Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 499 -

*Giovani*

The man before me was broken, in more ways than one. The bullet had certainly done its damage, I thought as I stared blankly at Salvatore.

Bandages were wrapped around his torso and stitches across his eyebrow, even his hands were red and raw from whatever they had put him through. It was no wonder he had taken so long to wake up, but it wasn't just his body that was broken.

There was a hopeless resignation in his eyes, like a man staring down the end of a noose, the jeering crowd waiting for the moment he took his last breath. Despite having been comatose for so long, there were dark bags under his eyes, a deep exhaustion that ran down to the marrow of his bones.

His skin was sallow and sunken like a man who hadn't known sleep for weeks, and his hair was flat with a greasy sheen to it that didn't match the man who had first come here claiming to be my father-in-law.

His dues had caught up with him and life had done quite a number upon him, it seemed.

"Are you going to kill me?" Salvatore spoke quietly, his voice hoarse as he stared at his limp hands in his lap. His appearance was more fit to a hospital room than the guest bedroom we had given him. The bright exterior did not match his gloomy demeanor.

"That depends," I said indifferently, "on what information you have about Lorenz's operation."

"Spoken like a true boss," Salvatore sighed a wry smile on his lips. "All of you mafia bastards are the same, only caring about destroying one another and not who gets hurt in the process, all the lives you ruin for glory."

"Says the man who sold out his own daughter and grandchild for money," I shot back coldly, crossing my arms as I leaned back in the chair.

Salvatore shrugged, but he didn't bother to hide the shame that crossed his features, the guilt that was eating him away at the core.

"I never meant for any of this to happen," Savlatore said quietly, glancing at me with an honest look. "I didn't mean for Olivia or her kid to get hurt." "Just me."

"Just you," he confirmed, looking completely unashamed as he said so.

The fact that he could look me in the face and tell me he planned to have me killed was either incredibly brave or wholeheartedly foolish.

Or maybe it was somewhere in between.

"You don't seem to be broken up about that." I tilted my head at him, unfeeling as I surveyed his responses with a critical eye.

"What can I say?" He gave me a wry smile. "I guess I'm just as fucked up as the rest of you. I never claimed to be a better man or even a good man. I never wanted to get into this life in the first place, but that's just how life goes, I guess." There was a meaningful look to him as if he was trying to impart some kind of wisdom to me, and I clenched my jaw, wondering if perhaps this is what all men I brought into this life would look like someday. Perhaps, this was just a glimpse into my own future.

This life took in good people, broke them down to their core parts, and reshaped them to be whatever we needed from them-killers and soldiers, guns with hands that we pointed at our enemies.

"You know," Salvatore said wistfully, "I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I thought I could actually do it too. I wanted to be the first person to taste stardust, to bottle it up and give it back to my mama. But now, here I am." He looked me straight in the eye, a sense of sorrow as he asked, "Where do you think the dreams that die go, Giovani?"

I clenched my fist around the wood of the seat I was sitting in. The polish flaked off as my nails dug in hard enough that I could feel the splintered wood digging in between my fingernails. For some inexplicable reason, I felt like his words had rubbed against an open wound in my chest, that he'd touched something unseen, something that was too raw and too painful to be touched.

"You have two choices, Salvatore." I glared down at him, the cool indifferent mask slipping away to show the real anger underneath. "Option one, you tell me everything you know about Lorenz's operation and help us bring him down, win some of those forgiveness points for trying to kill me and for kidnapping my son. If you do, we will let you stay here while you recover and make sure they can't get to you again."

"And my other option?" he asked, curiously.

I didn't say a single word, I smoothly grabbed my gun from the holster and cocked it back, leveling my finger on the trigger as I pointed it straight at his head.

"Got it." He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Well, I guess I'll choose to live then. I don't know how much it'll help you, but I know of a few safehouses and a few warehouses, most of them actually. Lorenz is one of those guys who has a routine and he sticks to it. He goes to certain places at the same time every day and he never deviates. It's why I knew he'd be out when we broke in."

"So he's predictable," I snorted, holstering my gun once his mouth started moving.

"You could say that." He shrugged.

I pulled out the voice recorder I kept on me, started it, and declared the date to the machine and my own name as well as Salvatore's. I gestured for him to go on. "Everything?" Salvatore asked, resigned.

"Leave nothing out," I said firmly.

So he didn't. He listed when he started working for them, why and how he first met Lorenz, and everything he knew about Lorenz's schedule. The more he said, the more confident I was that this would be much easier than ever before. It would be an understatement to say that Lorenz was predictable-he was downright habitual. Salvatore had his schedule down to the minute with how organized he was, something that wasn't to be praised when you had dozens of men looking to kill you.

In addition to the recording, I wrote down the location of every warehouse and safehouse Salvatore knew about. We had already taken a few off the radar, but some looked promising and if we played our cards right, we could leave them like rats trapped in a cage.

Salvatore's voice was hoarse by the time we finished. I wrapped things up by stopping the recording and gathering my belongings. I tucked it safely into my suit pockets, glancing at Tallon, who had watched all of this from the back wall in silence.

Hopefully, he had learned something from this little exercise. I gave him a nod, letting him know it was safe to leave, and he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he kicked off the wall.

"Thank you," I nodded at Salvatore. "Get some rest. We may have more questions later."

I turned to leave, plans already forming in my mind of how we were going to do this, when I heard a soft, "Wait," from behind me.

I paused, my hand on the doorknob but I didn't turn back. Tallon glanced at me with a frown but I just waved him off.

He did as told, disappearing down the hallway with his hands held casually in his pockets. He had matured greatly over the past few months, but there was still that carefree soul inside of him. Maybe that was just what this family needed. "What?" I asked roughly, not in the mood for any more mind games from this man.

"Giovani." Salvatore swallowed and I glanced over my shoulder. He was hunched over in bed, staring down at his bandaged hands like he had lost something important.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

I clenched my jaw, slamming my teeth together roughly until the pressure hurt from grinding them into one another. Emotions boiled inside of me like I was a furnace and he was gasoline. That raw part of my chest ached again, rough and angry, much like nails on a chalkboard.

It was unpleasant.

But I'd always been a master at ignoring pain.

"It's worth nothing," I spat out before I slammed the door shut behind me.

I took in a few breaths, trying to calm my racing mind. I don't why I felt so agitated, but it was harder to suppress my emotions the longer I stayed here.

"Tallon," I called out as I headed for the kitchen and sure enough, there he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a bowl of crackers in his hand. Munching away, he glanced at me with a curious expression, cheeks stuffed full of crackers.

"Get Gabriele and Alessandro and meet me in my office in one hour. We have to go over the plan of attack," I commanded.

"Uh, sure." He swallowed his food and then tilted his head with a calculating look in his eye. "But if you don't mind me asking, what is the plan of attack?"

I sent him an irritated glance and he rolled his eyes, grabbing the bowl and moving past me. "Yeah, yeah, need-to-know basis. I got it."

"Tallon," I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at me with a confused expression.

"Thanks. I know all of this has been a lot, but you've dealt with it just like a real leader would. You've done a great job, Tallon."

Surprise flickered across his features, and I spotted a deep-rooted pride as he grinned at me with a beam the force of the sun's rays. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished behind a familiar mischievous look.

"Aw, Gio," Tallon teased with a baby-ish voice, "that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. I knew you had to have a heart under all that tin!"

I rolled my eyes, but my lips pulled upward despite my best efforts. Somehow Tallon always knew how to ease the tension, to make the other person comfortable.

"Just go get Gabriele and Alessandro," I shoved his head forward, ignoring his puppy-dog eyes that were sparkling with humor.

'Yes, sir, boss, sir!" Tallon saluted poorly and then marched out of the kitchen, still clutching his bowl of crackers.

Once he was gone, I relaxed. My shoulders slumped and I pushed the hair back from my face, feeling like I'd aged ten years in the past month. All I wanted was to crawl into bed with Olivia and Elio and not move for a week. But there was still more work to do.

There was always more work to do.