His Caged Dove -Mafia Romance (BOOK ONE)

Eighteen: Gedeon

Eighteen:

Gedeon

"Two weeks have passed before Robert realizes that Dove was missing?" Timor asked, baffled. So much so that he almost dropped his chess piece, Lizabeta looked up from her laptop and Nicolai stopped sharpening his knife for a moment.

"And you, Timor, have the honor of accompanying me to see Mateo two days from now," I concluded. When Mateo had called in the middle of the night when Robert came demanding to see Dove and found out what really happened, I would have killed to see his expression when he found out that I swooped his little bird up. "I took the liberty to book up a nice restaurant owned by me at my yacht club so there's no chance Mateo might do something stupid there."

"Would Dove be coming along?" Lizabeta asked curiously.

"No," I snipped. The protectiveness surged in my heart and I growled in annoyance.

"What went down on the call yesterday?" Timor looked at me curious, mistaken what I was truly annoyed about and thought I was annoyed and angry about my conversation with Mateo yesterday instead.

Recalling the rather absurdly long call yesterday, I rubbed my temples. "Gaggi's family wasn't happy, especially Robert who went straight to Galileo who told them to sort things out on their own. I'll be meeting with Mateo to see what the next plan of action is, but it seems likely of an all-out war over Dove."

But it was more than that for everyone involved.

"That's going to be...something," Timor mumbled under his breath. "I just hope this ends up how you planned it to be with every single Italian dead."

I knew everyone trusted me with their lives, but to fight on the side of an Italian family was still frowned deeply upon. I tapped the edge of the table, knowing fully well the consequences if I even made one wrong mistake. "I've planned my whole life around this moment. The moment Mateo gave me his daughter who's next to the heir, it's a done deal. Every Italian will be dead by the end of the year once I make sure that Mateo is next in line rather than Robert."

"And to be clear we're on the same page, you'll kill your wife too when this is all said and dealt with?" Nicolai questioned; his eyes focused on my every move to show any signs of me lying along with Lizabeta.

Before I could reply, a soft tap broke through the tension. I already knew it was Dove due to her way of knocking and what she was looking for as well.

"Come in."

Dove poked her head through the head of the doorframe, and upon seeing everyone staring back, her eyes darted to the ground while she bit her lips. She's still rather stiff and nervous around Nicolai and more so with Lizabeta even though they haven't exchanged words. She held onto the doorframe and peered up slowly. "I'm sorry, did I intervene?"

I flicked a hand in dismissal. "Are you here looking for your rabbit?"

"Yes, Scrabble."

Of course, she had taken the liberty to name it after Jo's pet rat from Little Women.

"It's over there." I nodded to the corner whereit seemed Scrabble had made it his favorite place in the estate. Its right hindleg was still bandaged up with a blue cast over it after Anastasia called in aveterinarian. As it turned out, it'll be fine after a few weeks in a cast. Itsnose twitched as if it knew we were talking about it. Even its ears perked up tothe sound of her coming.

"Thank you," she smiled gently; another thing she seemed to only give to me that awakened a rather peculiar thing in my heart. Everyone watched as she bent down after tucking in her dress to scoop up the rabbit she was so passionate about saving two weeks ago. It struggled for only a moment before completely relaxing into her petting. For a reason I've yet to figure out, the sight of her holding something so tenderly reminded me of my own Mother.