“Good morning…Daddy.”
I run my hand over my face and squint out of one eye.
“It’s almost time for lunch. Time to get up. Or maybe you need some help with that?” Gabriella asks, grabbing the groin of my boxer briefs with her hand.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I say through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice down as I grab her by the forearms and get her off me.
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Where’s your dad?” I ask, trying to get a hold of the situation as my mind is still waking up after a long night.
“You didn’t hear the news?”
“Listen to me, little girl. Tell me what’s going on right now or,” I pause, lowering my voice, “I’m going to spank you silly.”
“Promise?” she moves back toward me. “Because I promise to like it.”
“I promise you won’t this time,” I counter.
“Dad went to work.”
“Work? I specifically told him not to. Those guys are going to be coming for us, which is why I stayed up all night trying to secure the house. Your dad is supposed to be on watch duty right now.”
“I don’t think we have much to worry about when it comes to them anymore?”
“You don’t understand how these guys operate.”
“They’re not going to be operating for a long time.”
She holds up her phone and I read the headline. Apparently the feds had been building a case against those guys for the last six months. Human trafficking. Money laundering. The list goes on and on. And last night, after I decked the bastard that was their cue. The story is accompanied by a picture of the ‘security guard’ who was protecting Marroni. Seems he was actually with the federal government, in combination with the Italian government, to bring down an international crime ring that was bigger than any in history. And all that happened here, in this little town?
I passed out thinking two steps forward and one step back. I’d left Italy after turning in another scumbag who was trafficking only to find another one here. I would say what bad luck, but in a way, it’s good luck because I’ve been able to help a lot of people…and get to know Gabriella in the process.
“What did your dad say about last night?”
“He blamed it on my mom, said I was acting out because my mom ran off with some guy and that he was lucky you were there to spot me and save me.”
“So he thinks…I’m the good guy in all of this?”
“You know how much he likes you,” she says, running a finger over my cheek, but this time I don’t resist her advances.
“What about his business?”
“He’s too naive to understand how these guys were laundering money. Not only that but they were laundering most of it to Italy, via fake construction projects, so how could he have verified any of that information.”
“He is naive, that’s for sure.”
“That may be true, but his daughter’s not, and she’s rea
dy for you to verify a different kind of information.”
“What kind of information is that?” I cock an eyebrow.
“That this, little girl,” she says, taking my hand and rubbing it over her mound, her panties the only thing separating me from the slickness I can feel seeping through, “Is untouched and has been waiting on Daddy all these years.”
I pull my hand away, still processing the crazy night we had. It makes that movie The Hangover look like child’s play, and I didn’t even drink.
“You deserve better than this couch,” I remind her.