Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 29
Fay pressed herself against the closed door while Kent’s image filled the central monitor. He spoke to someone outside the camera’s range, and seconds later guards began moving through the basement corridor. She had escaped one forbidden room only to trap herself inside the machinery that watched the entire estate.
The surveillance chamber contained no windows and only one obvious exit. Screens showed the gates, kitchen, hallways, gardens, and exterior of every bedroom door. Fay found her own room among them and felt violated despite seeing no camera inside. Kent could chart her life without hearing a single private thought. Arrival times, visitors, sleepless walks, and every hesitation outside a closed door could all become evidence in a story he wrote about her.
She searched for another way out. A narrow cabinet opened onto shelves of labeled drives, incident reports, and remote controls. One screen displayed archived footage rather than a live feed, paused on Fiona entering Kent’s office earlier that afternoon.
Fay knew she should not touch it. She had already violated enough boundaries for one day, and curiosity did not become ethical merely because Kent frightened her. Still, the thought that Fiona might have been warning him about Fay made her reach for the control panel. She promised herself she would watch only long enough to learn whether her trust had been misplaced.
The recording played without sound at first. Fiona crossed behind Kent’s desk and leaned over the security monitors. Kent’s attention fixed on a feed showing Fay and Daniel in the upstairs hall after their private conversation, Daniel’s hand resting protectively at her back.
Even through grainy footage, Kent’s jealousy was unmistakable. Fiona noticed it too. She said something that made him turn sharply, then climbed onto the edge of his desk and drew his focus away from the screen.
Fay should have stopped there. Instead, she increased the sound. Fiona teased Kent about watching his son’s fiancée; Kent denied caring while continuing to stare at the image. The lie made something hot and vindicated unfurl inside Fay.
Then Fiona kissed him. The intimacy was confident and familiar, with none of Fay’s uncertainty. Kent responded after a moment, his hand settling at Fiona’s waist as the recording captured a private exchange never intended for anyone else.
Jealousy struck Fay so hard she nearly dropped the remote. She had no claim on Kent, no right to resent Fiona, and no excuse for spying. Yet watching him choose another woman turned every charged glance in the bedroom into something cheap and foolish.
Fay pressed the stop button. The screen froze on Kent’s face angled toward Fiona’s, his expression softer than Fay had ever seen it. She hated herself for wondering whether he had looked that way after Fay bandaged his hand. Daniel’s diamond scraped against the remote, and in a burst of irrational anger she pulled off the ring and abandoned it on the console.
The chamber door opened behind her. Fay spun, hiding the remote against her skirt as Kent stepped inside alone. His gaze moved from her face to the frozen image, then to the control clutched in her hand. Last of all, he noticed Daniel’s ring lying between them, and his expression became impossible to read.
Neither spoke. Kent closed the door with a quiet click and entered the code that locked it. The sound made Fay’s skin prickle, though she told herself the room contained cameras, records, and enough evidence to destroy his empire; of course he secured it.
“What are you doing?” he asked. Fay claimed she had taken a wrong turn. Kent glanced at the windowless walls and observed that most wrong turns did not involve selecting archived footage, activating sound, and stopping at an especially revealing frame.
Shame turned defensive. Fay accused him of monitoring her bedroom door and every conversation she had with Daniel. Kent said surveillance protected the estate and did not excuse her decision to watch material clearly marked private.
He was right, which made her angrier. Fay set down the remote and said Fiona had invited her to learn what he kept downstairs. Kent’s expression sharpened. He asked exactly what Fiona had shown her, and Fay realized Fiona’s invitation might have referred only to wine from the basement cellar—not the locked corridor beyond it.
Kent approached until the console pressed against Fay’s lower back. He smelled faintly of cedar and the same wine Fiona had poured in the garden. The evidence of their closeness made Fay’s embarrassment flare into resentment she had no right to feel.
“Did you enjoy watching?” His question was quiet, almost amused. Fay denied it too quickly. Kent’s eyes dropped to the pulse racing at her throat, then returned to her face with the confidence of a man accustomed to reading physical truth.
She said what happened between him and Fiona was none of her concern. Kent agreed, but pointed out that she had made it her concern by pressing play. If Fay demanded boundaries for herself, she would have to recognize that other people possessed them too.
The rebuke landed. Fay apologized for the recording, though not for objecting to surveillance. Kent accepted neither distinction nor apology. He reached past her, erased her access history, and told her they would discuss consequences after he determined how she had entered the room.
Fay moved toward the door, but Kent placed one hand beside her head and leaned close enough for his breath to disturb her hair. “You wanted to know what happens behind my locked doors,” he murmured. “Now tell me the truth, Fay—was it the violence downstairs that fascinated you, or the control?”
