Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 721 : No Good News

*Elio*

‘She’s okay. She’s going to be okay,’ I told myself silently.

I wasn’t pleased with the fact that Cat was so persistent about going to school. Granted, I had nothing against her wanting to continue her education. In fact, I’d encouraged it for much of her life.

But ever since hearing about Franky’s man disappearing, my nerves had remained on high alert. I honestly thought that by putting three guards on her, that it would make me feel more certain of her safety.

But part of me was still hesitant to believe that it was going to be enough.

If it were up to me, I would have foregone the security detail and insisted that she resume her classes online somehow. But I knew better than to think that Cat would ever agree to that sort of idea.

My jaw clenched in frustration.

I knew I couldn’t focus solely on this issue. Both Leo and I were busy on our way to meet with Franky to discuss any further developments of the sudden disappearance. Yet my expression remained strained and unfocused.

“You look lost in thought,” Leo commented. “What’s going on?”

I let out a long breath and slowly shook my head.

“It’s nothing,” I muttered.

Leo raised an unconvinced brow at me in skepticism. For Christ’s sake, the man knew me as well as Caterina. I bit the inside of my cheek and subtly rolled my eyes upward.

“I’ve placed a few men to tail Cat while she attends her classes,” I admitted pointedly.

Leo’s eyes grew wide in disbelief before his features broke out into a humored expression of pure amusement.

“You didn’t.” My silence was a clear indication of the answer. “Holy shit.” He broke out into a series of chuckles and shook his head. “Well, I can’t imagine Cat being too pleased about that.”

“You’d be right about that,” I murmured. “But I didn’t give her much choice about it. We need to figure out what the hell is going on. And until we do, the damn guards stay.”

Our conversation came to an abrupt halt when we finally arrived at Franky’s. Leo and I were quickly met by a few of his men before being gingerly escorted to the back of the building.

Franky, along with a few others, were standing over a large table that was covered by various street maps and plans.

The man looked as pissed off as I felt. I needed answers and I needed them now. Part of me was hoping that Franky would have something decent to tell me about this strange issue. But something in the pit of my stomach was telling me that was unlikely to happen.

Franky glanced up from the table to glare at us. “There you two are.”

“Has there been any word?” Leo asked.

Each of them shook their heads in dismay, causing the hole in my chest to grow bigger.

“Nothing,” one man commented. “It’s like the son of a bitch vanished into thin air.”

‘But that’s just it,’ I thought bitterly. ‘People don’t just vanish into thin air. Something obviously happened. The question is, what? And by who?’

Franky shook his head slowly and kept his gaze locked on the red dot that was obviously marking where his guy was last spotted. “This doesn’t feel like a random disappearance,” he said coldly. “But it’s best that we assume he’s dead now.”

My nostrils flared in frustration. This was not the news I wanted to hear, not by a fucking long shot. For Franky to tell me that the search had to be given up was all that I needed. After all, the man wasn’t anything if not a realist.

But still, there were too many questions that remained unanswered.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and bit back a curse. “Why kidnap him rather than just kill him where he was planted to begin with?” I asked openly.

Leo folded his arms over his chest and shrugged his shoulders back.

“Maybe the setup was meant to throw us off,” he suggested. “Maybe they wanted us to search the area out. The less we’re all together, the thinner our ranks become. They could be trying to find weak spots.”

Great, that was just what I fucking needed.

This meeting had taken a sore turn for the worse and didn’t seem to have a silver lining in sight. I’d hoped to gain answers and instead, I would be leaving with more questions and deeper worries.

I masked my emotions under a visage of pure indifference.

“Franky, keep me updated indefinitely on this,” I told him. “Should anything come up, I want to know. Leo and I have other business to attend to.”

Franky gave a curt nod of his head as the two of us saw ourselves out. He and I had a meeting for the legitimate business that afternoon that I somehow needed to appear professional and confident for. God only knew how I was going to make that happen given our morning of sheer disappointment.

I had to find it in me to switch from one dominating role to another. This was the trick with having to live a double life. I’d developed the skill to drop the grizzly, ruthless demeanor and flip back to my happy-go-lucky personality that had a knack for developing property.

“I can feel the gears spinning in your head, Elio,” Leo said. “Don’t think too much about this, alright?”

I grunted in response.

“I mean it. You know that Franky will keep you updated should anything come up. And the client we’re meeting with today should be easy.”

He was right. Goddamnit. I shouldn’t have been letting so many of these things eat away at me when I knew I had very little control over the issue to begin with.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “Let’s go over a few of the property’s selling points. We need to make sure that we hit upon location and the view. It’ll be the perfect place for his apartment complex development.”

“Right,” Leo noted. “Barkley made it perfectly clear that he was looking for a view that would make it easier to sell his units.”

Yes, funny thing about this client Barkely. The man wanted his development to have a fantastic view of the area, but the man was a stickler when it came to money.

Leo and I had miraculously found the perfect place for the guy, and our construction partners were ready to move forward.

“We’ll get him on this deal,” I said promisingly. “The man would be a complete fool if he were to turn it down.”

***

The meeting had gone off without a hitch. Barkley was easily impressed with the space we’d shown him and made good to emphasize all of the deciding factors Leo and I had gone over in the car.

We are positive we’d had this deal in the bag until we started to discuss the price.

Barkley’s face had visibly turned two shades paler than normal.

But I wasn’t overly concerned. I’d anticipated such a reaction and was readily capable of pointing out several reasons as to why this place for his development project.

By the time I was done giving my award-worthy spiel, Barkley was fiddling with his thumbs and had fallen into a concentrated look of contemplation. I shared a look with Leo, who appeared equally on edge.

After several, long minutes of silence, Barkley shot his head up and gave us a confirming smile.

“Alright,” he started. “I’ll admit, I’m still a little hung up on the price but you two are right. This lot and your construction estimate will be absolutely perfect for me and my team.”

Barkley shook both our hands.

“I have to get in touch with the board and discuss this all with them,” he said. “But I should have an answer for you promptly.”

As I watched Barkley head for the exit, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was Cat.

I hastily answered the call and was swiftly greeted by a sharp tone and heated words.

“The security has to go,” she stated.

My eyes widened, I nearly stammered. “What? Wait, Cat. What are you talking about?”

“The security detail, which you’ve so heavily insisted upon, are either unsure about the meaning of the word ‘subtle’ or are purposely trying to make my life at school even more difficult than it already is!”

My brows pulled together. “You mean they were noticed?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “They don’t blend in, Elio. I have Anna asking questions, and now I have no idea what to say to her.”

Shit. I was well aware of Anna’s keen perception.

“She’s already noticed them once,” Cat said. “She’ll notice them again, especially if this is meant to be an everyday ordeal.”

Well, so much for my positive feeling. Here I thought the day was actually turning around in my favor, considering the morning had started out as a total cluster fuck.

I let out a long breath. “Look, we’ll talk about this when I get back home, okay? I know you’re not happy about the guards, but my hands are tied with this. If it’s really that big of an issue for you, then I suggest you pull out of school.”

The call went dead.

“Well, that’s just fucking wonderful,” I hissed angrily at myself.

“What was that about?” Leo asked.

I ran a rough hand through my hair and explained the situation about the guards being spotted by Cat’s friend. “Anna is just as smart as Cat. It’s not really a shock that she would have picked up on something like this, but more so an inconvenience.”

Leo slowly nodded his head and began to speak evenly, ever the voice of reason.

“You’re right, this is a shitty situation. But the way I see it, there are only two possible options,” he explained. “Either Cat tells Anna about what’s been really going on in her life, or, she has to stop being her friend.” 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I hated this for her. But unfortunately, I couldn’t see any other way around this situation either.

“Remember to check in with Franky to see if anything’s changed,” I said to him.

Leo nodded as I made my way down to the car to head back home. My stomach churned in knots at the thought of having to face Cat with the predicament. It was bad enough that I basically told her to put her academic life on hold for my sake. But now I had to somehow break the news to her about how she was going to have to deal with her friendship with Anna.

There was no way in hell this day was going to end well for anyone at this rate.

Regardless of the outcome, I knew the conversation with Cat wasn’t over.