Page 84 of Fight Me Daddy

"I literally tell you to stop all the time. You're just a pervert."

"A pervert you keep bending over for."

I groaned and Gabriele chuckled as he went back to perusing the menu. The little smirk on his face made me want to slap him and kiss him at the same damn time. He was so sure of himself. It was part of what made him hot.

The waiter approached and Gabriele rattled off our order in French so smooth I would have thought he was born in France. He handed the menus over when he was done and raised a brow at me as I stared at him.

"What?"

"How do you know how to speak so many languages?"

"My father had an interest in languages. He taught me most of what he knew and the rest he got me tutors for. It was what I wanted to do and he always gave me what I wanted."

I stared at him, surprised that he was talking about his dad. "So, he was nice?"

Gabriele picked up his glass of wine and laughed. "What? Just because he was a big, bad boss meant he couldn't love his kids?" When I shrugged, he gazed off into the distance. "Well, he did. He loved each of us, but I was probably the closest to him. We were inseparable."

I tried to approach the subject delicately so I wouldn't make him shut down. "Why were you the closest?"

Gabriele thought about it. "I guess because Amadeo was busy trying to prove that he could take over. He was always trying to show he was the best. Riccardo was always a mama's boy so he spent the most time with her. And Rayna is well Rayna." He laughed. "She was a wild child from the start and he always tried to reign her in. But she was his princess. They were probably as close as the two of us were. I was just older, that's all. I saw a lot more and took part in a hell of a lot more."

I picked up my glass and tried to pretend I knew what to do with such an expensive wine. One sip and I missed a cold beer. But I drank it anyway.

"Is that why you couldn't-"

Gabriele's fist tightened on the table. "No," he said evenly.

I sighed. "You keep avoiding the subject, but you did give me a promise. I could ask you any question and you'd answer. And I was interrupted before." Gabriele's brows knitted and I reached out and laid my hand on top of his.

"Yeah, that's why I couldn't go this year. I've done it for the past five and shook it off like it was nothing. But every time I go I come back and...I'm a mess," he sighed as he finally looked back at me. "Booze, sex, drugs, fights; whatever I can get my hands on, I do. And for some reason, I just couldn't handle it this year. There's already so much shit going on. I couldn't add to it."

I gave his hand a tight squeeze. "I'm sorry," I said. "I lost my mother when I was sixteen and I spiraled out of control. Nobody understood me the way she did. And nobody probably ever will."

Gabriele turned his hand over and held mine. "Yeah, that's the feeling," he grumbled. "Like there's a hole no one else can fix and they're just...gone."

I nodded as tears gathered in my eyes and threatened to spill. Knowing what I knew now, I wasn't so upset about everything Gabriele had said to me. He'd been raw and lonely. No wonder he wanted to hang out with me so badly that night.

"I'm really sorry," I said.

"Me too," he mumbled. "About your mother. What uh...what?"

"Heart attack. She was young, but she was born with a heart defect." I smiled a little remembering her. "She used to check my heart with a stethoscope every night when I was little. I think she was always worried she had given it to me."

"She sounds amazing."

I nodded. "She was." I reached into my shirt and tugged out the locket I'd slipped on before we left the house. I popped it open and showed it to him. "That's us. Mom, Dad, and me. We'd spent all day on the lake, fishing. Mom loved to fish and then she'd make my dad clean them for her before she cooked them up. They were a great team. When she died...the gym became all he had."

"That's why he took out the loan."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's why I can't hate him. What he did was idiotic, but the house and gym? It's the last pieces of her he had left. She used to love that gym and was always recruiting girls to learn how to fight to protect themselves. I loved her a lot."

Gabriele nodded and I watched emotions cross his face that I couldn't decipher. "My father was murdered," he finally got out, his voice choked. "Still don't know who did it or why. One minute he was there and the next? I was finding him on his office floor with two shots to the back of his head." He laughed dryly. "Something like that fucks you up for the rest of your goddamn life."

I didn't think, I just moved. I walked around the table and wrapped my arms around him. People looked over at us, but I didn't give a fuck. Gabriele was hurting. He reached up and gripped me tightly. A shuddering breath passed his lips before he growled at me.

"Sit down, Tesoro. If you make me cry in front of all these people, your holes won't get any rest for a week straight."

I barked out a laugh and stepped back. Gabriele's eyes were wet and I swiped at a single tear that rolled down his cheek.

"So what if they see you cry? I'll kick anyone's ass who says anything about it."

"You'll protect me?" he asked, an amused look on his face.

"Yeah," I said, firmly. "I'll protect you."

I kissed him hard and Gabriele's eyes went wide. He'd shared things with me I was damn near sure he'd never shared with anyone else. So yes, I would protect him the way he did me.

And I would never let him go.

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