Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
As one, we all look into the kitchen to see my dad leaning against the counter. “Well,” he says, raising a beer to his lips, “I’m not, but I have to say if I was one of the gays? I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
Janeen and I howl with laughter as Daniel’s jaw drops. My dad gives Daniel a wink and then takes a long sip of his beer. “Good looking kid,” dad murmurs, chuckling and coming into the living room, giving Daniel a pat on the shoulder as he goes.
“I’m going to sleep,” Daniel murmurs, turning away from all of us. “I need to…rethink my entire life. And my values. And particularly, the people with whom I associate.”
“Night, baby,” Jerome calls casually over his shoulder. Daniel mumbles something back as I snuggle closer to Jerome’s side.
“He totally thinks Ivan’s hot,” I murmur.
“Nah, Daniel’s faithful,” Jerome says, giving me another little wink. “Just like you. Like I said you and Daniel are two peas in a fucked-up pod. Once you settle on someone? It’s for the long haul. You can’t even see anyone else. Which is all very much to my benefit.”
And I grin up at my friend, glad that someone sees the truth in me.
But also wishing, very much, that I could lay eyes on Kent. Just for a little bit, to remind me of everything that I’m fighting for.
I sigh and look down at my belly, at where my little kidney bean is growing into…a grape? I don’t know. Whatever tiny food comes next. “Guess I’ll just have to fight for you,” I whisper to baby, too soft for even Jerome to hear, “while daddy’s locked up.”
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The next weeks pass quickly as we fall into a weird little routine. Daniel kisses me goodbye in the morning while I savor my single cup of coffee for the day, his own triple-espresso drink packed away in a to-go container. And then he drives himself himself to work with my father in the fancy new Tesla provided by the Alden corporation.
Daniel doesn’t work every day with my father; instead, my father has Daniel moving around to a variety of the city’s shipping ports. There, he learns from my father’s best men to figure out the ins and outs of his international shipping businesses both the legitimate ones, and the illegitimate ones that import and export all kinds of illegal goods between the United States and ports unknown.
When Daniel goes, Jerome stays home with me. We all agreed on this, deciding that Jerome can function as my driver and my bodyguard on the rare occasions when I leave the house. I rolled my eyes at this suggestion at first, but Daniel’s whispered “Kent would want it that way” had me convinced.
Because he’s right. Kent would want it that way. And he’d probably smack the crap out of Daniel if he ever found out that he took Jerome, leaving a pregnant me at home unprotected.
Janeen does whatever she wants, as usual. She doesn’t really need the money anymore none of us do but she still takes up shifts at Crabby Dicks, the crappy beach strip club where we had our wedding reception, whenever she wants some extra cash, or needs to dance, or just desires some male attention. Sometimes she stays out all night, sometimes she’s home, but she’s always here when I need her.
Dad is a more constant, quiet presence. He’s been retired for years, though, so he knows how to entertain himself. Sometimes he goes back to the city to hang out with his old buddies, but most of the time he’s here with me as I hunch over the kitchen table, reading through legal paperwork, and histories of mafia families, and chess manuals.
“You getting anywhere with this, Fay?” he asks, a couple of weeks into the process when I’m weirdly studying Machiavelli’s The Prince alongside some of the international shipping maps that Daniel brought home from work.
I sigh and sit back, looking up at him. “I’m honestly not sure, dad,” I say, running anxious hands through my hair and piling it messily on top of my head.
“Can I do anything to help?” he asks and I take a deep breath and smile up at him.
“Maybe order a pizza?” I say, hopeful. Dad he laughs and goes to make the call. I dig eagerly into the greasy hot pizza about an hour later, absolutely starving. Because that’s how I am these days just constantly hungry and constantly snacking to keep the nausea away.
Because the moment that I stepped into my second trimester…
Let’s just say that the easy nature of my first trimester? When I wondered whether I was pregnant, because I couldn’t feel at all that I was pregnant?
Well. That went the hell out the window.
I woke up in the middle of the night one night, green to the gills, and rushed to my bathroom to barf up absolutely everything in my stomach. And it honestly feels like I have been nauseous every single second since that first night.
The only thing that keeps the nausea at bay is constantly eating. And my solution to this to which no one has yet protested is to keep snacks in every corner of the house so that I can wander from room to room and there’s always something waiting for me.
“What is this,” Janeen murmurs one afternoon as she sits in my bathroom with me, watching me lean over my sink to put a little mascara on my eyelashes. I turn to look at her and see that she’s pulled a bag of popcorn out from the bathroom closet, stashed in with the towels.
“That’s my…bathroom snack…” I murmur, suddenly blushing as I realize how weird it is. But my sister just laughs at me and puts it back.
“Whatever you need, Fay,” she sighs, coming to put an arm around me and to run her hand over my belly, which is just barely starting to swell.
“How is little Princess Baby doing in there, anyway?”
“She’s good,” I murmur, though I can’t help being a little chagrined. “Wish she’d lay off the nausea trigger a little bit, though. What does she even get from it?”
“We’ll make her pay it back to us on her twenty-first birthday,” Janeen says, grinning and giving me a big kiss on the cheek. “Make her barf so much she needs bathroom snacks to recover.”
I laugh and then turn, shaking my head at her. “You need to stop calling the baby a she, Janeen,” I say, grinning. “We still don’t know, and you’re going to confuse both me and yourself and potentially the baby, if it ends up being a boy.”
“I remain convinced,” Janeen says, waving her hand at me as she leaves me alone in the bathroom. “She until proven otherwise! Besides,” she shrugs, calling over her shoulder, “gender is a spectrum!”
I nod, conceding the point, and I turn to the mirror and grimace a little, and then look down at my belly. “What do you think, little baby,” I murmur, running a hand over my little pot belly. “You’re she until proven otherwise, while your dad, today…”
I sigh again and look at myself in the mirror, unable to muster a smile. Because even though I’m staying in the house, Jerome and Daniel are at court today, at Kent’s public hearing for his plea deal.
And even if in our justice system all those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty?
Today, Kent is pleading guilty.
Because I told him to.
“Well baby,” I say, not really knowing if I’m speaking to myself or to the little lemon-sized human growing inside me, “let’s just hope that this all goes well. And that I didn’t just ruin all of our lives.”
Predictably, the courtroom is packed with journalists and other members of the press. Kent has known for a long time that he’s been a person of public interest that damn Mafia King nickname had done some real damage when it was first applied to him and whispers start around the room as he walks in wearing his orange jumpsuit, his wrists cuffed.
Kent clenches his jaw, refusing to meet any of their eyes, his gaze going immediately to the front of the room where his team of lawyers wait, and to Daniel and Jerome, sitting in the first gallery row behind them. Kent’s heart sinks, just a little bit, when he sees that Fay isn’t there with them.
What he’d give to see her, just for a moment just a glimpse.
She’s got to be in her second trimester by now, which means she’ll be showing if just a little bit. He wants to know everything absolutely everything about it. But he also understands: if Fay and Daniel are trying to go legitimate, to convince the world that Daniel is her husband and the father of her child, then she can’t have anyone see her relationship with Daniel’s father as anything but a disgraced father-in-law.
It makes sense.
But god damn it, it hits him right in the heart.
Daniel gives him a little smile, just the corner of his mouth pulling up, and Kent nods to him, and then to Jerome sitting beside him.
For a moment, as Kent passes to the group of his lawyers sitting at the front of the room, he considers how weird it is that Jerome is always around. He glances over his shoulder, frowning at the young man who he picked up basically off the streets, never intending for him to be any more than a low-level runner. And now he was the only one Daniel and Fay bailed out of jail? And he was, essentially, living with them?
Who the hell was this kid?
Kent makes a mental note to ask Daniel next time they speak alone, but then he sighs considering that…well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Jerome is in. And he, Kent, is…screwed.
The judge begins speaking and Kent’s lawyers kick into gear, giving their responses and making their arguments. Kent glances over at the lawyers for the state, noticing for the first time that Ivan is over there as well, apparently waiting in case he needs to be called as a witness. But then Kent looks away, because it can’t possibly matter anymore.
Kent barely listens as his lawyers speak. He knows the details of what they’re asking for he’s read all the paperwork and asked all of his questions. This judgment session is, largely, a formality the teams have come to an understanding, and the judge will only really deny it if she has some kind of personal vendetta. And, glancing up at her face, which is very nearly bored, Kent considers that it would be a surprise if she did that.