Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 684 -

*Elio*

I let out a disgruntled groan from my chest when I heard the continuous buzz of my phone going off. The room was pitch black as Cat remained curled up beside me with her face buried in the bed covers. My sight was barely visible as I struggled to replace my phone on the bedside table in the dark. And my head was still aching from the anger and stress of seeing Alexi waiting outside of the building yesterday. I hated how easily he was able to trigger my anger while he managed to remain so calm and collected.

'That smug bastard,' I had snarled to myself. 'Who the fuck does he think he is?'

I was so angry I could barely see straight, even after he had left. Did he seriously believe that I didn't care about Caterina's safety? The man went out of his way to see Cat and tried to steal a moment alone with her, more than once. Why?

I didn't miss the stolen glance he'd shot in her direction right before he headed to his own car. It felt like a block of lead in my stomach. Goddamnit, so much for a peaceful arrival home.

I'd already figured that the moment our plane touched down, my mind would be one hundred percent transfixed on work. But Cat's unexpected, languid touches made me rethink my priorities.

I wanted to push whatever work that needed to be dealt with until the following day and focus on Cat. I had every intention of rushing us back to the apartment and spending the next several hours worshiping every curve and line of her body. Instead of that, we both got back to our penthouse and spent what was left of our night in an awkward silence. Cat tried to ask me about Alexi, but I couldn't replace the mental clarity to tell her much. Knowing that I was purposely holding out on her, she proceeded to take a long shower and head straight to bed.

I followed swiftly after her and hoped that tomorrow would bring less aggravation.

Unfortunately, seeing Leo's name appear on the screen of my phone told me that a possibility of tranquility was unlikely to happen.

I quickly answered the call and slid out of bed, trying my best to not wake up Cat. I glanced out the window to replace that the sun hadn't even peaked over the horizon. Damn, it was early. That only caused my nerves to spike further. What information did Leo need to tell me that couldn't wait until morning?

"Is there a reason why you're calling me at the ass crack of dawn?" I muttered.

"Ha, ha. Believe me, I wasn't too keen about calling you either. To be honest, I was going to pass the phone to someone else and spare myself a verbal lashing," he snarked.

Leo sounded just as thrilled as I did, only his voice was laced with an undertone of anger that I would, undoubtedly, be sharing with him.

"Just tell me what's happened."

"It's that rat Alexi," he snarled.

Suddenly, I found myself wide awake. What little exhaustion that was still lingering in me instantly faded. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from shouting out a series of curses. 'Of-fucking-course this is about him,' I thought bitterly.

I took in a staggering breath and pushed the rage deep within my chest.

"What about him?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"I don't know what happened, man. The fucker double-crossed us it seemed," Leo explained. "You know we've got eyes on all the safehouses he told us about?" "Yeah, and?"

"The team has discovered Alexi trying to head to one of those safe houses, very likely trying to get to Junior. Well, we stopped him before he got the chance."

The pause in his voice told me that there was much more to the story than he was leading on. The terrible feeling in my gut would not calm down for anything. A part of me wanted to be shocked by this revelation, but I never fully trusted Alexi to begin with.

"What aren't you telling me, Leo?"

"While we may have stopped the bastard from getting to Junior, there is the very likely chance that the damage has already been done," he said. "Apart from getting a hold of him, the team had eyes on Junior. They watched him come out of one of the safe houses and remove the tracker we'd placed on his car."

My eyes fell shut while I felt my self-control lose another piece of itself.

"Motherfucker!" I hissed loudly.

Quickly, I glanced over my shoulder to see Cat was still sleeping soundly. The last thing I needed was to wake her up and have her replace out about what was happening. I didn't think I could handle her reaction to replaceing out that we've basically lost our advantage over Junior. Here I was thinking that this whole mess was soon to be over....

My lips pulled back into a tight sneer. "So, what you're basically telling me is that we're compromised."

"Yes," Leo sighed. "Chances are that Alexi reached out to Junior and told him everything, or at the very least, informed him about the tracker on his car."

I took several breaths in hopes of keeping my head clear. But my nerves were so tense that my hand was shaking tensely at my side. It clenched into a tight fist and was just waiting for the chance to fly out and hit something.

"I just don't get it, man," Leo sounded resigned. "I really thought that Alexi wanted nothing more to do with Junior, and yet he turns around and pulls some shit like this? What the hell happened?"

I knew exactly what made Alexi change his mind about wanting to keep working with us-me.

After going off on him yesterday, I'd basically told the asshole to crawl back to his boss. I wanted him to stay away from Cat.

It didn't exactly take a genius to see that Alexi was interested in her. He surely wasn't the first man to ever look at Cat with interest, and much to my dismay, he wasn't likely to be the last. Whether she realized it or not, Cat was unearthly beautiful. Whenever she and I would spend time outside of the apartment, she'd capture the attention of whoever we'd walk by.

Not a single man was dumb enough to ever approach her when I was around, but Alexi had proven to be different. For some unknown reason, him helping my team out must have given him the idea that he was granted access to Caterina. "Yeah, that may have been because of me," I muttered bitterly.

"What the hell do you mean?" he asked.

"Catarina and I were heading back to the penthouse after the flight home. Well, when we got there, we saw that Alexi was waiting outside the building. I'd asked him what he was doing there, initially thinking that it was something Junior- related, but the stalker was just hanging around because of Cat. He made some stupid, cutting remarks about me not being able to protect her well enough, something about me being too careless about her safety."

I didn't care how immature or jealous I sounded. The guy needed to back off. If he hadn't left when he did, there was a very good chance that I would've pounded him. Now that I was being told that he'd gone ahead and blown our cover, I knew should've thrown my fist when I had the chance.

"Well, look, man." Leo said. "Junior hasn't left the safe house yet, but there's a good chance that could happen soon."

I ran a rough hand through my hair and down my face. "Yeah, I think you're right. Chances are that he's currently making plans to relocate and trying to get out of there without us noticing."

At this rate, we were going to lose track of him. All those months of searching and planning were about to fall to nothing.

I didn't need to glance down at my hand to know that my knuckles were white from all the straining. I really needed to replace a way to release all this pent-up stress and anger. I imagined using Alexi as my personal punching bag.

If I couldn't catch Paul, then the next best thing was to get the guy who had ruined my plans, for the time being.

"You said that you caught Alexi. Where is he now?" I asked sharply.

If it turned out that Alexi was currently being held in one of our warehouses, I was going to throw on some clothes and take a ride out there myself. And as much as I hated to leave Cat in the middle of the night with zero explanation, it was a decision that would've been easily made.

"We let him go," Leo said.

'You've got to be fucking kidding me,' I snarled to myself.

At that moment, I wasn't entirely sure I trusted myself not to explode. We don't even have the guy responsible for our failed plan. Fucking hell.

Now I was truly beginning to understand why Leo was hesitant to be the one to call me. Not one piece of information he was telling me was decent.

"I know you're pissed off, Elio, but think about it," Leo reasoned. "Alexi has no one at this point. He's as much of a traitor to Junior as he is to us. We let him go so that Junior can deal with him however the hell he wants."

My brows raised in surprise. Maybe it was for the best that Alexi was out of our hands now. As long as he stayed away from Cat and me, I didn't care what happened to him.

"Alright," I said. "As annoyed as I am about all this, I'll call you again in the morning. I've got some other news to tell you and I don't have the brain function to explain any of it now."

I ended the call and refrained from throwing my phone across the room. Sliding back under the covers, I rested my head against the pillow and searched for any chance of falling back asleep.

"What's going on?" Cat whispered softly.

Every muscle in my stomach clenched, and I turned to see her eyes blinking up at me. Oh shit, how much had she heard? Was she awake the entire time? Damnit, I knew I should have left the room to take the call in the hallway.

I lifted my hand to brush her hair back from her face. "It's nothing I can't deal with," I hushed. "Go back to sleep."

Cat's eyes fluttered closed, whereas mine remained wide open. My mind slipped into a long, endless train of thought. So, my team decided to let Alexi go....

Just knowing that the guy was walking around freely set my nerves on edge.

'I shouldn't have let Alexi walk away the first time,' I thought aimlessly. 'I won't be making that mistake again.'

Before I allowed my eyes to close again, I decided that tomorrow Leo and I would talk to Francesco. The man needed to be brought up to speed on our situation as soon as possible. Plus, it was vital that I talk to Leo about being my potential second.

He had remained by my side through nearly this entire ordeal. This had become his fight just as well as mine.