Page 24 of Malta with My Best Friend's Dad

It’s difficult not to study her as we walk, and not just her bouncing breasts, or the way her cheeks flush and the cute-as-fuck pursing of her lips. It’s difficult not to study her gleaming eyes and wonder if our children will have the same color, or if our daughters will share her flowing dark brown hair.

Forcing myself to look away, I resume my scan of the crowd, readying my body for war if the Bratva dares to threaten my daughter or my woman.

Two hours later, we’re sitting in a shadowed living room in a large house at the very edge of Malta, close to the sea, so that looking across the water we can spy the Sicilian coast – not that we are looking across the water, the curtains being tightly shut.

Jocko stands in the corner of the room, his thick arms folded, his bearded face impassive as he stares into the room. I knew he’d come through for me, arranging for this safe house and going back to their apartment in Medina to collect their bags.

I couldn’t risk the Bratva getting their hands on my daughter’s laptop and stealing her work. I know how much it would tear her up inside.

She’s suffered enough already.

I sit on one side of the glass table and Kelly and Lena sit on the other. Kelly and I can’t stop glancing at each other, as though forces are moving through us beyond our control, beyond reason, beyond common sense.

“Dad.” Lena runs a hand through her hair, smoothing down her ponytail. “I’ve been quiet this whole time, right? The whole drive – driving around and around to make sure we’re not being followed – I’ve been quiet. We agreed I wouldn’t ask questions until you’re ready. Right, right?”

There’s a quiver of desperation in her voice, making me clench my fists tightly, as my mind involuntarily skips to what she’s going to say when I tell her about me and her best friend.

Slow down, a voice roars inside of me. One thing at a time.

But Kelly is so, so distracting, with her legs folded so her summer dress rests against the outline of her thick delicious thighs, making me think of how she looked when she was bent over, her pussy glistening for me, her tangy sex…

I push the thoughts from my mind.

“Yes,” I say. “You’ve been very patient. Thank you.”

“So now you’ll tell me what the heck is going on.” She says it firmly, no hint of a question in her tone, and pride swells up inside of me. “Because you have to admit, this is pretty insane. First, you’re gone. Poof. No clue where. And now you’re here, speaking about Russians and organized crime and…”

She trails off, raising an eyebrow at me. Kelly leans forward, making it difficult not to study the way her cleavage shifts, a perfect passage for my bulging manhood.

Not now.

“You’re right. You deserve to know.”

I sigh, running a hand through my hair, not missing the way Kelly’s smile twitches at the gesture. I fight the urge to return her smile with a smirk of my own as I let my hand drop.

“You know I started the gyms when I retired from the Army?” Both women nod. “Well, I wanted to bring in some extra cash so I could open more. A childhood buddy of mine – Russian – put me into contact with Sergey Abramov. I made a mistake and took my buddy’s word that Sergey was a legitimate businessman.”

“I’m guessing he wasn’t?” Lena says.

I shake my head. “He’s the leader of the Bratva. It’s like the mafia for Russians. For a couple of years, it all went well. You remember those security jobs I used to work?”

Lena and Kelly nod, reminding me how intertwined they are, reminding me that Kelly has been with Lena every step of the way.

“Of course,” Lena says. “For concerts and stuff?”

“Exactly. Well, one day Sergey sends a bunch of his men to pick me up after one of these jobs, men I’d never met before. They drove me out into the middle of nowhere and told me I’d been training to become a front-line soldier for the Bratva. They put a gun in my hand and they…”

I trail off as rage tears a jagged hole in my chest, as the memory slams into me.

“They brought out a man who hadn’t paid his debt to the Bratva. They told me I had to execute him or be killed myself. They put a gun to my head.”

Lena covers her mouth with her hand. Kelly stares, her eyes glimmering like she’s going to let tears flow down her cheeks at any moment.

“What did you do?” Lena says, her voice muffled by her hand.

Behind them, Jocko’s face gets even harder, but there’s a battle-ready glint in his eyes, and the corner of his lips twitch. He knows what I did – what any ex-military man would do.

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