Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 12
Dawn thinned the darkness as the car carried Fay away from Kent’s estate. She sat between two silent guards while a third drove, the arrangement making clear that she was cargo rather than a passenger. Her mother’s knife rested inside her borrowed shirt, hidden close to her racing heart.
She memorized street names and turns, though exhaustion blurred them together. The city looked ordinary outside the tinted windows. Delivery trucks moved through intersections, lights appeared in apartment kitchens, and people began mornings untouched by secret bloodlines or inherited marriage contracts.
Fay considered asking the driver to stop at a police station. One glance at the men beside her ended the thought. They had surrendered their phones before collecting her, and their jackets concealed weapons. Kent had prepared for every obvious act of resistance.
“Is Janeen safe?” Fay asked. Neither guard answered. She repeated the question until the man on her right said that Mr. Lippert would inform her when there was news. Even her sister’s survival had become information distributed at Kent’s pleasure.
The car stopped outside the modest house where Fay had grown up. The chipped porch rail and overgrown planter had never looked more precious. Here, her mother’s laughter still lived in faded photographs, and David’s coffee always smelled stronger than necessary. It was imperfect, familiar, and hers.
Fay opened the door before the driver could help her. All three guards followed. “You can wait outside,” she said. They ignored her and moved with practiced efficiency, one checking the windows while another watched the street.
The front door was unlocked, as it had been throughout her childhood. Fay rushed inside. “Dad?” Her voice cracked through the quiet house. A chair scraped in the kitchen, followed by hurried footsteps. On the hall table, family photographs showed birthdays and graduations in cheap frames, ordinary evidence that love had existed here without contracts.
David appeared in plaid pajama pants and an old sweater. Relief transformed his tired face when he saw her, but it vanished as he noticed the torn dress beneath the man’s shirt and the strangers entering behind her. “Fay? Where’s Janeen?”
She threw herself into his arms. The familiar embrace broke the restraint she had maintained before Kent, and tears came without permission. David held her tightly, one hand protecting the back of her head as he had during childhood nightmares.
“I was so worried,” he whispered. “Neither of you answered. I called hospitals and the police.” Fay pulled back, hating that the men behind her were observing a moment that belonged to family. Their presence turned comfort into a timed interrogation.
“Dad, I need the truth.” She removed the knife and placed it on the kitchen table. David’s face changed at once. His eyes moved from the Alden crest to the guards, and fear entered them with the speed of recognition.
Fay saw the answer before asking the question. “Do you know who my biological father is?” David denied it too quickly. The lie hurt more than the laboratory report because it came from the man who had taught her honesty.
“Please.” Fay gripped the lapels of his sweater. “Kent took my blood. He says Victoria was Lorenzo Alden’s mistress and that I’m their daughter.” David closed his eyes, and twenty years of guarded silence settled into the lines around them. Fay remembered every time he had changed the subject when she asked about Victoria’s past. What once seemed like grief now revealed the discipline of a man guarding a dangerous secret.
“It doesn’t matter whose blood you carry,” he said. “I’m your father.” Fay assured him nothing could change that, but she needed to know why he had hidden her. If Lorenzo was searching, silence had not erased the threat; it had only left her defenseless against it.
David glanced toward the guards. “These men work for Lippert?” His voice dropped. “Then we have to leave now.” He began pulling Fay toward the rear door, placing himself between her and the strangers despite being unarmed. He mentioned emergency cash and passports hidden upstairs, preparations proving he had always feared this morning would come.
“You knew,” Fay breathed. David’s urgency confirmed everything Kent had told her. Her mother had not simply died and left a mysterious keepsake. David had built their quiet life around keeping Fay invisible to men who measured children by political value.
One guard stepped forward. David raised a shaking hand. He offered to take Fay and disappear, promising the Lipperts would never hear from them again. The man’s expression remained almost apologetic. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, sir.”
The kitchen exploded into motion. One guard caught Fay from behind while the other two seized David’s arms. Fay screamed and kicked, but they restrained her without losing formation. Plastic ties closed around David’s wrists before he could strike back.
A black hood came down over her father’s head. The sight erased every illusion that this visit had been permitted as an act of kindness. Kent had sent Fay home not to say goodbye, but to lead his men directly to the last person who knew how she had disappeared.
David shouted through the fabric as the guards dragged him toward the door. Fay fought until an arm locked across her ribs and a cloth appeared in another man’s hand. “Keep struggling,” he warned, “and neither of you will be awake for the journey back.”
