Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 377 -

*Giovani*

I slammed into my office, notebook in hand, and tried to think clearly through the swirl of emotions in my brain. I hated feeling scared, but this was twice that they had gotten to the women in school. They were picking off our people left and right, and with the notes, it felt like a direct threat against both women. I couldn't take a direct threat laying down, not if I wanted to keep everyone safe.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Gabriele.

"Another notebook incident. Get here now," I spat as soon as I heard the line connect.

"I'm with " he started.

"I know. I need you here." I sat down heavily behind my desk and beheld the bottle of brandy off to the side, still shaking a little with the vibration of my heavy steps. Olivia needed me sharp. They both needed me sharp. "I'll leave promptly. Anything else?" he asked.

I started to say no, then caught myself. "Did we ever hear anything back about the last note?"

Gabriele paused. I could almost hear him thinking. "I didn't, but I'll make some calls."

"Tell me anything you hear." I hung up.

I put my phone down and ran my hands through my hair, breathing out slowly. I'd blown up at them down in the dining room, but they just weren't listening.

I shook my head. I hadn't really blown up at Dahlia, and while I would have easily pulled Dahlia out of school, it wasn't fear for her that made me cast another longing glance at my decanter. I was scared for Olivia, and, frankly, mad at Olivia. She needed to listen when I told her we needed to do something for her safety. Otherwise, how was I ever going to protect her?

I picked up my phone again, this time dialing Alessandro. He'd been doing well ever since we'd gotten him back from the kidnapping, and I wanted him in the loop as much as possible.

"What's up?" he asked through a thick cloud of background noise. I'd sent him to wine and dine some of the companies Dmitri was trying to destroy our relationships with, and he seemed to be enjoying himself.

I bit back a sigh at his casual tone and said, "I need you to get back to the compound. We have a situation."

There was a brief pause. I heard a door close, and all the background noise disappeared. "Is everybody okay? Tallon, Dahlia, Olivia?"

At least he was learning when to take things seriously. But I needed his head on straight, especially coming from such a different situation. "Everybody's okay, I just need you here."

"Alright." I heard the disbelief in his tone, but he didn't argue. Better.

"Get out of there carefully. We need to maintain those relationships." "Gotcha." He hung up.

I stood. I couldn't keep sitting. I needed to get this energy out somehow.

I'd told Olivia that I couldn't talk to her like an adult. She had every right to be furious with me for that. It was a low blow, and I'd apologize. Hell, I'd apologize for blowing up at all. I'd had a better handle on my temper these last few years, but something about her brought all my emotions to the surface.

I began pacing. If she'd just said okay, I could have told her I didn't think she'd be out for more than a semester. But that was just more excuses, and I knew it. I could have told her then. I probably should have. It wasn't a guarantee, but our spy was well on their way to the upper echelons of the organization, and soon we'd know enough to strike. Even just telling her that might have made her less angry. I wasn't use to sharing this sort of information outside of my key capos. I clenched my fists, wishing I had something to hit in here. She kept saying that I needed to tell her more, and I wanted to do that for her, but she made it difficult when she fought back.

I'd dated women before, women in this type of life already, women who knew when to listen because the stakes were too high to argue. I kept trying to treat Olivia like those women, but the truth was, she'd caught my eye because she was different.

I imagined, for a moment, what Olivia would be like if she didn't push back on me. If she was the sort of perfect, docile mob girlfriend people say they're looking for, if she took all of this in stride, if she was the sort of girlfriend I'd had-and I'd dumped-a dozen times.

A calm, cool certainly stole over me. I didn't want that because that wouldn't be my Olivia. I loved her, and that meant loving all the things she did that drove me wild. I would always want her to stand up and yell at me when I made her mad, no matter how hard that made my life.

That's why I had to do anything to keep her safe.

I cracked my knuckles and sat back down at my desk. I had a direct line to an administrator at the university in charge of donor relations, an irritatingly peppy woman who I'd been running all my increasing bodyguard requests through over the past month. I couldn't stand her, but she never asked me what I did that might be putting her students in this much danger, and I appreciated that at least.

I dialed, and she picked up on the first ring as always.

"Hello, Signore Valentino! How can I help you today?"

I sighed heavily and tried not to take my lingering frustration out on her. "Signora Lombardi, sorry to be calling you again so quickly after the last time."

"No trouble at all! You know how we appreciate your contributions, and we are equally worried about the safety of our students here. Please, just let me know what I can do!" she chirped.

I never liked Signora Lombardi, but at least she'd never said no to me.

"Thank you for being so accommodating about the bodyguards. I actually have another safety concern. There have been a few incidents and—"

"Oh no!" she interrupted. "What sort of incidents? Were any other students harmed? I didn't hear anything."

I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the paltry faux concern in her voice. I knew she cared more about securing my donation than anything else, so I just had to leverage that before I crushed my phone to dust in my hand.

"Nothing for you to worry about. Everyone is alright," I grumbled. "But those two students we've been talking about, Olivia Robinson and Dahlia Valentino? They're going to have to take the rest of the semester off or study from home." She tutted. "That's so unfortunate. I can just void their semester and refund the remainder of their tuition to you. They will have to take these classes over again if they ever decide to rejoin our student body if they don't finish them from home."

I clenched my hand around my phone and heard the plastic groan. "I was thinking they could get some credit and be automatically reenrolled for next semester for the time being."

She hesitated. "Signore Valentino, I'd love to be able to—"

I couldn't take any more bad news. "There's no need to refund the remainder of the tuition, but if that's necessary to get them excused for the semester, I see no reason why it has to land in my bank account rather than the account of a hard- working woman like you."

I heard her teeth click shut on the other end of the phone. She typed a few things into a keyboard and hummed. "Well, it seems there is an option to excuse students in personal physical danger for a semester or so. Ah, but you will not be getting back the semester's tuition unfortunately. There will be no zeroes on the girls' records, and we can discuss class credit at the beginning of the spring semester."

I sighed in relief. "Wonderful doing business with you as always, Signora Lombardi."

"Have a lovely day!" she trilled.

I hung up and dropped my head in my hands. Not pretty, but at least it was resolved. And now, there couldn't be any fight over whether or not they were leaving.

I wished I could have the sort of relationship with Olivia where we were equal partners and I told her everything. Maybe we could have that after Dmitri, when there would hopefully be a lull in threats against both of our lives, and she could have an opportunity to catch up on what being in this life actually meant. But currently, she lacked the experience to know what to do in these situations. She was scared and away from home for the first time, and if she just trusted me, I could take care of her.

All I needed to do was explain that to her, and we could figure out a way forward through this mess.

I hoped.

I heard Gabriele's decisive knock on my door. "Come in!"

He opened the door and stepped in quickly, looking me over. "You look like shit."

I scrubbed my hands over my face. "Thanks."

"You can't keep burning the candle at both ends and the middle. You're going to end up useless to us."

I threw my hands up in the air. "What the hell else am I supposed to do? Somebody's killing my men in the streets, threatening my family, threatening my woman. I'll burn whatever I have to burn to get this done." Gabriele opened his mouth, but another, more timid knock sounded on the door first. "Yes?" I called.

Alessandro opened the door and stuck his head in. "I'm here."

I gestured him in, and he took his position next to Gabriele. I flipped the notebook on the table in front of me and took a deep breath, trying to become the don my men respected instead of a worried boyfriend they'd laugh at. "Dahlia got the note this time. Looks like the same culprit to me, but we should get it tested."

Alessandro spit out a string of Italian swears. "They can't come after my sister again. She's been through enough."

Gabriele nodded. "We'll take it to get tested, confirm the hypothesis."

I looked up at him sharply. "Were there results from last time?"

He sighed. "The lab was so busy with the recent killings that they got buried. A couple of fingerprints on a sheet of notebook paper didn't rank as high as figuring out who hit us."

I clenched my fists. I wanted to know who was killing our guys. It wouldn't help anything to take out this fury on a couple of techs who didn't know any better. "And?"

Gabriele smiled, all teeth and not a hint of happiness. "It's a student. And we have a name."