Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 925 : Luxurious Cages

*Bianca*

After watching Taylor disappear from his seat so violently, I scrambled out of the car to witness Leo dragging Taylor onto the driveway. He held Taylor with both hands by the collar, yanking him around like a ragdoll. The look on Leo’s face was so livid.

There was barely a description I could come up with for it. I was afraid that he would really hurt Taylor this time.

Leo’s grimace was hellacious. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his lips were peeled back from his teeth. He was breathing hard and his nostrils flared. I was almost worried about his blood pressure because his face was so red and his pulse pounded in his throat.

Taylor did not seem to be fighting him, but I was not sure. All I could tell was that Leo was dragging him around and lifting him up to his toes.

“Why are you here?” Leo’s voice boomed across the compound’s circular driveway.

I did not think I had ever heard Leo raise his voice like that before. Usually, his tone was low and deep and intense when he was angry, but for the first time since we had been together, I heard his voice raised in a yell.

I had never seen him this angry, and it kind of scared me. It reminded me of the times that Matteo lost his temper and went off on me, but I could not be afraid of Leo. He was the one person in the United States that I was supposed to be able to trust with my safety. He would never turn on me, I told myself, as I grabbed his right arm to pull him away from Taylor.

“Leo, stop it!“ I shouted, continuing to pull at his arm, but I could not budge him.

He was so strong. All that magnificent strength pulling against my hand I could not let him go. I knew I had to keep some kind of contact with him. I felt that as long as I was near, he would not start pounding on Taylor.

Leo would never hurt me. I had to keep chanting those words in my head like a mantra, but I was starting to wonder if I was right or not.

“Leo, he was sent here by Mia to take care of me. Do not hurt him. Please do not hurt him.“ I begged and hung on for dear life as Leo swung Taylor to the other side and shook him like a ragdoll again.

“I know exactly who he is and why he’s here,” Leo said, his tone going from angry shout to dangerous low threat in seconds.

It made me shiver. Leo will never hurt me; I told myself again.

“He was trying to help, Leo. He would never do anything to hurt me.“

“I want to hear it from him,“ Leo said, his voice slow, still dangerous, but he had at least stopped shaking Taylor.

Taylor stood strong, staring into Leo’s eyes as if Leo did not have the upper hand. I was not sure in that moment who had the upper hand. I just knew it was not me.

“Stop this, now, Leo!” I cried, pulling at his arm again.

“I know he’s here to take you away from me. I know he’s here to convince you to go back to Italy with him.” Leo’s voice had grown even deeper and quieter.

Instead of talking to Leo, Taylor glanced at me. Was he freaking nuts? Leo had him by the collar and was ready to kill him over me, but he was giving me eye contact.

“Mia said that you would be safer in Italy. You know it, and I know it. Everybody,” Taylor pointedly looked down at my stomach then back into my eyes, “would be safer in Italy.“

I stared at him and clutched at my T-shirt over my belly. I let Leo go. He could cream Taylor for all I cared in that moment. The problem was that Taylor made a lot of sense. I did not want to admit it, but it would be easier if I was in Italy.

I stepped further back from Leo and all of a sudden Leo threw Taylor from his grasp and turned to me. His eyes, those gorgeous, intense eyes, stared at me as if I had betrayed him.

“When I tried to take another step backwards, Leo roughly pulled me into his arms. It was surprising because I had not expected him to do that. He was always so gentle with me, and even now he was not truly rough so much as intense and urgent.

“Bianca, please.”

I looked up at him. There was so much pain and anguish in his eyes and on his face. It was a wonder to me. I had never seen Leo so vulnerable, but in that moment, he let me see everything.

“I love you. I don’t want to live without you. I can keep you safe. I swear it.“

His voice was so urgent and sincere. I could feel his voice rumbling through my body as he all but begged me not to go to Italy. It felt so good to be in his arms again. It had been a while since he truly held me and seemed to want me in his arms.

Nowadays, he was usually angry with me and I had been tired of fighting with him.

Looking into his eyes and hearing his words, made me want to agree to stay with him always, but I did not have just myself to consider anymore. And now, I knew that Taylor knew that too.

I knew Amara had not told him. I would even go so far as to say that he probably found out from Mia. She and I had some talking to do.

I could not believe she went behind Al and Leo’s back to get Taylor into the states to guard me as if Leo could not protect me himself. Sure, there had been a couple of close calls lately, but Mia knew better than to undermine Leo’s authority.

What she had done could have turned into death for Taylor if Leo was not half as stable as he was. Sure, he was livid that Taylor had been put in his territory and seemed to be in on trying to get me out of LA along with Mia, but he would not kill Taylor for it.

Oh, I had seen Leo’s need to put some bruises on him when I first got out of the car, but as long as Taylor did not overstep with Leo, I did not think I had to worry too much about him.

“I’ll keep you safe, baby, I promise,” Leo all but whispered, cradling my cheek and staring at me as if he could will me to stay in the States with him.

“If I hadn’t intervened when I did, Bianca and Isabella would have ended up hurt or worse, dead.”

My eyes locked on Taylor when I heard his words. He was right. He had been there in the moment. He had gotten Liam to stall long enough to have men surround us. I knew Leo wanted to protect me.

But, Leo had tried to keep me trapped in the compound like some prisoner of war to keep me from becoming a casualty of his and the LA family’s battles.

No matter how luxurious a cage the compound was, I was still being trapped in it. Now, here I was surrounded by Leo, Taylor, and Mia. Maybe it did not have bars or was made of brick and mortar, but it was just another type of enclosure.

I was tired of people trying to tell me what was best for me. I was tired of Leo trying to protect me from the world he and I lived in. I was sick of always being wrong or simply trying to make sense of what I could not understand.

I was confused about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. Leo’s sad hurt expression and Taylor’s words of what might have happened just made it worse. I was worried I would make the wrong decision for everybody.

“Look,” I said, pulling out of Leo’s arms where I had felt warm and safe until both he and Taylor started to hammer me with their own agendas.

No one had asked me what I wanted. And even though I was confused as hell about what I wanted, it would have been nice to have been asked.

“I need some time. I cannot handle the two of you continuously trying to persuade me to stay or leave. Right now, I need to figure out what I want and I need to do that alone,” I said, turning my back on Leo’s now expressionless face and rushing away to close myself in the room that once was mine and Leo’s and now felt empty and lonely as I entered it.

I understood why Leo had wiped away his vulnerability. He was a hard man. He had to be. I knew he had lived most of his life taking care of himself. I also knew that it had taken a lot of grit and self-control for him not to reach for me in that moment. He would let me go if that was what I wanted. Even if it hurt him to do so. He always did.

Lately, I had been doing a lot of running. This time I was not heading towards avoidance. I really needed to clear my head and having Leo look at me as if I was about to desert him, and Taylor standing there listing all the reasons Italy would be best for me and the baby, were not helping the situation in the least.

I was not going to be able to make decisions that way. I did not want to talk to Mia right now either. She would only make the confusion heavier.

No, I needed some time alone. This was important to more than just me, and I needed to take that into as much consideration as I did Leo and Taylor’s arguments.

I wanted me and the baby to be safe. Italy was safer than LA right now. Leo loved me. I knew he did. I loved him too, but there was a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between us right now. that distance could be breached, I supposed, but did I really want to keep running into Michael’s men and hoping this was not the time they killed me and my unborn child?

So many questions plagued me. I had come to see LA as home. I loved it, the sea air near the beaches. Even the traffic had grown on me. I had started to look on it fondly and did not mind the challenge of driving in it half as much as I had when I first got to LA.

I had created a life here. Outside of Leo and Taylor, I still had made a friend in Isabella, and I had my classes and favorite places in the city. I did not want to give up the life I had made here.

With all the thoughts swirling in my head, only one thing was certain. The holidays were coming up. Maybe a little time back home would not be such a bad idea after all.