Page 31 of Assassin Daddy

“Eyes open. Stay safe. Fire first.”

And as a hitman, these words had proven to be a perfect natural fit for him. This wasn’t to say that Matteo hadn’t come in formore than his fair share of close calls and injuries, but on the whole he felt like he just had that special knack for staying alive in even the most daunting and dangerous of scenarios – and it was in large part down to his father’s sage words of advice.

However back in the present day, Matteo only had his father’s memory. The reality was that he, and only he, was going to keep himself safe and in the land of the living.

Matteo looked across the bed and saw Kyan’s body, perfectly still as he cuddled with his rabbit stuffie. The blackout blinds in Matteo’s bedroom made it difficult to make out any details, but it was more than evident from Kyan’s light snores that he was still fast asleep.

Damn, he’s cute.

And that rabbit ain’t bad either.

But this day ain’t going to wait around for me while I laze in bed…

Careful so as not to wake his snoozing Little, Matteo eased himself out of bed and stood on the polished bedroom floor. Having changed into his dark, silk pajamas, Matteo padded out of the bedroom and made his way quietly and quickly down the stairs and into the kitchen.

‘Fuck. The alarm,’ Matteo cursed, suddenly remembering that he hadn’t turned off the ground floor security system on his way into the kitchen.

Matteo just about managed to bound and leap toward the alarm console to turn it off before the whole house was a blaring cacophony of bleeps, lights, and sirens.

‘Okay, that’s enough morning drama,’ Matteo said, shaking his head as he walked back into the kitchen for a much needed coffee.

As he waited for the coffee machine to work its magic, Matteo picked up his cell phone and decided to let Faustino and Michael know what he was planning for the day. And if everything went to plan, it was looking like it could help the three of them in their quest to rid the Fendi family of Alphonso for good…

MATTEO:Morning. I’m assuming that you two are still asleep. But I won’t be contactable for most of the day, so wanted to keep you up to speed. I’ve made contact with an old ally, someone who I think could help us. It’s a one on one meeting – this is a man who doesn’t do group chats, let’s put it that way. I’ll say more later. Eyes open. Stay safe. Fire first.

Matteo rested his cell phone on the marble work surface and took the first sip from his morning coffee. It was always a moment to savor for Matteo. So little in Matteo’s life was based purely on joy, but the first coffee of the day always felt like a protected sanctuary from the dangers of the world outside his house.

That said, the hallowed morning caffeine hit might not be theonlypurely joyful aspect of his life as it was shaping up now. Kyan had come into Matteo’s life in the most unlikely of ways but the way things were going it was looking more and more like he was there to stay.

‘Last night…’ Matteo said, the caffeine hitting him just like it always did at 5:00AM each morning. ‘Damn. That was something.’

As a man in his forties, Matteo had been around the block a few times. Being intimate with Kyan was far from his first rodeo. But the truth of the matter was that Matteo had never felt anything like the connection that he had experienced with Kyan the previous night – both during sex, and then also as they unwound and went through the most wholesome bedtime routine with one another.

Kyan was like no other boy that Matteo had met. He was sassy, vulnerable, confident, sexy, and shy. These might have seemed liked contradictory elements, but they perfectly described the puzzle that came together perfectly in the shape of Kyan Coole.

There was one thing that was bugging Matteo, however.

Kyan had touched upon the situation that led to him receiving threats to stop playing poker for big money. And then of course there was the hit that Alphonso Fendi placed on him. There was surely a connection between the two, albeit Matteo knew from experience that only a fool jumped to conclusions ahead of finding concrete evidence.

Matteo couldn’t help but feel that he was missing something and hoped that his meeting later that morning would shed some much needed light on things.

In the meantime, there was the prospect of another coffee, a touch of online research into Kyan’s gambling career, and then making his adorable Little the kind of breakfast that would set him up for the day.

So as Matteo stared off into the distance and allowed the perfectly brewed coffee to course through his veins, he felt a sense of cautious optimism rise inside him. He was far from solving the situation, but Matteo felt sure that he was making progress – and that a breakthrough might be just around the corner…

Fortunately for Matteo, the drive to the city limits to meet his longtime ally wasn’t in the same direction as the Fendi family mansion. While it would have been unlikely that anyone from the family would have spotted him, Matteo was more than happy to have headed in quite literally the opposite direction.

Following on from an hour long drive due in part to bad traffic, Matteo pulled up at the roadside diner and parked his vintage Porsche next to a car he just knew was going to be Steele’s…

‘BMW. Three Series. 1979. Damn, Steele knows how to rock a classic car,’ Matteo said, perusing the BMW’s impeccable paint job and shiny metal rims as he put his cell phone in his pocket and readied himself to meet his old friend and colleague Steele.

Matteo hadn’t seen Steele in person for a year or so. But that wasn’t down to the pair of them falling out or anything sinister. It was simply Steele’s style. Steele was an army veteran who had eventually been recruited into the secret service. But one bad decision later, and he found himself on the run and living day to day with the possibility of being apprehended by the military authorities.

But unfortunately for the authorities, they must have trained Steeletoowell. With all traces of his old identity now erased,Steele was living free and there was no prospect of that changing any time soon. Steele’s work as a street spy was something he did to earn the money to keep himself hidden for good, and it was work that he did to an impeccable standard too.

Speaking of which, Matteo allowed himself a wry grin.

‘That sonofabitch if probably staring at me right now,’ Matteo muttered.

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