Page 51 of Her Cruel Bodyguard

The part of trying to cajole him.

I despise the fact that I have to sit with a fool like him after he dared to kidnap my son and persuade him to avoid a war when I would have loved to spill his blood for his insolence.

“Everything set?” Emanuele asks as I step out, already stomping in the direction of the garage.

“Yes,” I fall behind him, not caring to conceal my weapons for the journey ahead. He makes no mention of it, even though he should remind me that we don’t exactly need them.

I think we can both agree that anything is possible with Salvatore, which is why we are not going alone. We are not going as though we want to negotiate. We are going to him as though we are bringing war to his fucking doorstep.

“How many men are we leaving with?” Emanuele asks as he stomps into the garage and sees three other cars pull out.

“Enough,” I answer, but I have given the order for more than enough. He can see three cars, but three are already ahead of us, and three more are on standby, just in case.

Aside from wanting to get my son, I must also protect him. I won’t forget easily how Salvatore had stood beside Boris, who wanted to kill his father.

I will go in and come out with my son.

I climb into the driver’s seat, and Emanuele climbs into the passenger’s seat, not caring to strap on his seatbelt.

“You might…”

“I am not going to give you a bloody reason to drive me to my death. I have a family and a child on the way, drive like a human, Fabio,” he pulls out his cigar and lighter from the pocket of his black dress pants, and the white light from the garage bounces on the many knuckle rings he has on.

I start the car and drive out.

I am calculating the cars that I have ordered to be used, and something isn’t clicking. Something in the garage feels out of place, but I can’t figure it out yet.

“Don’t kill him,” Emanuele gruffs and puffs his cigar. “If it comes down to it, don’t kill him, let me do it,” he swallows. “That way, I have no excuse to seek revenge or hold resentment,” he inhales and exhales, the lines beside his eyes highlighted by the stress of his thought.

A son wanting to kill his father is not a new thing in our world.

I killed my father, and my only regret is that he died too easily. I should have chopped him into pieces until life left his eyes.

But a father killing his son is rarer.

I nod, saying nothing and promising nothing. All I know is, if Salvatore aims a gun at him and Emanuele is not fast enough to act, my bullets will fly. I don’t give a fucking fuck about anything that comes after that.

“You must have done something terrible in one of your past lives to get a son like Salvatore in this one,” I swerve into the street demarcating the Bratva and Teso territory.

“And you something good to deserve your son,” he grinds his teeth. “That is if the boy doesn’t grow up to want to kill you in the future,” he chuckles. “I guess I have always seen it in Salvatore’s eyes. And I exposed him to this life a little too quickly, needing him to step up and be all the things I thought a leader should be,” he pauses. “But I was wrong,” he flicks his lighter. “You never needed that, and you turned out to be a better leader than anyone I know,” he scratches his gray beard. “This is fucked up,” he stares blankly in front of us as I cross into Bratva territory, following the fleet of cars in front of us.

I nod, agreeing about the fucked-up nature of this situation. The one where Emanuele is thinking he might not come out of this alive. The one where he is giving me the speech like he knows he is about to die. The one I don’t want to fucking hear.

“Fabio,” he pauses as if thinking about his next line of words, and I hope he is fucking thinking about swallowing them. “Eva…”

“Needs her father, Vittoria needs her husband, and I will never fucking say this again, but I need you, and so does everyone, including my son, whom you will meet soon,” I interrupt. “My job is to keep you alive, and I am pretty good at it.”

“Don’t go emotional on me,” he drags his cigar.

“You started it,” I slow down as the cars before me slow in the front gate of Boris’ estate, which is now Salvatore and Nina’s.

Something seems out of place. The gate is wide open. No security or any of the fucking Bratvas parading the arena.

Boris was a man like some child that never grew out of loving cotton candy. His estate has no sense of power. It’s a horrendous replica of fucking Disneyland, an illusion of a playground. But we know that what goes on behind this exterior is anything but.

I step out of the car, and Emanuele does the same. I pull my gun from my holster pocket as some of our men file around the estate's gate, taking their positions.

My mind drifts back to the garage, and I knit the missing piece together.

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