Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 14
Kent led Fay into a study and closed the door. Shelves of leather-bound books rose to the ceiling, presenting the illusion of civilized negotiation. Fay remained standing. She would not make herself comfortable while David waited in a chamber and Janeen remained within Dean’s reach.
“Fay Thompson has nothing I need,” Kent said. “Fay Alden can unite two families.” He poured coffee with unhurried precision, making her wait for the price. Every second felt deliberately designed to deepen her desperation.
Fay demanded that he state the bargain. Kent promised David would be released and placed under Lippert protection. Janeen would be removed from Dean’s control, her debt erased, and any man who approached her afterward would answer directly to him.
In exchange, Fay would accept her biological identity and honor the agreement between Lorenzo Alden and the Lippert family. She would live at the estate, learn the rules of the underworld, and present herself publicly as Daniel’s future wife.
The word wife reopened the wound Daniel had left. Fay pictured Colin against the restaurant wall and Daniel’s desperate offer of money. “He doesn’t love me,” she said. “He cannot even be honest with you about who he loves.” If Kent recognized the implication, he refused to show it. His silence warned Fay that exposing Daniel now might endanger Colin without freeing either of them.
Kent’s face gave away nothing. He replied that love was not required for an alliance. Respect, discretion, and loyalty would be enough. Fay wondered how a man capable of such consuming desire could speak of marriage as though arranging a corporate merger.
“And if I refuse?” Kent reminded her that Lorenzo’s enemies would eventually discover her. Without Lippert protection, David and Janeen could become ransom, punishment, or bait. The danger was not invented, but Kent was exploiting it before offering to remove it.
Fay crossed to the window. The grounds spread below like a private kingdom, beautiful and impossible to escape unnoticed. She had once dreamed of Daniel taking her into a world of wealth. Now every luxury looked like another bar in a gilded cage. Armed men patrolled the garden paths where guests might expect gardeners, making protection and imprisonment visually indistinguishable.
“Do I have your word that they will be safe?” she asked. Kent answered yes. Fay forced herself to go further. “Swear it on your son’s life.” His eyes narrowed, acknowledging that she had finally learned to demand terms with weight.
Kent placed his coffee aside. “On my family, David and Janeen will have my explicit protection.” The oath changed the air. Whatever else Kent was, family was the one institution he treated as sacred.
Fay closed her eyes. Accepting meant returning to Daniel after he had shattered her, lying publicly about their relationship, and letting men she did not trust rename her future. Refusing meant gambling with two lives she loved more than her own freedom.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll marry him.” The words tasted like defeat. Kent corrected her at once: she would not merely sign papers. David and Janeen had to believe she chose the Alden life and no longer wanted theirs.
Fay stared at him. “You want me to break their hearts.” Kent said a clean separation would keep them away from the danger gathering around her. If they believed she had been coerced, they would continue trying to rescue her and invite retaliation.
The logic was brutal enough to be convincing. Fay asked whether she could at least tell them privately that the rejection was false. Kent refused. A performance worked only when its audience believed it, and frightened family members were incapable of maintaining secrets under pressure. Lorenzo’s enemies could watch their calls, follow their movements, or threaten them until hope betrayed the truth.
“You’re a psychologist,” he said. “Make them believe.” The challenge transformed everything Fay understood about empathy into a weapon. She knew David’s deepest insecurity was that blood might someday matter more than love. She knew Janeen feared being judged for the work she did to survive. Kent was asking Fay to turn years of intimacy into a precise map of where cruelty would cut deepest.
Using those wounds would save them and perhaps destroy their trust forever. Fay felt sick at the thought. Kent watched her reach the conclusion without offering comfort. Mercy, in his world, apparently meant choosing which kind of pain a person could survive.
He called a guard and ordered that Fay be taken upstairs. Staff would prepare her for the family meeting that evening. Janeen was already on her way, and David would be released from the chamber when everyone had gathered.
As Fay reached the door, she asked whether Daniel knew about the engagement. Kent said his son knew the old arrangement existed, though he did not yet know the missing Alden daughter had been found. Fay almost pitied the shock waiting for him.
A woman escorted Fay to a guest suite where an elegant dress lay across the bed. The silk was the deep green of old money and careful appearances. Fay touched it with numb fingers, understanding that clothing would help transform the daughter David knew into an Alden heiress.
Outside, another car passed through the estate gates. Fay watched from the window as guards opened the rear door and Janeen emerged, pale and furious. Their reunion was only hours away, but Fay would have to greet her sister as someone who valued wealth more than family.
