Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad Episode 2

📖 The Story Continues

Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 02

Fay reached the sidewalk before Daniel caught up with her. Night air struck her damp cheeks, cold enough to sharpen the pain she had fought to contain inside the restaurant. He seized her wrist, and she tore free as if his touch burned. The man she had trusted now felt like a stranger wearing her boyfriend’s face.

“You don’t understand,” Daniel said, breathless from chasing her. He looked over his shoulder, perhaps afraid the waiter had followed, then lowered his voice. “Please, Fay. Just let me explain.” His panic might once have moved her, but now it only proved how desperately he needed control of the story.

She folded her arms across her chest to hide her shaking hands. “What part did I misunderstand?” she asked. “The part where you left our table with him, or the part where I found you kissing him?” Daniel flinched, yet the answer did not come quickly enough to preserve even a fragment of her faith.

“His name is Colin,” he finally admitted. “And I really do like you. You’re amazing.” The words landed with insulting softness. Fay stared at him, wondering how he could praise her while explaining why he had used her. Affection without honesty was not kindness; it was simply a prettier form of betrayal.

Daniel dragged a hand through his hair. His family, he said, was old-fashioned and powerful, obsessed with appearances and bloodlines. They would never approve of him and Colin. He had spent his whole life learning what happened when a Lippert disappointed the family, and he had been too afraid to face them openly.

The pieces fit together with sickening ease. Fay had not been Daniel’s chosen partner; she had been camouflage. Her respectable career, quiet manner, and obvious devotion had made her the perfect woman to parade before a disapproving family. Even her virginity had been convenient because it excused the lack of intimacy between them.

“So you wanted me to be your pretend girlfriend,” she said. Speaking it aloud stripped away the last romantic illusion. Daniel looked down, and that small surrender gave her the answer. Their first meeting, every date, and every promise suddenly felt contaminated by a purpose he had never shared with her.

“I didn’t plan to hurt you,” he insisted. “I thought we could help each other.” He reached for her again, but Fay stepped out of range. There was nothing mutual about a bargain one person had never agreed to make. He had borrowed her heart to buy himself safety.

Then Daniel made the wound deeper. “I wouldn’t ask you to do it for free,” he said, as if money could turn deception into employment. “Tell me what you want. One million? Two?” His family’s wealth had taught him to negotiate with numbers when courage and decency failed.

Fay stared at him in disbelief. For one wild instant, she imagined accepting enough money to erase her student debt and change Janeen’s life. The thought vanished beneath a stronger need to reclaim something Daniel could not purchase. “No,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “I don’t want your money.”

Daniel’s expression hardened with frustration, as though her refusal were unreasonable. Fay recognized another truth then: he had expected her to be pliable because she loved him. He had counted on her goodness becoming another resource at his disposal. The realization made it easier to finish what he had already broken.

“I never want to see you again.” She forced each word past the ache in her throat. Daniel started to protest, but Fay turned away before he could offer another price or excuse. Whatever danger he feared from his family, he had chosen to pass the cost to her without permission.

She walked until the restaurant lights faded behind her. The city continued around her with unbearable normalcy—cars rolling through intersections, couples laughing beneath awnings, music leaking from open doors. Her private fairy tale had ended, and the world had not even paused to mark its death.

Her phone vibrated inside her bag, Daniel’s name flashing across the screen again and again. Fay silenced it without reading the messages. She had an evaluation to complete, and clinging to his explanations would only let him dictate what remained of her night.

Fay found a bench near the prison transit stop and sat because her knees no longer trusted her. She pressed her fingers beneath her eyes, trying not to ruin the professional makeup she had applied for the assessment. In less than an hour, she was supposed to evaluate a dangerous inmate while her own judgment felt catastrophically unreliable.

Prince Charming had never existed. Daniel had only learned the costume well enough to fool her. Fay hated herself for wanting to mourn him anyway, for remembering the sweetness of the lie even after discovering its purpose. Betrayal did not erase love as cleanly as she wished it would.

A dark luxury car slowed at the curb, too elegant for the tired block surrounding the prison. Fay barely noticed until the rear window lowered. The man inside studied her with calm, unsettling interest, as if tears were evidence and he had already begun drawing conclusions.

“You look pretty when you cry,” he said. His voice was deep and controlled, carrying the confidence of someone unused to being ignored. Fay lifted her head sharply, offended by the intrusion—then recognized the face from Daniel’s illuminated phone screen.

Kent Lippert was even more arresting in person. Silver threaded his dark hair at the temples, and the severe lines of his face made Daniel’s polished beauty seem boyish by comparison. Fay’s grief collided with a flash of unwanted attraction, leaving her disoriented and angry with herself.

If this was Daniel’s father, then he belonged to the same wealthy family Daniel feared. Yet nothing about Kent suggested a conventional patriarch concerned with polite society. The driver kept both hands rigidly on the wheel, and pedestrians instinctively gave the parked car a wider berth without seeming to know why.

Fay’s training supplied the answer a moment before memory did. Kent Lippert was not merely a rich businessman or Daniel’s intimidating father. He was the man whispered about in courtrooms and police briefings, a criminal ruler whose influence reached behind prison walls—the Mafia King she had been assigned to evaluate tonight.