Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 987 : Spinning My Wheels

*Leo*

For a while, now, I’ve felt like I was spinning my wheels with Darion. The boy had a head as hard as two sacks of bricks and about as much sense as them, too. Majority of the time, I wanted to slap some sense into the boy, and other times, I wanted to shoot him. I figured that would put both of us out of our misery.

Darion was the antithesis of all me and Franky stood for. We didn’t shirk our duties. We didn’t half do shit then swore we did our jobs. We never thought being leader was about money and flash. It wasn’t about the cars and women.

It was about the people and how we were going to take care of them. Sure, we had shit to do. over the years, Franky and I had our share of girls. We had flashy cars, and I was into being a suit while Franky was a jeans and tee man.

Either way, we’d worked our way up the ranks. We’d done our time in the trenches. Shit I’d been an enforcer long before I’d been a second-hand man then leader. I’d been a driver. Hell, for a while there I’d been a number chaser for the bosses.

I did all I could to be a part of this family. It was the only one I knew. They’d taken me in. These people had been the only family that accepted me and never let me go. I had looked up to the men I was trained under.

Darion couldn’t understand any of that. He’d always had his mother and father. And even now, though Franky couldn’t stand him and he got on my ever-loving nerves, he still had us.

But we kept having to bail him out of shit. There had been a couple of times I’d wanted to leave his ass right where he was and let him either rot or get what was coming to him. That’s what a leader should do when his men are insubordinate. Well, it was better than killing his dumb ass.

This time the little shit had gone too far. My woman was in a burning building because of that stupid as fucker. If I found him, I’d kill him myself. I was so done with this acting out shit. The boy was in his twenties. He’d had plenty of time to get his shit together, and I was being lenient because I saw the potential in the arrogant ass.

He was smart, and normally if I told him something, he got it without me having to repeat myself fifty-thousand times. it was when it came to the rules he seemed to get off track. Hell, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was stupid too. maybe not as stupid as Darion, but I had my moments.

The major difference between Darion and me at twenty-something, was I hadn’t done shit to get myself killed. I swore the boy was trying to see if I’d actually do it or not because he’d been sent to me from Alessandro. What he didn’t understand was that Alessandro didn’t run LA. I did. Sure, I took orders from Al, but the buck in LA began and stopped with me. I was still the Don, and I could wipe the floor with his little ass if I wanted, but he didn’t seem to understand that.

I was standing outside of a fucking arena where people and smoke were billowing out. I heard the sirens and felt the urge to kill Darion all over again. People were scrambling like a house of ants when their home was stepped on. They were running to cars, trucks, and SUVs. They were screaming and not looking where they were going. I kept looking around me for the only person in that moment that mattered to me.

Part of me felt as if my heart would explode with panic. It beat so hard and fast it was a wonder the people around me hadn’t heard it and stopped to stare. It felt as if it were on stereo to me. the longer I couldn’t find her the more my stomach felt as if a fire were building inside it.

My skin had a sheen of sweat covering it, and it had nothing to do with the smoke and heat in the air. I ran against the tide of people toward the fiery field searching every face for Bianca’s. I slid between people, ran around others, and nearly plowed into some, as I turned and maneuvered my way toward that horrifying conflagration.

I tried to get closer, but I was pushed back by the fire. My God, have I lost Bianca and our baby. No, not now! God, not now, my mind shouted. I couldn’t speak, not even to call the one name that seemed to keep my heart beating most days.

All I could do was stand there, staring at the fire and smoke, wondering if I’d have to live the rest of my life without color, rhyme, or reason. That’s how it had been before for me. I’d been existing. Bianca made me live. I wasn’t sure I could do any of it without her.

Just when I was about to sink to my knees in abject despair, I watched with relief Darion leading a coughing and soot-covered Bianca out of the smoke. Though she looked like a chimney sweep, I thought she was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

By the time I’d made my way to them, my relief had turned to rage.

“What in the actual fuck, Darion!” I yelled. I rarely raised my voice, and I saw Bianca jump at the sound. I pulled her into my arms, and kissed her smoke covered temple. Having her in my arms made me feel better, but I wanted to grab Darion by the throat and throttle him right there, cops be damned.

I’m sorry baby,” I whispered in her ear, and rubbed her back as she held on to me shivering.

“Shit, Leo. Bianca wasn’t even supposed to be here,” the dick said, as a paramedic jogged over to us.

“Yeah, and she wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t brought your ass over here.”

“It’s not my fault she was following me, man,” he said, tilting his chin up in defiance. I wanted to punch that look off his face.

I glared at Darion, as the paramedic looked Bianca over. She was still coughing.

“Ma’am, we need to take you in for oxygen,” the paramedic said.

“Don’t think this is over, boy,” I said, staring into those dark arrogant orbs.

“Whatever, man,” Darion scoffed as if he were blowing off what I’d said and the ramifications of his actions tonight.

Darion was right, Bianca shouldn’t have been following him, and I was definitely going to give her hell. But Darion was putting his actions off on Bianca when he’d been in the wrong in the first place.

All I could think in those moments, as I walked to the bus beside a still coughing Bianca, was what if Darion had been in the fire alone with no way out. While I joked around about killing the little shit, and I often thought about shooting the dummy myself, I didn’t really want him dead.

I wanted him to learn how to be the next Don of the LA branch of the family. I wasn’t in such a rush to hand the family over that I couldn’t find another candidate, but I thought if he’d get his shit together, Darion would be an all-right leader.

I knew Franky and Bianca thought I was wrong about Darion. They didn’t see the potential in the boy, and I was starting to think maybe they were right and I was wrong about Darion. After tonight, I’d be harder on the boy. I was tired of forgiving every infraction. It was time to crack down on him even more.

I remembered working my way up and seeing men getting killed for less than the shit Darion pulled. I’d seen my share of death, and I didn’t really have any qualms with taking someone out who needed it if necessary for the safety of everybody.

I’d seen so much death in so little a time in the last few months. I wasn’t going soft, or at least, I didn’t think I was. I didn’t want to kill the boy for stupid shit he’d probably grow out of over time.

But who had the time to play teacher and patient mentor with the boy? Certainly, not me. I knew if it were up to Franky Darion would have already been six feet under, and Franky wouldn’t have had a mournful bone in his body for it. If it were up to Bianca, Darion would be back in Italy with Al and his goons.

But it wasn’t up to them. It was up to me, and I was beginning to wonder why I’d invested so much in the twirp. Why had I taken up for him with Franky? Why hadn’t I listened to Franky when he first told me to send the boy back to his privileged life in Italy and search for another Don?

I’m sure you’re asking the obvious question of why hadn’t I asked Franky to be the don. he was my second in command and would probably end up staying in that role with the next Don. why would I ask when I already knew the answer.

Sure, Elio hadn’t really given me a choice, but I knew Franky didn’t want to be the boss. I also knew he’d probably carve out my heart if I even suggested it nonetheless appointed him Don the way Elio had done me. Nope, that wasn’t an option.

Then, as we got to the emergency room and Bianca was taken to a private room, I realized Darion could have easily run out of the arena the way the rest of the cowards had. Instead, Darion had stayed to help Bianca get out.

I was grateful to him for saving my fiancée, but I couldn’t forgive him for putting her in such a dangerous situation even if he hadn’t intended for it to happen the way it had. The fact he was there was a major issue, but Bianca and our baby nearly being fried alive was grounds for me sending his ass back to Italy.

Not to mention, all the other shit he had been doing before now. I was done with the fast talking and giving chances. This time I had to find a way to get through, or I was sending him back to Al to deal with.

I waited for the doctor to clear Bianca.

“Leo,” Bianca said softly.

“Bianca, that tone is not going to work with me this time. What the hell were you thinking to follow him into that den of vipers?”

“I was thinking...”

“No, you weren’t thinking at all. I know you don’t like him and I get why you were following him, but do you know what could have happened to you and the baby. I nearly had a fucking heart attack when Taylor told me where you were.

Then, I get there and figure you’re in that burning field. I wanted to kill Darion. And let’s not even begin to talk about how I felt thinking I’d lost you.”

I was pacing her room like a caged panther, striding up and down the room. There wasn’t much room in there, but I found a way to make it work. I had to get some of this anxious energy out. I couldn’t punch anything, and I’d just scare Bianca if I tried.

“Leo, come sit with me. You’re right to be angry with me,” she said when I settled beside her and leaned down to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around me and I kissed her sweet lips.

“Don’t do it again,” I softly admonished and kissed her pretty nose.

As I calmed down even more and the adrenalin slipped away, Bianca pulled me back down and kissed my lips.

“Do me a favor?” Bianca asked.

“Anything,” I answered, kissing her back.

“Teach me how to shoot.”