*Giovani*
I kept subconsciously flexing my hands into fists and then forcing myself to relax them. My jaw was sore from how much I had been clenching it. I was pretty sure that on the nights when I didn’t sleep with Olivia, I was grinding my teeth from all the stress I had been under lately. Gabriele stared at ; he knew well enough to know that I would talk when I was ready.
“He’s killing ,” I said in a low voice. “I know I need to let it go and focus on the organization, but it’s fucking killing to deal with him.”
Gabriele nodded, sensing that I needed to talk this out more than I needed to hear his advice.
I kept talking. “I just don’t know what to do with him. He’s too inexperienced for to give him the responsibilities that he wants. And he’s willing to rip our organization apart if it ans he gets so kind of glory. I don’t think he has any idea just how serious all of this is. It’s like so kind of sick fucking ga to him. And to make it all worse, the way he talks about Olivia... it’s disgusting, Gabriele, truly disgusting. He acts like she’s not even a person. He treats her like a pawn on a chess board, just a piece for him to move around so he can get what he wants.”
“He’s not like us, Gio,” Gabriele finally decided to say. “You’ve got to rember that. He was raised differently. He’s not going to think about things the sa way we do. We’d sacrifice everything for the family business because we’ve been trained to feel that way.”
“I know,” I sighed. “But does he have to be so goddamn selfish? I’m not asking anyone to get themselves killed for , I just don’t want him to get killed.”
“You’re going to have to figure out how to rein him in. This is part of being a good Don. There’s a reason why you were chosen for this job. You’ll figure it out. But you’ve got to keep a level head. Don’t let him get you so worked up, especially over Olivia. You know a big part of that is just an act. They’ve known each other for years. He doesn’t really think she’s just a pawn in his ga.”
Gabriele was right, but it was easier to say I wouldn’t let Alessandro bother than it was to actually do it once the little shit was in my face. Right now was a great example. In theory, I wanted to let Alessandro take Olivia out to dinner and pretend like that didn’t bother at all, but in reality it was killing to know that she was out having an amazing ti with anyone other than . The fact that she had looked fucking gorgeous and had been angry with before leaving just made it worse.
As if our conversation had summoned him, Alessandro ca sauntering into the warehouse looking like he owned the world. A huge grin was plastered on his face, and as he got closer, I could faintly sll Olivia’s perfu clinging to him. I ground my teeth together, determined not to let him set off.
“What are you so happy about?” I asked him, hating that I already knew his answer.
“I had a good night. Taking a beautiful woman to dinner can have that effect on a man,” he said suggestively.
My entire body flexed instinctively. I wanted to grab him by the throat. I wanted to puml his face. I wanted to hurt him so fucking badly he would never dare talk to like that again. Gabriele looked at sharply. He knew exactly what I was thinking. He shook his head slightly, and I swallowed my rage back down. I forced myself to compartntalize and focus.
‘This is about business. Just focus on business,’ I thought to myself as I breathed in through my nostrils and out through my mouth.
When I was sure I could speak calmly, I said, “Gabriele tells your teams found sothing. Tell what you know.”
Alessandro smirked. He loved that I didn’t have the ti to respond to his dig about taking Olivia to dinner. It was just one more small way in which he could hurt , one more way that he could throw off balance, and I played into it every fucking ti. I couldn’t help myself. When it ca to Olivia, I didn’t know how to compartntalize. She had beco everything to .
Gabriele looked between the two of us, then said, “We’re almost certain we’ve found Dmitri’s right hand man. So guy nad Enzo. He’s a real piece of work, but Alessandro has been working on a plan to bring him in.”
To his credit, Alessandro seed willing to focus on the conversation at hand. Just as I had been thinking that it was a mistake to invite him and that I should have just received the intel from Gabriele, he nodded and a serious expression overtook the shitty smile he’d been wearing since he walked in.
“He’s overly confident in his location, and my team has located a few separate weak points. Along with Gabriele’s n, I think we can capture him and take him in alive. Once we get our hands on him, we’ll interrogate,” Alessandro said.
He wasn’t as smug about success as he had been when giving intel in the past. I could tell that Gabriele had been working to teach him that just because he made an assumption, didn’t an it was correct. Intel was based in fact-finding. He couldn’t tell anything unless he had one hundred percent verified it to be true, and we couldn’t just assu that our missions would be successful. We had to be realistic about what we could and could not do.
“Alright, I support this. I want to stay in the loop on all of it. As soon as your teams converge on the house, let know.”
If we managed to capture Dmitri’s second alive, it could change everything for us. The amount of knowledge that he would have about Dmitri’s entire operation would be enough for us to take it all apart. I just hoped that he wasn’t skilled in dealing with interrogation. Most n buckled under the pressure of a few broken bones, but there were so who stubbornly kept their mouths shut. Those were the ones I hated dealing with the most. I had to get creative when it ca to getting them to talk. It was an aspect of my job that I preferred to never think about.
“Thanks, boss,” Gabriele said and turned to depart.
I started to follow him, but I could feel Alessandro invading my space. I turned toward him, wondering what he wanted now. I was really starting to hate being alone with him. I hated how violent he made feel. Every ti I lashed out at him, I felt like I was betraying Jas. But every ti I let him walk all over , I felt like I was betraying Olivia. There was no winning when it ca to Alessandro. He was a huge fucking thorn in my side.
“What do you want?” I asked him bluntly. I had been so tense for so long that the fight had started to go out of . I just wanted him to leave alone.
“I want you to start thinking with your head instead of with your dick,” he said.
My heart started pounding and I felt blood rushing to my head. I had thought the fight had gone out of , but I had been wrong. My hands clenched into fists, and I knew the pulse point on my temple was probably visibly throbbing. I was so fucking angry I was worried I might actually black out from rage.
“I’d advise you to rember what happened the last ti you spoke to so crassly,” I said in as calm of a voice as I could muster, my muscles twitching.
“You know I’m telling the truth, Gio,” he said, a serious expression on his face, “You need to leave Olivia. She’ll never have a normal life with you, and it’s not just because you’re a Don.”
My face twisted into a sneer. “And who do you suggest would give her a normal life? You?”
“Well, yeah.”
I scoffed at the way he acted like he was doing sothing heroic. There was nothing fucking heroic about treating a woman like a prize to be won. She was a human being, not a trophy.
“I’ll let Olivia decide what’s best for her. She’s a grown woman. Or have you gotten so desperate to acquire her that you’ve forgotten that?”
“I’m telling you, just think about it. What do you think her life will really be like with a guy so much older? You think she wants to spend her forties changing your fucking diapers? What if she decides she wants kids? Do you really think it would make sense for you to have kids when you’ll just die before they even hit their twenties? Leave her so she can be with soone her own age. She’ll thank you for it later.”
His words hit like a knife to the chest. It was everything I had been forcing myself not to think about when it ca to my relationship with Olivia, and he was throwing it in my face. Of course, I had considered that being with an older man would change how her life would go, but I hadn’t let myself think too hard about it. I had been so focused on just ensuring that we had any type of future at all, I hadn’t allowed myself to picture what that future would actually look like.
“Just think about it,” Alessandro repeated before letting himself out of the warehouse.
I walked to my car and started to head back to the compound. I had never been an insecure person, but Alessandro’s words had doubting everything. What if Olivia stayed with and regretted it when I started getting truly old while she was only just hitting middle age? Would her life be better if she was with soone her own age? I replayed the beginning of our relationship over and over in my mind, wondering if there was a point where I had fucked up by letting us get so close. Being with Olivia was the best thing that had ever happened to , but the idea that our relationship could beco the worst thing that had ever happened to her was terrifying.
One thing I knew for sure, I had to see Olivia. She was probably still pissed at , and I was certain the conversation that I wanted to have with her would only make it worse, but we needed to talk this through. And at the end of the day, if I decided that what was best for her was for to let her go, I was determined to do that, no matter how much it would break my heart.
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