Chapter Eight

"Hey Boss."

Luca heard a familiar voice and turned around to address them.

"Hey Emiliano, you need something?" Luca asked looking at Emiliano.

Angela looked at this person named Emiliano and saw a man that was about five feet six, a few inches shorter than Luca and with the same skin colour as Luca. He had blue eyes and a scar that covered his right cheek and had brown hair in a short ponytail. He was also a bit lanky. She looked back at Luca smirking at her and she flushed a bit.

"Go sit on the couch and choose something to watch, I'll be there soon." Luca crooked his head towards the couch and patted her back.

"Okay." Angela agreed and walked over to the black leather sectional. She grabbed the remote and sat in the middle of the couch and turned on the TV. They had a rather big smart TV that took up a lot of space on the wall. There was a big manor and lots of nice furniture, it had to be expected of people in the mafia would have a lot of money. After scrolling through Netflicks, she found a dramatic comedy that seemed interesting and chose to watch it.

Luca watched Angela and let out a chuckle and then looked back at Emiliano and gestured for him to talk.

"Lauro just told me a few minutes ago what to dig deeper on and I being the smart person to anticipate stuff like this, already dug deeper into the car accidents and one of the brothers. I was about to continue my research of the other brothers when Lauro contacted me. I figured I should come and tell you what I found." Emiliano said with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

"That's definitely good. I knew that I could also count on you, Emiliano. I'll seek you out later for your full report, right now I am taking a break and seeing to Angela's care." Luca clasped Emiliano's shoulder and squeezed.

"Sounds good Boss." Emiliano returned the gesture and then walked back down the hallway to his computer lab to finish up his research.

Luca walked over to the couch and sat down next to Angela and saw that she didn't notice him because she was watching the movie so intently. That made him chuckle a bit as he settled on the couch and then watched the movie with her.

The movie ended an hour and a half later with Angela sleeping on his lap and him watching her fondly. Neither of them caught the end of the movie, Luca was too busy watching her sleep. He softly stroked her hair, enjoying the feel of her hair in his hand. She looked so sweet and innocent when she was sleeping and he wanted to preserve that. She had enough hardship in her life, he would see to it that she enjoyed life now and had a family that she could count on to support her and be there for her.

Was he in love with her? No, he wasn't, at least not at that moment. He just felt an obligation to protect her and keep her safe. Could he love her? Possibly, but he did have a lot of skeletons in his closet and he wanted to protect her from those skeletons as well.

He needed to find out who caused the car accident that killed her parents, if her father knew who he was really working for, why she was kidnapped, and what the deal was with the Kavanaugh brothers. He planned to find out at least one of those things tonight.

"Go to bed Beli, I'll be up in a little while." Luca heard Alessio say behind him. Presumably the footsteps he heard retreating were Abelia's and Alessio was coming to talk to him.

Alessio walked into the living and sat on the big wooden chest that they used as a coffee table.

"Hi Alessio." Luca deadpanned and shook his head with a laugh.

"Well hello there Luca, fancy meeting you here." Alessio smirked.

"What do you want, Alessio..." Luca sighed.

"Well since you're asking..." Alessio trailed off and had that go lucky grin on his face and then it faded just as soon as Luca saw it, and it was replaced with serious eyes and a clenched jaw. Alessio was serious now, so that the matter that he was about to talk about must be important. "I swung by Emiliano's on the way here and he told me to relay some information to you. Without a doubt, the car accident was no accident and it was caused by the Russians. They must have more than just one cop on their payroll like we do, the report written for the accident was fake. Emiliano was able to find that out, he is currently looking for the real report before it was altered. Knowing him, he'll be able to find it pretty fast. He has more to tell you, but he figured that I would relay the first part and that he'll tell you the rest when you go see him."

"Thank you Alessio." Luca continued stroking Angela's hair and watching her. "I want her to know a life with no hardships, I want her to trust people, I want her to know that there are people that do care about her. I want her to stay here, she can thrive here. Unlike that so-called home of hers." Luca sighed.

"Here. Let me take her to bed and you go see Emiliano." Alessio smiled fondly at her. "She'll find happiness here."

"What would I do without you Alessio?" Luca chuckled and shook his head. Alessio was more than just his right hand man and his childhood friend. He was his brother, even though they weren't related, they might as well be. They were two sides of the same coin, what they had was a lifetime bond. It was like they were two halves of the same soul, they always knew what the only was thinking or feeling, they didn't always need to communicate in words. Without Alessio, Luca felt empty and not himself.

"Nothing. Well, you would do some things, but probably half-heartedly." Alessio shrugged his shoulders. He stood up and then bent down and gently picked Angela up in his arms, trying not to wake her. She stirred a bit, but remained asleep. Then without another word, he walked out of the room and down the hallway to the stairs that led to her bedroom.

Luca looked down at his lap, he could still feel the warmth that she left and he smiled a bit. He made his way to his feet and then to Emiliano's lab which was a few doors from his office. He opened the door without knocking, Luca never knocked. Why would he? This was his place and he was the boss.

In Emiliano's lab, in the middle was Emiliano sitting in a gaming chair in front of nine monitors in a 3x3 grid on a big desk. Those nine monitors were connected to one computer. Off to both sides of him were separate computers. The one on the left was an Mac Pro that looked like a cheese grater. The one on the right was a gaming windows computer. Emiliano's main computer, the one in the middle was a high grade gaming computer that he had made a bunch of modifications to.

On the right side of the room was filing cabinets that held records and electronics. On the left side of the room was a door that led to his bedroom and a table that was covered with a bunch of electronics and a see through mini fridge packed with water and energy drinks. Next to the mini fridge was floor to ceiling cabinet filled with snacks ranging from protein bars, to gummy candy to chips, etc. Emiliano spent his time either in this room or sleeping, he used to sleep in his gaming chair a lot because his bedroom used to be on the second floor with the rest of the bedrooms and it was too far to walk when he was exhausted. Luca allowed him to take the room next door as his bedroom and put in a door connecting the two rooms so that Emiliano would get some proper sleep, which Emiliano did get now.

Luca walked in, leaving the door open and leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed. Emiliano had turned around when he heard the door open.

"What you got for me, Emiliano?" Luca jerked his chin towards Emiliano.

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I have realized that I haven't done much description of surroundings so I'm changing that, starting with Emiliano's computer lab.