Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 921 : All Fired Up

*Leo*

For the first time in my life, I was terrified. Just the thought of someone taking Bianca Made my mind damn near stall.

I was used to being a man who was calm under pressure. Being shot at, I ran through the fire zone. Cops on the phone or in the vicinity, I was cool as a cucumber and usually pissed them off with my smooth and calm demeanor.

Even when I was so angry I could scream, I kept that shit on lock down. I knew my limitations, and my temper could, at times, be one of them.

Remaining simmered down without appearing to be a coward was something I’d accomplished at a young age.

Panicking wasn’t an option, and letting people get the upper hand was as far from what I wanted to accomplish that it was laughable to even think of it.

I could handle just about everything that was thrown at me, but I was concerned this was the one thing that might actually take me out the game, forever.

A man who couldn’t handle the pressure of this world frequently made mistakes. Not just any kind of mistakes, but major league ones. They fell into slip ups that could be life altering at best and deadly at worst.

I didn’t want to make a mistake no one would recover from, especially not me. Though, I knew I had been fucking up royally with Bianca lately, I didn’t think I’d be able to live without her. She was no longer just a desire I had in my life. I hated to admit it to myself, but Bianca had become as much a necessity as breathing to me.

Now that I was faced with the prospect of losing her forever to some megalomaniac’s bullet or his minions’, I felt like my damn heart was going to beat right out of my chest. My stomach felt like the bottom had dropped out of it.

My mind whirled with thoughts of what if and how the hell was I going to keep her safe and keep her here with me. Was it nuts to want to keep her here? Shouldn’t I try to get her out of the line of fire?

Now, I was rushing across the city again. What? Wasn’t this the second time I’d done this in the last month or so?

I remembered speeding home to get to her before. The beating of my heart was nearly as frantic today as it had been in those moments nearly a month ago.

I needed to get to her, right fucking now. Needed to protect her and keep her safe. I was glad that I didn’t run into as much traffic as I had the night Elijah had been taken out of the picture. I didn’t think I’d handle it well. I’d end up in jail for shooting at people to get the fuck out of my way as I tried to make it home to her.

When I got to the house, I barely let the door close behind me before I started yelling for Bianca.

I took the stairs two at a time, and rushed into our room. She wasn’t there.

“Fuck!” I yelled, and thrust the fingers of my right hand through my hair as I pulled my phone from my pocket with my other one.

“’Sup?” Franky answered, sounding preoccupied.

“Where the fuck is everybody?”

“She’s not home?” Franky asked, his tone dangerously low.

“Would I be asking you where everybody is if she were?”

“Sorry man,” I figured she’d stay put after last night’s bullshit.” 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

“Franky, I need you to find her, quickly.”

“Call her bodyguards, I’ll get some men out to look for her,” Franky said, reminding me he was not the only man on my payroll that I was supposed to be able to count on.

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

I don’t know why I didn’t even think of the bodyguards before Franky reminded me. my grip was slipping, and I had to get my shit together if I was going to keep Bianca safe. Too much was going on. Things were sliding out of my grasp.

I could remember in that moment hearing her say something along the lines of, I just wanted to have fun. I didn’t begrudge her having fun. I got it. I remembered being young, but I never really had a chance to have fun.

I’d been a survivor. I had been too busy trying to keep food in my mouth, shelter over my head, and a way to never have to scrounge around like a scrub or street rat again in my life. I didn’t fully understand the concept of young and fun, but I did understand wanting to be independent and make my own decisions.

I assumed that was what Bianca really wanted in the end. She’d already had a control freak of a boyfriend. Remembering Matteo made me grit my teeth as I searched through the house for her and began calling the fucking guards that were supposed to be protecting her and making sure she stayed safe.

I was feeling all kinds of pissed. She’d left the house even after last night’s fiasco. In my mind, I saw her with the blonde guy that looked like something out of a GQ magazine spread. Then, I shook my head.

She wasn’t like that. Bianca would never cheat. I needed to trust her, but a part of me wanted to kill the man for even looking at her at all, nonetheless talking to her and standing as close as he had been.

When I’d seen her standing there talking with a man that looked to be around her own age, I’d almost lost it. It had taken everything in me to just stand in the shadows and watch to make sure she remained safe.

The guy had been looking homespun and as if college was his only job in the world, I’d felt some kind of way. Was it right to mistrust her? Of course, it wasn’t. But, who said I was rational at the best of times? When you put Bianca in the mix, rationality flew out the window so fast, it was damn near comical.

Now, my men were combing the city for a woman who should have stayed in place. We were using resources that could and should be focused on finding Michael and what was left of his crew after the other night’s shoot out.

But, no, we were doing the exact opposite of what we would be doing because she wanted to have fun. I gritted my teeth as I tried the guards’ phones and received voicemails from both phones.

Then, I stared at my phone and because I was alone I began to scream out my rage. You had to be fucking kidding me.

I ran out the front door, letting it slam and lock automatically behind me. I was ready to kill somebody myself right then. I’d received a text message from Bianca’s guards, telling me that something was wrong and giving me an address that seemed familiar.

I jumped back into the SUV I’d driven off in the morning and sped over to the address I was given. Just keep breathing, I told myself, thinking I’d love to get my hands on Bianca’s guards.

Would I kill them? In that moment, I honestly didn’t know, but I was tempted to. Maybe I’d send them to Al instead. Let them deal with the leaders over there instead of me, and I was purported to have a cooler head than Al.

As I raced toward the address, a text message with a picture of the woman I loved sitting across from college boy came up on the dashboard screen. At first, I saw red, thinking she’d betrayed me, but I breathed and realized that her facial expression was the one I’d been seeing more and more of these days.

She looked tense and distressed. I gritted my teeth. I hated that I wasn’t there to protect her . I hit the speed dial on my dashboard to call Franky.

“I’m on it, Leo.”

“She’s at this address,” I rattled off the address from memory. It was seared across my retina . “Mobilize the men. I think she’s being held hostage by the GQ creep she was talking to at that damn bonfire.”

I heard Franky issuing orders to our men, as I played Russian roulette with LA traffic pushing the SUV as hard as I could to get to her as soon as humanly possible.

“Alright, they’re on their way, and I’m right behind them,” Franky said to me.

I had no idea how he felt about all this. He took orders and rarely made a peep about what I asked him to do. occasionally, I’d get a smile, up nod, or a cheeky “sure, boss” when he wanted to fuck with me, but he never said a word of his opinions.

I knew it was just the way things went in the families. Underlings took orders, kept their opinions to themselves unless they were asked, and they stayed alive a lot longer than the average so-called mobster.

The thing was that I appreciated Franky’s cunning mind and the way he easily maneuvered in this life. I didn’t have to wonder if he’d do his job. He just did. I didn’t have to tell him twice. He took orders whether he liked them or not or agreed or disagreed. Shit, half the time I never knew either way.

After I hung up with Franky, I felt a little more relaxed that he was on the job from his end. I concentrated on getting from one side of LA to another as fast as I could without killing myself or anyone else.

Barely ten minutes into aggressively weaving in and out of traffic and even once using the emergency lane, I received a call from Bianca. I damn near hit the fucking breaks; I was so relieved to see her name popup on the dashboard screen. I hit the pick-up button on the steering wheel.

“Bianca, baby,” I answered, all but breathing her name.

But it wasn’t her voice I heard coming through her cell phone line. It was that little fuck Taylor’s. What the hell was he doing there?

“I’ve handled everything,” he said cheerfully. “But, you failed to protect Bianca just like I knew you would,” Taylor said, his voice darkening and I supposed he’d lowered his voice, so Bianca wouldn’t hear him.

“Where’s Bianca?” I demanded.

“Don’t you worry about that, Leo. I’ll protect her now.”

I slammed my fist against the steering wheel as the call ended with a self-satisfied chuckle from that asshole. I scowled and smashed my foot harder on the gas. Fuck this, I had to get to my woman, immediately.