Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 470 -

*Olivia*

"Uh, sure," Sal replied, sounding somewhere between confused and pleased. "I can come over in maybe half an hour, or you can swing by here."

I hesitated. Whatever else I felt about what Gio said, I couldn't deny there was some evidence that Sal had Russian ties, maybe even deep ones. "I'd rather meet somewhere public," I said.

"Alright," he said slowly. "You wanna eat? We could grab an early dinner."

"No!" I snapped.

He fell silent. I took a deep breath to regain my temper. I was mad at Gio, not Sal.

Right?

Part of me, a part I didn't want Gio to see, fought its way to the front. I was furious with Salvatore, almost as much as I was with Gio. I believed he wanted a relationship, but knowing he might be paid to have that, no matter what his desires were, made me sick with anger.

I hated being a pawn in these ridiculous mafia games. But I could be angry with him when I knew the truth.

"No, I'm not hungry," I said a little more evenly. "Do you have anywhere else you just hang out?"

He hummed. "I like to go for walks in the Parco di Villa il Ventaglio."

I repeated the name to Dom, who had been driving aimlessly. He took a sharp right, and mouthed the words, "Twenty minutes," over his shoulder at me.

"I'll meet you there in twenty," I said before I hung up.

I inhaled slowly and dropped my head back against the seat, emotions tumbling over each other in my mind.

I meant what I'd said to Gio. If he tried to lock me down like he had when Dmitri ran the city, I would fight him tooth and nail. I wasn't the same wilting flower I was then, and I had people I could mostly count on to help me. But I couldn't deny the chill of fear Russians in the city sent down my spine. I had never been more scared, more uncertain than when Dmitri held Florence in the palm of his hand. Little made sense to me, and less made me comfortable. If the Russians were here, even a four-man enclave, I wanted them gone, whatever it took.

I chuckled bitterly. The Olivia who fled a new friend out of fear she might be a Russian plant would never have had that thought. Years with Gio had changed me more than I thought. They made me strong enough to do this, to face down my father and accuse him of betraying me.

I just had to show Gio that, and show Salvatore that I wouldn't just roll over and be used.

We pulled up in front of the park. It was small, but Sal hadn't given me a specific place. I peered a little closer at the trees and realized I recognized that particular blend of species from the pictures Gio had shown me.

So he'd invited me to his mob drop zone. A small shiver of fear tingled through me, but I had Tino and Dom.

"Stay close." I got out of the car and began searching for the bench I'd seen in the pictures.

My two suited guards trailed no more than five feet behind me. Their bulk steeled my nerves. Unless Sal was in far deeper than Gio or I dared to fear and this was an ambush, I would be safe.

I rounded a corner to replace the scrolled cast-iron bench with Sal sitting on it and reading a newspaper. He folded the paper up at our approach and smiled, patting the seat next to him. Part of me wondered if one of Alessandro's men was photographing me right now.

I sat a bit further away than Sal indicated, and my guards took six and twelve o'clock positions within a few feet of me.

"What's up, Livi?" Sal asked.

I swallowed. I was stronger than I had been, but sitting in this park, I couldn't help but remember the man with the gun who'd attacked Dahlia and me in a very similar place-the Russian man. "I have to ask you something," I hedged. I needed a little time to scan the trees and the sightlines and reassure myself no one was coming.

Sal nodded. "I figured as much."

The sunset cast strange shadows through the trees, but the park was mostly empty. None of the leaves moved in a way I wouldn't expect, and both Dom and Tino kept their gazes ever outward.

I steadied myself. "I know about the Russians."

Sal blanched. "I can explain-"

"I'm really hoping you can," I said honestly. "Gio doesn't want me here, but I think there could be a good explanation."

He smiled gratefully and put his hand over mine on the bench. I lingered for a moment, trying to feel the daughterly pleasure I'd experienced when I'd hugged him in the hall, but fear and worry overwhelmed everything else. I took my hand back. I wanted to hear his whole story before I drew any conclusions.

He frowned but nodded.

"I suppose I deserve that." He sighed. "This story, like far too many of mine, starts back in New York City, before you were born. Your mom and I were bar rats, and I needed a job that didn't interfere with that."

I still couldn't square the image of my mother as Sal described her, queen of the New York bar scene, with the tired, overworked woman I knew.

"One night, I ran into this guy decked to the nines in diamonds. Told me he worked for the Costas, and they need a guy to drive a truck a couple times a week without asking any questions. The pay was-" He laughed. "Let's just say, I knew I wasn't going to be transporting Barbie dolls. But it would let me make good money and do whatever I damn well pleased. At twenty-one, that sounded perfect."

I swallowed. Did he know I turned twenty-one recently, that when he was making reckless choices to spend more time at bars, I was raising a son and married to a Don?

When I didn't say anything, he continued. "I was low-level, of course, but despite all the cheap vodka I was pickling my brain in, I was pretty smart. There was an uptick in random cop stops, and I built a false back for my truck to cover the real merchandise. Even filled it up with crates of apples I bought myself. Within a week, it was standard across the city. Amanda thought I got into carpentry, I was building so many of those goddamn things."

He grinned as if he were reliving past glories. Part of me was repulsed, but I couldn't exactly judge. I'd heard Gio talk about some of his low-level men in the exact same way-small strokes of genius revealing future potential. "How did you end up on the run?" I asked. If I was right about him, I wanted to hear all his stories, someday. But right now, as the sun sank below the horizon, I wanted to know if I should be here at all.

He huffed a sigh and smiled ruefully. "Right to the tough stuff, huh?"

I nodded.

"Alright. You deserve to know." He stared into the distance for a moment. "After a few months, I got bumped from driver to supplier. Made a couple people mad, so I had to start taking weird routes to make my drops. One day, I found myself well outside Costa territory, heading down a back alley on my way to meet a dealer, when I see Vincente Costa, the Don's second, talking to some thug. I must have some kind of anti-guardian angel because I walked up just in time to hear him settling a deal to take out Giancarlo Costa, the Don."

I winced, and he chuckled bitterly.

"You can say that again. I snuck away and tried to warn Giancarlo. He'd always been kind to me." He snorted. "That was my mistake. I was too late. Giancarlo wrote me down for a special commendation, and Vincente knew I was the reason his fight was so hard. I had to disappear before the Don brought the whole might of the family down on me."

I pressed a hand to my mouth. He'd been hunted as a traitor for trying to warn someone he was loyal to, not any of the awful things Gio thought and implied.

He smiled indulgently at me. "Don't worry too much. I got out quick. Missed you and your mom something fierce, and I never really had a home after that, but the Costas never caught me."

"What did you do for all those years, though?" I had to ask. "Why didn't you ever come back?"

"Odd jobs." He shrugged. "I worked for whoever would take me. Then, a decade or so back, a man with a heavy Eastern European accent came looking for me in Paris."

My mouth fell open. I'd half forgotten this was originally about his relationship with the Russians, and the mention of them sent my gaze skittering over the trees. There was nothing new, thank god.

"He said his boss would pay top dollar for information on the Costa operation, and he heard I might be the man to get it from." He sighed heavily. "I couldn't turn them down."

I gnawed on my lip. I could picture him, a decade less haggard, happy to fall into the arms of any family who would take him. Maybe he'd only spent a little time with the Russians, and the tattooed man was an old friend.

But I knew that didn't explain the bank discrepancies, or the fear in his eyes in those pictures.

"Do you still work for them?" I blurted.

He ran a hand through his thinning hair, then met my eyes. "Yes."

My stomach sank. That was the one answer that could ruin him in Gio's eyes, could keep him from my life forever.

"But they don't know about you." He grabbed my hand, his eyes shining. "I don't even think they know about Gio. They haven't asked anything."

In the back of my mind, I realized that meant he knew exactly what Gio did, and all my careful talking about it had been a waste.

"What do you do?" I asked numbly.

"A little dealing," he admitted. "I don't have the sort of resume that lets me replace other work, and Italy's not cheap. But a dealer's the lowest man on the totem pole. I've only ever met my supplier, Alexei."

I stared into his eyes, searching them for the truth. The shine to them could have been sincerity, but it could also be tears brought on by fear of being caught.

Or fear of losing me.

His grip on my hand was desperate, trembling.

"I want a relationship with you, Olivia, whatever that means." He swallowed. "Whatever you'll give me."

I disentangled my hand from his. "Sal-"

He smiled ruefully. "I thought we were on Dad now."

I forced a smile. "I want you in my life, but-"

"But you can't get over the Russian thing?" He released my hand, disappointment clouding his eyes. "This is why I didn't tell you. I knew, since you told the story about the gelato, that you wouldn't be able to see this for the innocent employment it was. I would never let anything hurt you."

An instinct to grab his hand back, to comfort him, rose up in me. I hated watching his face fall, hated seeing him sad.

"I... don't know," I said. "This is big, and I need some time to mull it over. Can I have that?"

He nodded, excitement springing back to his gaze. "As much time as you want! I'll be waiting for you whenever you're ready."

I stood. "I'll call you."

"I'll wait by the phone!" He waved.

The walk back through the park was as silent as the walk there, and my mind swarmed with even more thoughts. I didn't know if I could ever feel safe knowing he worked for the Russians, but maybe I could talk to Gio and get him a job in the Valentino organization.

I kicked a rock. It really seemed like he just wanted to be a part of my life. The way he collapsed when he thought I was saying goodbye forever, and perked back up when I said maybe, was the most emotion he showed the whole time. It reminded me a little of the way Elio slumped when I tried to feed him something he didn't want and sat up when I offered him some fruit. He was, undeniably, my father.

If he was a liar, he was a damn good one. But then, he would have to be to survive the life he described.

I just had to decide whether I thought he'd lie to me.