Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 853 : It’s Bad

*Leo*

The air was warm, the sky was a clear blue, and the sun was shining brightly. I pulled my jet-black convertible Porsche around to the front driveway and waited for Bianca. I figured I would drive us around today instead of having one of the drivers escort us, but I left the Firebird at home since the Porsche had more modern features to make the outing more comfortable for her for the day-long trip.

I didn’t anticipate any danger, especially since nothing crazy had happened since Elio and Cat left, and I had to say I felt grateful for that fact every day.

Since I had grown up in the area and have lived here my whole life, I knew all the great spots to show her. A few of the places were a little less fancy but still worth seeing at least once in your life. I had planned on taking her to all the nicer spots as well. I wanted to make sure to show her the finer things in life while she was living with me. Plus, I knew it would be nice to spend a day in the city alone with her without a nosy driver listening to everything we said.

It was a good twenty minutes before Biance walked out the front door. I had stared for a moment, still amazed by her beauty. Quickly, I jumped out of the car and opened the passenger door for her.

“Are you ready for the best day of your life?” I smiled, gesturing for her to climb inside.

“I think so,” she replied, her cheeks turning red.

I had put the top down before driving away, which Bianca seemed to really enjoy. She threw her hands up in the air as we drove down the highway.

“This is amazing!” she exclaimed.

Her bright blonde hair was flying all over the place, clinging to her face. Her smile was wide with excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile right along with her, or rather, because of her. Bianca’s happiness, her smile–they were contagious.

“This is one of the best restaurants in the city,” I told her as we pulled up in front of the white building.

“Good. I’m starving!” she exclaimed.

I handed off my keys to the valet and placed my hand gently against Bianca’s lower back as we headed inside. The host seated us right away after I told her my name. I hadn’t made a reservation beforehand, but that was just one of the perks of being the new Don, at least at this restaurant, which knew about the family.

The depth of it all, being the new Don, was still overwhelming. Sometimes I had to look on the brighter side of things to balance everything out. In a sense, I felt like Bianca was helping me to balance out my new life. It was difficult to keep my entire life and identity a secret from her, but it had been helping to balance things.

Once we had placed our order with the waitress, Bianca began asking me questions I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I also wasn’t going to be the one to tell her the truth about the life she’d unknowingly stepped into. If it was anyone’s place to tell her, it was Al’s.

“So, what is it exactly you do for a living?” she asked, probably curious about how we had been seated right away, not to mention, the compound I lived in.

“I am a captain of industry of sorts,” I replied, hoping she wouldn’t question it further.

“Oh, all right. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I’ll take your word for it,” she said, smiling.

Good enough for me.

The waitress brought us our food and we continued to chat about the different spots around the city I wanted to show her. She seemed excited and happy to be out of the house. And for some reason, seeing her happy made me happy.

After I paid the bill, we headed back outside. The valet pulled the Porsche around and I once again opened the car door for her. She seemed to be pleased by this each time, which kind of amused me. I couldn’t help but wonder if no other man had ever opened a car door for her. She was entirely too beautiful for a man to not have given her such princess treatment.

“Would you like to go shopping?” I offered, wanting to spoil her. “My treat.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want you to spend a bunch of money.”

“Money is nothing. I insist. It’s my treat since I’m welcoming you to our city.” I smiled at her.

“I mean, if you insist, I’ll say yes.” She clapped her hands together. “You are a very kind man, Leo.”

I smiled, shrugging. “Thank you. I try.”

A short time later, Bianca and I were walking around a clothing store with two bags in hand from the stores we’d already hit. She had found a tan and white button-down shirt for me and insisted we buy it. It wasn’t really my style, but I bought it anyway to make her happy. I’d hoped I could get away with tossing the thing in the back of my closet without her ever asking me to wear it.

As Bianca browsed a sale rack, I felt my phone buzz from inside my front pants pocket. When I pulled it out, I felt mixed emotions as I saw Franky’s name lighting up on the screen.

Shit. This could potentially be bad news.

“I’ll be right back. I have to take this. It’s work,” I told her, pointing to my phone in my hand.

She nodded, shooing me with her hand as she continued looking at the rack full of various shirts. I stepped outside and took a deep breath before putting the phone up to my ear.

“What is it, Franky?” I answered, looking back inside the shop and keeping an eye on Bianca.

“Leo, you need to get to the warehouse,” he said.

“Now?” I asked, staring at Bianca through the window.

“Yes, now! We’ve got a situation,” he replied.

“All right. I’ve got to drop Bianca back at home and then I’ll be right there,” I told him.

“Make it quick,” Franky said. “And don’t say a word to her about any of this.”

“I know,” I replied.

I hung up the phone and thought for a second before walking back into the clothing store. I wasn’t sure what excuse was about to leave my mouth, but I had hoped it was going to be a good one.

“Hey, Bianca,” I said, walking up to her. “So, something has come up at work that I have to take care of. It’s urgent. I’m really sorry about this.”

“Oh, okay,” she replied. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, everything is fine,” I assured her. “But I do have to take you back to the house before I go.”

“Of course. Let’s go,” she said, walking out of the store.

I nodded my head, hoping she wasn’t suspicious of my vague excuse or upset that I had to cut our outing short. She was acting a little too agreeable for my liking... or maybe I was just overthinking it because I didn’t want her finding out the truth of all of this.

We didn’t talk much on the drive back to the house. If I hadn’t already been stressed about what might be happening back at the warehouse, I would’ve tried to talk to her more to make sure she wasn’t thinking too hard about why we had to leave so suddenly.

It didn’t take long to get back home. I pulled the car right up to the front door and jumped out, making it over to her side before she could open her door. She smiled, grabbing the bags from the backseat.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright until I get back?” I asked her, unlocking the front door for her.

“Yes, Leo. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. It would appear you have more important things to be worrying about right now, no?” she replied, giving me a bit of an odd look.

I nodded. “I shouldn’t be too long. You have my phone number in case you need anything, right?”

“I do,” she said.

“All right, well, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I assured her before turning away from the door.

I climbed back into the car and had noticed her still standing in the doorway, watching me with a curious look on her face. There was no way in hell she had bought my lame ass excuse. If I was going to have to continue this charade, I knew I was going to have to start making up better excuses, I thought to myself as I started the engine.

As I began to drive away, I waved at her and watched her slowly close the front door from my rearview mirror before turning onto the road, wondering whether there would be a conversation waiting for me when I returned home.

I shook my head, setting all thoughts of Bianca to the side while I focused my attention on what could be going on at the warehouse. What terrible news was I about to walk into? If it was something serious, it would have been the first real incident I’d had to deal with on my own as the Don without Elio here to help to me.

I sighed.

The stress had begun to build. A sheen of sweat painted my palms, and the air grew warm inside the car despite the top still being down. I wished Franky would have given me some sort of clue, at least letting me know whether it was life threatening or not. Although would Franky really call me, telling me to get down to the warehouse as soon as possible if it weren’t life threatening?

Shit.

It didn’t take me long at all to get to the warehouse. Although, if I would have taken my Firebird, I would’ve arrived much sooner. The Porsche was fast, but the Firebird was faster, hands down.

When I walked inside the industrial building, Franky threw up his hands.

“About time,” Franky huffed.

“What do you mean? I thought I got here in record time considering I had to drop Bianca off back at the house first,” I defended myself.

“You kept your trap shut about all this, right?” he asked with an exhausted face.

“Yeah, I made up an excuse about work,” I replied, shrugging.

“Al really had to make things difficult for us bringing this girl into the compound, didn’t he?” He shook his head.

“More difficult for me than you,” I mumbled.

I thought about Bianca standing in the doorway as I drove away. If I had to be honest, I wasn’t sure how long this secret was going to last. She was a smart woman and I knew I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she figured it out on her own.

But I worried more about her reaction when she found out. Having the people close to you lie to you was never an easy thing to discover on your own. I wondered whether it would be better to just tell her... better for her or me, I wasn’t entirely sure. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

I also wasn’t entirely sure why we had to keep it all a secret from her. Al had never really given us a reason for keeping her in the dark about the mafia. I wondered if there was more to it, maybe something he wasn’t telling us about her. I couldn’t be sure without asking him, but I wasn’t exactly his favorite guy in the world. So, I had to just suck it up and go along with his lie for as long as it held.

“Anyway, take a seat, Leo,” Frank said, gesturing toward the chair Elio used to sit in.

When I sat down, I had to admit, it felt a little strange being in the warehouse without Elio.

“Alright, Franky, what’s going on?” I asked.

I was the Don now. It was time for me to get serious and start acting like it.

“Well, Leo, you’re not going to like what I have to say,” he began.

Our eyes met, and I knew it was bad.