Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 926 : Uncertainties and Regrets

*Leo*

I stared at Bianca’s back as she walked away. I hadn’t meant to make her feel as if I were trying to take her choices away from her or make her feel trapped. Somehow, these days, I kept fucking up. I just kept making the wrong move.

Her back was stiff, and she hugged herself tightly as she stormed away. She was right. She had a right to decide what she wanted and how it would affect her life. I just wanted her choices to include me.

I was inclined to think she wouldn’t consider me in her thinking process at all now. For the last few weeks, we had either been at an impasse or arguing. As a man who rarely engaged in romantic relationships, even I knew that constant arguing or not communicating at all was bad.

I shoved my fingers through my hair and breathed out a deep sigh. Was I wrong to try and hold her here with me. if she were here, she would be in danger. If she were in Italy, she’d be safe from my enemies, but Al’s life wasn’t any more pristine than mine. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

I shrugged the tension from my shoulders and walked up the stairs to what was supposed to be our room, but I hadn’t slept in there for a few days now. I thought about her sitting in one of the window seats the way she liked to do and paused.

Maybe I shouldn’t bother her, but I needed to tell her that I was sorry for the way I’d acted. I knew Taylor was her friend, but I’d wanted to clock him when they drove up and the bastard was smirking at Bianca. Their interactions seemed so familiar and light.

There was an intimacy there that she didn’t share with me. Taylor didn’t look like Liam but he was a man and he wasn’t ugly either. Bianca looked at him like he hung the fucking moon, and lately, the only thing I got from her were worried stares and distant and hollow platitudes or arguments.

She’d tried to stop me from punching him, and I’d known violence was one of her triggers. She was probably scared of me now. I looked down at my large hands. They were long-fingered and broad palmed with calluses from weapons practice and helping with whatever I could in the warehouses.

I’d worked my way up the ranks from the time I was a teenager. I’d done everything from cleaning to enforcing. My job as Don was supposed to be a little cushier, but I still helped in the warehouses, I controlled the businesses and assets, but I also got my hands dirty alongside my men.

I wasn’t better than them, and I wanted them to know who I was. They knew me because I’d trained some of them and even as Elio’s second in command with Franky, I usually spent time with them and their families.

Now, I still visited houses, took flowers and candy to the wives and children. I protected my people and made sure they were aware that I was not only watching, but I was helping and participating in everyday life right there with them.

I wasn’t just their leader. I was a part of their family. It was something I’d never had and had desperately wanted. So, I had decided to be the best Don I could by making myself available to them and trying to let them know I was more than just someone to fear.

Now, I stood outside the door hoping she’d give me a chance to at least apologize for my behavior. When I’d snatched Taylor from the car, I hadn’t been thinking about Bianca and possibly scaring her half to death.

When I’d taken her into my arms and told her I loved her and promised to protect her, I meant every word. I lifted my head, straightened my shoulders, stepped forward and lightly knocked on the door to our ensuite.

I stood there with my head buzzing with a million ways I could have handled this afternoon better. Wanting to punch Taylor hadn’t left my system yet, but I was calming down there. My jealousy and anger were my own business. I seriously needed to stop taking that shit out on other people.

I tapped at the door again, hoping to get her to come out for a moment or at least listen to my apology and explanation. I didn’t hear anything coming from the room.

Was she just sitting in her favorite window seat ignoring my knock? What was she going to do? Was she lying in bed holding on to one of my pillows? Maybe she might be in the shower. It was one of her other favorite thinking spots.

Don’t think of her naked in the shower, Leo. I mentally scolded myself as I stepped back from the door and made my way to my office. I needed a damn drink. This had been a hell of a day so far.

When I stepped into my office, I found Taylor already there looking like he was going to choose one of the selections.

“I’m going to have a brandy. Would you like one?” I asked, since Taylor didn’t seem to have made his choice yet.

He nodded, and I proceeded to pour the dick a drink in a bit of a truce.

I still didn’t like the asshole, but he’d been sent into my territory by Mia and I wouldn’t treat him shabbily even though I still wanted to punch his pretty face.

“You probably don’t know it, but Bianca and I were childhood friends. She was a sweet little thing, always so trusting and loving.”

Taylor shook his head, swirled the brandy in the glass, and took a generous sip of the brandy and sighed.

“Well, that is until Matteo got ahold of her. That bastard fucked her up. Now, she barely trusts me. When I saw her frightened eyes assess whether I was there to hurt her or not, I’d wanted to kill that bastard.”

“Which one, Matteo or Liam?” I asked, curious.

Listening to him talk about a younger Bianca, I was intrigued by the description. Bianca was sweet and loving now, but trusting, she wasn’t. From the beginning she’d pegged me as a liar. I hadn’t had a choice at the time, but she’d seen right through me.

“When I was in the café, my attention was laser focused on Liam. If I’d been in a place where I could, I’d have killed him. But now that I think about it, and I’m not as concerned about getting Bianca out of a messy situation where she could have easily been killed in front of everyone in that café with no one the wiser until it happened, I’d choose to slit Matteo’s throat first then Liam’s.”

I damn near chuckled. I was ready to kill both men myself, but Matteo was in prison, and Liam was waiting for me to talk with him. Oh, I’d get my chance to get my hands on that little fucker soon enough.

“Once, a long time ago, I was crazy about her. Now, though, she’s a friend and I just want the best for her. You know what I mean?”

I knew what he meant. I thought about the way I’d pulled him from the car and jerked him around. I pictured Bianca’s shocked face as she scrambled from the car. I recalled the fear swimming in her eyes as she neared me and pulled at my arm to keep me from hitting her childhood friend.

I thought about how she’d been when she’d first gotten to LA. She’d been a little fragile, skittish around me and the other men, and hesitated to drive in LA traffic. Over time, she’d become more comfortable here.

She seemed to begin to think of LA and the compound as home. And even though she’d been afraid the night Elijah had tried to sack the compound, she’d listened to me and felt safe when I found her and took care of her.

I regretted my actions this afternoon. I wondered if she’d choose Taylor over me just because she could trust him not to turn into a fiend when angry and so jealous he lost his fucking mind. That’s what I had done. I’d behaved like a madman. And now, all I could think about was if she’d leave me for it.

“Look, Leo, I will respect Bianca’s decision about everything either way because she has a right to her choices. But, I have to tell you that I know she’s been keeping some pretty important shit from you. I won’t betray that confidence, mostly, because it should come from Bianca herself instead of me.”

“Yeah, I feel you,” I said, thinking back to the time she said she wanted to talk but never did.

What the hell? This man knew something about the woman I loved that I didn’t. What was she hiding? Why did I keep bumping up against this type of secrecy from her? I wasn’t an ogre. I’d never hurt her. I’d never given her a reason to fear me. she should know she could tell me anything.

“I think we should set some boundaries.”

“Boundaries?” I asked, still stuck on Bianca having a secret she was reluctant to tell me and Taylor refusing to.

“Sure,” he said, refilling his glass.

I walked to the chair behind my desk, spread out my legs and swirled the dregs of the brandy left in my hand. I contemplated Taylor over my snifter. Boundaries? What did he mean by that?

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re the one who came into my territory under false pretenses, played fast and loose with the rules of engagement, and then hid amongst college students as if you weren’t one of Al’s highest enforcers. I wonder,” I trailed off with an interested look into Taylor’s eyes, “Does Bianca know exactly what you are?”

“No, and you’re not going to tell her,” Taylor ordered.

I lifted a brow at him. “Boundaries, my friend, have a lot to do with compromise and negotiation. That doesn’t sound like a negotiable point,” I said, taking that last sip of brandy and putting my drink aside.

“Fine, do your worst. She won’t turn on me,” he said as if Bianca would turn on me instead.

I nodded. “Perhaps, but I think you should go back to wherever you were before now. I don’t think you living here in the compound is a very good idea. I might still be tempted to punch that pretty face of yours,” I admitted.

Taylor laughed at me and shrugged. “Maybe, we’ll see.”

I nodded and grinned myself, thinking that I hadn’t been joking about wanting to still punch Taylor’s face.