Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 30
Fay’s breath caught, but she refused to retreat from Kent’s question. Violence repelled her, she said. The captive’s fear had been real, and no amount of criminal procedure could transform a basement interrogation into justice. What unsettled her was that Kent had offered the man a choice while denying choices to everyone upstairs.
Kent’s amusement faded. The traitor had endangered dozens of people and would have received no choice from a rival family. Fay answered that mercy measured against murder was still not morality. She would not let his enemies define the standard by which she judged him.
He stepped back enough to give her air. Fay recognized the movement as deliberate, a demonstration that he could control proximity as precisely as guards and guns. In the basement, command had made a terrified man confess. In the surveillance room, it made her painfully aware of her own body.
“And the rest of the room?” Kent asked. Fay knew he meant the restraints and the private understanding between him and Fiona. She told him consenting adults could make their own choices, provided the rules were clear and either person could stop without punishment.
Kent tilted his head, surprised by the clinical answer. He asked whether her professional calm concealed curiosity. Fay said curiosity did not equal invitation. The distinction mattered, especially to a man who treated every hesitation as territory waiting to be conquered.
He accepted the correction with a slight nod. Then he established rules: Fay would never enter the basement, surveillance chamber, armory, or third floor without permission. She would not access private recordings or interfere with interrogations. If she discovered an unlocked restricted door, she would call security rather than investigate.
Fay countered with rules of her own. Kent would not enter her bedroom without knocking, monitor the inside of her private rooms, touch her in anger, or use threats against David and Janeen to force compliance. He would also stop speaking about punishment as if her fear entertained him.
“You are in my house,” he said. Fay placed the signed agreement from that morning on the console between them. “And you put limits on your authority in writing.” The paper looked fragile beside the banks of monitors, yet Kent stared at it as if it carried legal force.
After a long pause, he agreed to her privacy terms. No cameras existed inside her bedroom or bathroom, he said, and none would be installed. He would knock unless immediate danger required entry. The concessions sounded formal, but Fay understood she had pushed a Mafia king into acknowledging a locked door he did not own.
Kent added one condition: she would stop using Daniel as a shield when what she wanted concerned Kent. Fay denied doing any such thing. He reminded her of the gown fitting, the deliberate mention of Daniel’s jealousy, and the way she had watched Kent’s reaction rather than her fiancé’s.
Heat rushed to her face. She accused him of jealousy first. Kent did not deny it. The blunt admission stripped away her easiest defense and left the forbidden attraction exposed between them.
He said jealousy was an impulse, not a command. Self-control was the difference between wanting something and taking it. Fay’s gaze fell to his mouth before she could stop herself. Kent noticed, but he remained motionless, proving his point with infuriating discipline.
Fay asked why he had chosen her wedding gowns. Kent said details required management. She pressed him until he admitted he wanted to see which version of Fay emerged when she understood how much attention she could command.
“And?” she whispered. Kent’s eyes darkened. The answer was not safe for Daniel, the alliance, or anyone living beneath his roof. He told Fay she had looked like a temptation designed by an enemy who understood every weakness he refused to possess.
The words landed with more force than a kiss. Fay remembered Fiona saying that anyone beneath Kent’s armor became precious or dangerous. She wondered which category he had placed her in—and whether there was any meaningful difference in his world.
Kent reached for the engagement ring on her hand but stopped before touching it. Daniel’s diamond stood between them like a warning. He said Fay would marry his son, and whatever existed in this room ended before either of them gave it a name.
Fay should have been relieved. Instead, rejection burned through her. She reminded him that she had not asked for anything. Kent gave a low, humorless laugh and said her eyes had been asking questions since the prison interview.
She moved toward the door, determined to escape with the remains of her dignity. Kent unlocked it but kept his hand on the panel. He said the basement was built around negotiated control, not cruelty, and if Fay ever chose to understand the difference, curiosity would not be enough. She would need honesty.
A knock sounded from the corridor. Daniel called Fay’s name and said Fiona had told him she might be lost. Kent and Fay stared at each other while the locked room seemed to shrink around them. If Daniel found them alone beside the frozen recording, no explanation would sound innocent.
Kent opened the door only far enough to conceal Fay behind it. Daniel asked whether he had seen her, and Kent looked back, silently giving Fay the choice he claimed to value. Before she could answer, Daniel noticed her engagement ring lying on the surveillance console—though neither Fay nor Kent remembered her taking it off.
