rushed to get out into the open air.

My bodyguard followed behind me, still on the phone. He hung up and quickly dialed another number, speaking quietly about needing backup.

Finally, we burst out of the double doors and into the open air. I felt myself starting to hyperventilate, but I couldn't think straight enough to force myself to get a deep breath. I shakily walked over to a tree and leaned against it, trying to keep myself from collapsing. Thankfully, biology had been my last class of the day. I just needed to replace Dahlia and get home to Gio.

My bodyguard finished his call and came over to me. I forced myself to look at his face to try to figure out if this was as bad as I thought it was. The lines of concern surrounding his mouth told me that it was.

"You need to breathe," he said quietly, trying not to draw any attention to us as students flowed past to their classes. "I wasn't able to get a hold of Giovani, but we're going to head home now. I'm sure you'll be able to replace him and tell him yourself once we get there."

I tried to take a deep breath in but found myself coughing and gasping. I sank to my knees next to the tree, losing all ability to appear normal. I desperately wished that Gio was here now. I didn't want to go through this without him by my side. Dahlia appeared out of nowhere and fell to the ground next to me, her face full of concern.

"Olive! What's wrong? Talk to me!" She put her hands on my shoulders and shook me gently as if trying to shake me back to reality.

Without a word, the bodyguard handed her the note that he still held in his hand. I couldn't tell what she was feeling based on the look on her face. I wondered if she could sense just how close I was to losing it entirely and knew that she needed to stay calm to help keep me calm. I felt guilty about the fact that she always seemed to be forced to be the calm one in every situation.

"Alright, let's get moving," my bodyguard said before reaching down to help both of us up. "I've got some men coming to pick you both up. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

"It's going to be okay," Dahlia said comfortingly as we walked to the car. "Gio will keep you safe."

Dahlia's bodyguard had maintained a small distance from us while we were under the tree, but now he and my guard flanked us closely. As we walked, two more men filled in the formation so that we had coverage on all sides of us.

I could see other students' heads turning as they looked in our direction, no doubt wondering why we looked like we had the secret service walking us to our car, even though the bodyguards were dressed like students so as to try to avoid this type of attention. I hoped that this would show whomever had left the note just how protected I was. Maybe they would give up if they realized that Gio was committed to keeping me and Dahlia safe.

I felt myself relax slightly as we walked. Surely, there was no way anyone could get through four of Gio's men to get to me. Even if there was someone on campus right now who wanted to kidnap me, they had no way of reaching me. By the time we got to the parking lot, I had managed to convince myself that there was no need to overreact and that Gio and his guys would get this all sorted out.

A black SUV pulled up to pick us up. All four of the men walking with us piled into the vehicle with Dahlia and me between them. Safely enveloped in the armored car, I turned to Dahlia. She was staring off into space as she chewed on her thumbnail.

I recognized that expression; it was her, "I'm terrified but I don't want to think too hard about it," look. I had seen it many times over the years. It comforted me slightly to know that I wasn't the only one who was freaked out, but it also reinforced what I had been thinking since the moment I saw the note-I was in serious danger.

"Who do you think wrote the note?" I asked Dahlia, partially to force her out of the trance she was in. It freaked me out to see her dissociate from fear.

"I don't know. Maybe one of Dmitri's guys?" She looked my way but continued to chew on her nail.

"I'm sure they aren't happy that Gio slipped through their fingers over the summer. Maybe this is their way of retaliating."

"Yeah, maybe...." She trailed off, turning away from me to stare out the window again.

Another thought occurred to me, sending a fresh wave of fear through my body. "You don't think it's someone else, do you?"

If the note hadn't been written by one of Dmitri's men, that meant that we had even more enemies than we had thought. How in the world would Gio keep us safe from multiple crime families? What if my being here was putting him at greater risk?

"I don't know.... I don't think so, but I don't know. Let's just focus on telling Gio what we know. He'll know what to do from there," she said. Finally, she stopped chewing on her nail long enough to pat my arm. "It's going to be okay. This isn't the first time something like this has happened."

I was scared that it also wouldn't be the last time something like this happened. I had to accept that a life with Giovani meant a life of danger. Would I be strong enough to handle it, or would I crumble under the pressure? I wasn't sure, but I was determined to replace out. I couldn't give up on Gio, not when we had found such happiness together.

"Tell me about the date you went on last night again," I said to Dahlia.

We both needed something to distract us. She grinned, knowing exactly why I was asking.

"Well, let me just tell you, Italian men know exactly how to treat a woman," she said with a wicked smile.

The bodyguard next to her coughed and turned slightly pink. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle a giggle. I knew it was irrational to be laughing at a time like this, but I found that it was exactly what I needed. Just a few minutes of normalcy, of Dahlia being her silly self, was enough to help me finally pull enough oxygen into my body and stop my racing thoughts.

Dahlia elbowed the embarrassed bodyguard as she said, "Marco here knows exactly what I'm talking about. Don't you, Marco?"

He turned from pink to red, and the other guards burst into laughter.

"Leave him alone, Dahlia!" I exclaimed, which only caused the guards to fall into another fit of laughter.

Poor Marco just shook his head at all of us. I made a mental note to tell Gio the man deserved a bonus just for putting up with Dahlia on this ride.

Before I knew it, we were pulling up to the compound. Seeing the place I had come to think of as home helped me to feel braver, but I still didn't want to have the conversation that needed to happen with Gio. I wondered why he hadn't answered his phone when my guard called him. It seemed unlike him to ignore phone calls from the person charged with keeping me safe. I hoped it didn't mean that he was busy with something else.

I didn't think of myself as a needy person, but if I was being totally honest, I really wanted his full attention on me right now. I thought back to all of the traumatic events that I had dealt with since moving to Italy. Gio was my one constant through it all. He was the only one I could count on to help me feel safe again, no matter what happened.

We got out of the car, the guards staying close to us as we walked inside. I appreciated that they always went the extra mile to ensure our safety. It would be easy to become complacent and stop taking it seriously, but they never did. I knew a big part of that was because of how well Gio trained his men. Nobody working for Gio half-assed anything.

Once we were safely inside, I got the sense that we all weren't sure what to do next. Without Gio's guidance, our guards and the two who had joined them looked at me and Dahlia. Luckily, Dahlia was a bit more used to taking charge in these kinds of situations than I was. She turned to all of us and took a deep breath, steadying herself so that she could be the leader we needed.

"Alright, Olivia and I will go replace Gio. You all go to the kitchen and discuss your take on things, and we'll meet back once we get him. He'll tell us what to do next."

The four men nodded at her and headed off to the kitchen. I waited for her to tell me what she wanted me to do.

"You look down here. I'll go upstairs. I'm sure we'll replace him fast; he's probably in his office," she told me, still using the no-nonsense tone of voice that she had used on the bodyguards.

I nodded and headed off to replace him, hoping that he was in the house somewhere. I hadn't considered the fact that he could be out doing something else. It wasn't unusual for him to spend the whole day checking the warehouses and looking into various problems that had come up. He hadn't responded to the text I sent him in the car.

My need to replace Gio grew as I checked room after room and couldn't replace him. I started to become more frantic, desperate to see him and feel his comforting touch. The longer I couldn't replace him, the more my mind raced with fear as I began to worry that something had happened to him.

What if the note had just been a ploy to throw us all off? What if Gio was in danger right now, and we were wasting time worrying about telling him about the stupid note? I ran from room to room, faster and faster. Before I could stop myself I was screaming his name as I ran through the house.

"Gio! Please be here! Gio!"