Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 09
Fay woke with the taste of panic still sharp on her tongue. For several disoriented seconds, she could not remember where she was. Then she saw the paneled walls, the unfamiliar paintings, and the treetops beyond tall windows. This was not a hospital or police station. It was Kent Lippert’s house.
She pushed herself upright on a velvet chaise. Someone had buttoned a man’s white shirt over her ruined dress, and the cuffs swallowed her hands. The faint trace of cedar and smoke clinging to the fabric told her it belonged to Kent, an intimacy she had never agreed to accept.
A square bandage covered the inside of her elbow. The sight brought back Fiona’s needle and the tube filling with her blood. Fay pressed two fingers over the spot, half expecting to feel something missing beneath her skin. Organ harvesting suddenly seemed less like an irrational fear.
She searched the elegant room for an exit. The windows opened only a few inches, and the drop below was high enough to break bones. Her bag and phone were gone. The estate’s beauty was another form of confinement, polished until a captive might feel ungrateful for wanting freedom.
Footsteps approached beyond the door. Fay stood and snatched a brass ornament from a side table, gripping it like a weapon. When Kent entered, his gaze went first to her improvised defense and then to her bare legs beneath his shirt. Amusement touched his face but did not soften it.
“Why did you take my blood?” she demanded. Kent closed the door behind him. One hand remained inside his jacket, and Fay tightened her grip. He drew out a narrow object that caught the light like a blade.
Fear jolted through her. She raised the ornament, but Kent stopped several feet away and opened his palm. Resting there was a small ceremonial knife with an engraved silver handle. Fay knew every curve of it. Her mother had left it to her.
“It’s yours,” Kent said. “I’m returning your property.” Fay rushed forward, but he closed his fingers and moved the knife beyond her reach. Rage displaced her fear. He had no right to use a dead woman’s gift as leverage.
“Give it to me.” Fay tried again, and Kent caught her shoulder, guiding her back onto the chaise with controlled strength. The movement was not violent, yet it reminded her how easily he could decide where she stood, sat, or slept.
“I will, after you answer some questions.” He held the knife where she could see it. “If you lie, it disappears.” Fay glared at him, knowing he would recognize an empty threat if she made one. For her mother’s last possession, she had little choice but to cooperate.
Kent asked where she had obtained it. “My mother,” Fay replied. “She left it to me in her will.” Saying the words reopened an old ache. Her memories of her mother were warm and bright, entirely incompatible with this weapon and the suspicion in Kent’s eyes.
“What was her name?” he asked. Fay hesitated. Kent already seemed to know more than he should, and each answer might place another person in danger. Still, the knife belonged to her mother’s history as much as to Fay. “Victoria,” she said. “Victoria O’Leary.”
The name confirmed something for him. Kent’s jaw tightened before he concealed the reaction. “And your father?” Fay frowned at the shift. “David Thompson. He raised me.” The emphasis was instinctive; David had earned the title through years no blood test could rewrite.
“Raised you,” Kent repeated. His attention sharpened on the distinction. Fay’s stomach turned cold. David had never hidden that he was not her biological father, but the subject had remained a closed room in their family. She had respected his silence because she never doubted his love.
“None of this is your business,” she said. “My father is a good man, so leave him alone.” Kent smiled without warmth. He warned that refusing names would not protect anyone. In his city, he could locate David and Janeen with a phone call.
The mention of her sister shattered Fay’s resistance. She gave him their full names and begged him not to hurt them. Kent listened as if fear were merely another form of useful testimony. For the first time, Fay understood why even prison guards obeyed him: he found the precise pressure point and never hesitated to use it.
Kent paced to the window, turning her mother’s knife between his fingers. “You call yourself Fay Thompson,” he said. “Yet you carry a blade marked with a crest older than either of us.” He looked back at her. “Did you never wonder why?”
Fay had wondered as a child, but David’s grief had taught her not to ask. She remembered a faded photograph of her mother standing beside an indistinct man, baby Fay bundled in her arms. The picture had disappeared years ago, and she had assumed it was lost.
“Who are you?” Kent demanded, suddenly crossing the room. He caught her elbow and pulled her to her feet, frustration burning beneath his control. Fay stammered her own name, but he shook his head. “Not the name David gave you. Who were you born to be?”
Fay stared at him, unable to answer. Kent released her and reached into his jacket again, this time removing a sealed laboratory envelope. The results inside, he told her, would explain the knife, the blood, and the secret her father had kept for her entire life.
