Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
I glare at the little device in his hands for a moment as Fiona works her way to the other side of the bar, wishing to hell I’d had that a couple of months ago to scan my bedroom. It would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble.
“As much as I love a reunion for reunion’s sake,” Fiona says as Daniel helps me up onto a barstool, “I have a feeling that there’s more going on here.”
“Can’t a cousin just come for a nice cup of tea?” I ask, coy.
“They can,” Fiona says, leaning against the bar and studying me with narrowed eyes now. “But you’re not here for that. You’re different. No longer my little baby Fay…you’re all grown up.”
I smile at her, leaning forward and resting my chin in my upturned palms. “Maybe not all the way grown up. I still need my cousin’s help.”
“Really,” she says, continuing to clean the glasses and raising an eyebrow at me. “With what?”
“Phone, please,” Jerome says, putting his hand out to Fiona and nodding to me, letting me know that the room is clean.
“What?” she asks, a little appalled at the request.
“Just to take into the other room while you chat,” Jerome says, giving her a warm smile. “Can’t risk being recorded.”
“Oh,” Fiona says, looking between me and Daniel. “Oh, so this is a real talk.”
She pulls her cell phone out of a purse sitting near her and puts it in Jerome’s hand. He moves quickly away, carrying it to the next room. Fiona crosses her arms and looks between us.
“Before you start,” she says, raising a finger. “You should know that I still work for your dad, Fay. Anything that you don’t want him to hear about…you should probably keep to yourself.”
“Is he good to you, Fiona?” I ask quietly, looking down at the bar and then up into her eyes.
She just frowns at me as Jerome comes back to my side.
“Because it looks to me,” I continue, my voice soft, “that he asked you to take a very dangerous job informing on Kent for years, and then when you were found out he didn’t compensate you very well for all of that labor. Or all of the information you provided.”
Fiona blushes a little, looking around the crappy bar which can’t be paying her well and which is nowhere near the quality of living to which she became accustomed under Kent’s care. “Well,” she says, a little chagrined, “I was a shit spy, wasn’t I? I got caught.”
“You weren’t a shit spy,” I say, shaking my head. “You worked for years doing that, and Kent never suspected for a single second. My dad just convinced you that you were bad at it because he doesn’t feel like he needs to respect you.”
“What are you doing, Fay,” Fiona snaps, staring hard at me. “You are getting into some dangerous waters right now. And you might want to stop because as much as I admit I don’t really like your dad, and I think he’s doing kind of a shit job making the right choices for this family? I am not ever going to betray this family.”
“I’m not asking you to betray it,” I say, leaning forward and holding her gaze. “I’m asking you to…consider a change in leadership.”
“What,” she scoffs, laughing at me as she starts to shake her head. “What, you want me to follow you now, baby Fay? After you’ve had, what, three months of experience? You want to take over the Alden family business?”
“No, Fiona,” I say quietly, still holding her gaze seriously. “I want you to do that.”
And her jaw falls nearly to the floor.
Fiona stares at me, and then Daniel, and then Jerome for a long, long moment before shutting her mouth, hard. “All right,” she says hastily, looking around the room anxiously. “I’m listening. And that does not mean that I am in. But I am listening.”
And then Daniel, Jerome, Fiona and I talk for a long, long time.
____________________
By the time we’re finished making our offer to Fiona, the bar has filled up a little bit with some of its regular clientele neighborhood folks, mostly, but no one who’s paying a great deal of attention to us. Fiona serves a couple of beers and then comes back shakes her head at me, a small smile on her lips. “I always knew you had the balls, little cousin,” she says. “I just never knew if you’d find them or not.”
“Yeah well,” I say, shrugging and sipping on the Shirley Temple that Fiona made me, “one learns a certain set of skills at Kent’s knee.”
“Oh yeah?” she says, smirking. “Bent you over his knee, did you? He likes that.”
“Enough!” Daniel almost shouts, cutting the air between us with a slice of his hand. “No more of that! Too much sharing of things I do not need to know!”
Fiona and I are still laughing, hard, when the old beige rotary phone next to her starts to ring. She makes a move to answer it but I grab her hand instead.
“Fiona,” I say quietly, my heart in my eyes as she looks into my face. “I understand that you might say no. And that’s okay. But if you do…could you please not totally fuck me over? Or tell anyone anything that’s going to get me killed?”
Fiona clicks her tongue and takes my hand, squeezing it. “I promise you, cousin,” she says quietly, holding my eyes. “If I decide to say no, then this conversation never happened. You’re my baby Fay. I’ll never hurt you.”
Tears sting my eyes a little bit as I nod to her, smiling, grateful. Daniel puts a warm hand on my back, letting me know that he thinks we can trust her.
“But really, kid,” she says, nodding towards the phone. “You want me to get this one.”
“What?” I ask, confused, pulling my hand away and letting her reach for the phone.
“It’s for you,” Jerome says quietly, leaning forward from Daniel’s other side. “I, um…I set it up. Because I thought you needed it.”
“What?” I ask again, baffled.
But my head snaps back to Fiona as I hear her answer the phone. “A caller from the prison? Sure, I’ll accept.” And then she gives me one of her trademark winks and holds out the phone to me. “It’s for you.”
“W…what?” I say again, obviously at a loss for words as I stare first at my cousin, and then my husband, and then at my friend.
“Honestly, this is what I thought you were coming here for today, Fay,” Fiona says with a laugh, holding the phone out to me. “I didn’t know you were going to make me an offer I can’t refuse on top of that.”
“It’s all right, Fay,” Jerome says, reaching out to take my hand and squeeze it. “As far as anyone in the prison knows, he’s calling a bar where his ex works. No one knows it’s you.”
And I stare at the phone, realizing that Jerome’s right. That…if I’m careful with what I say, and Kent isn’t a complete idiot…there’s no reason for anyone to think that it’s me on the other end of this phone call.
“Time’s a-wasting, baby,” Fiona says softly, holding the phone out to me. From the receiver, I can hear someone quite faintly saying “Hello?”
My hand is shaking as I reach out and take the beige receiver from her hand. As soon as I do, Fiona moves away. “Come on,” she says, waving to Daniel and Jerome. “Let’s give her a minute.”
Daniel leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek, but then he’s gone across to the other side of the bar with Fiona and Jerome.
And then it’s just me. With this phone in my hand.
Slowly, I raise it to my ear.
The first thing I hear is Kent heave a frustrated sigh. “God damn it,” he mutters, “is this thing even working?”
“H-hello?”
There’s a sharp intake of breath, and then I hear him hold it. And I can’t help the little smile that comes to my lips
Because, even if he’s locked up in prison…there’s always something satisfying about catching Kent off guard.