Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 10
The laboratory envelope seemed impossibly heavy when Kent placed it in Fay’s hands. She did not open it. Whatever waited inside had already changed the way he looked at her, replacing desire with calculation. Fay feared that reading it would give the page permission to change how she saw herself.
Kent lost patience and removed the report. “Victoria O’Leary was not an ordinary woman,” he said. “She was the mistress of Lorenzo Alden.” The name meant little for one second, then surfaced from news stories about organized crime, disappearances, and a dynasty that rivaled the Lipperts.
Fay shook her head. Her mother had loved gardens, old movies, and cinnamon in her coffee. She could not reconcile those memories with the secret lover of a Mafia don. “You have the wrong Victoria,” she insisted, but Kent’s expression offered no escape.
He handed her the report. Patient A—the sample taken from Fay—showed a biological match to a secured paternal sample belonging to Lorenzo Alden. The clinical language was mercilessly simple. Science had compressed her identity into percentages and declared the impossible true.
“This is my blood?” she whispered. Kent nodded. Fay read the line again, searching for an error in the names, dates, or numbers. Nothing changed. According to the paper, David Thompson was not merely her adoptive father. He had raised the missing daughter of a criminal empire.
The room tilted beneath her. Fay sank onto the chaise and remembered her mother’s red hair, her laughter, and the fierce insistence that Fay always keep the knife close. What had seemed like a sentimental inheritance now looked like a warning from a life Victoria had tried to escape.
Kent told her Lorenzo had been searching for his daughter for years. Fay recoiled from the idea of being found by a stranger whose blood she happened to share. She had never felt incomplete without a biological father. David had attended every recital, fever, graduation, and heartbreak.
“You’re fortunate I recognized the crest,” Kent continued. “If Dean had understood what you were worth, he would have sold you back in pieces.” Fay’s stomach twisted. He spoke brutally, but the nightmare was believable after what she had witnessed in the club.
“You expect gratitude because you kidnapped me first?” she asked. Kent’s mouth nearly curved. He appeared to appreciate that terror had not emptied her of defiance. “I expect you to understand that the world became more dangerous the moment your identity was exposed.”
Fay crushed the report in her fist. “DNA doesn’t make him my father.” She threw the paper to the carpet. “I don’t want to meet Lorenzo Alden, and I don’t belong to his world.” The declaration steadied her because it sounded like a choice.
Kent stepped between Fay and the door. “Your choice is irrelevant to men who recognize the Alden bloodline.” His own history had taught him that family names functioned as currency, weapons, and promises. Fay possessed a fortune in her veins without knowing how to defend it.
“Why is this personal to you?” she demanded. “My blood doesn’t match yours.” Kent caught a fistful of her hair at the nape and tilted her face upward. The grip was firm, but the anger in his eyes seemed directed at a past she could not see.
“Because Lorenzo and I made an agreement long ago.” His gaze moved over her face as though searching for Victoria within it. “The day Alden’s daughter was born, she was promised to my firstborn son.” Fay stopped breathing.
Daniel’s name entered the silence without being spoken. The coincidence of meeting him in a restaurant suddenly seemed too precise, though Fay knew neither of them had understood the connection. Fate had not given her Prince Charming. It had delivered her to the threshold of an old contract.
“No.” Fay shoved at Kent’s chest. “Daniel and I are finished.” Kent did not move. He reminded her that personal resentment mattered less than the alliance their marriage would create between two powerful families.
She thought of Daniel offering millions for a false relationship, unaware that their parents had assigned them to each other before they could speak. His deception had been selfish, but Kent’s plan was larger and colder. Both men treated her future as a solution to their private problems.
“You cannot force two adults to marry.” Fay tried to make the statement sound like fact rather than hope. Kent finally released her hair. His calm return was more frightening than anger because it suggested the matter had already been settled elsewhere.
“In a few months, you will marry Daniel,” he said. Fay laughed once in disbelief, but the sound broke. She searched his face for provocation and found only certainty. Kent was not threatening to ruin her life; he was calmly describing the version he intended to build.
“I would rather go to the police.” Fay moved toward the door. Kent allowed her two steps before speaking. He asked whether she meant the officers who had guarded his prison, the court that had failed to keep him inside, or some honest detective whose family could be threatened.
Her hand froze above the doorknob. Behind her, Kent said the contract between the Aldens and Lipperts had waited more than two decades for her return. Fay had spent her life believing she was free, but one blood test had awakened a promise made before she was born.
