Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
His mouth drops open a little bit at my words.
I wait patiently, letting him process this.
“Wait, seriously?” he says, looking between the three of us. “You just want me to…listen to something?”
I nod.
“This isn’t a trick?” he says, looking at me from the side of his eye, trying to figure out the catch here. “You’re not going to…beat me up anymore? Kill me?”
“We reserve the right to beat the shit out of you,” Daniel says, crossing his arms, “if you try anything. And frankly, I wanted to rough you up a lot more. But you bizarrely have a fan here in Fay,” he says, sending me a glaring little glance. “Who wants to keep you pretty.”
“Then why did you even kidnap me?” Ivan growls. “I would have come willingly, just to listen.”
“He said I’m nice, Ivan,” I snap, my lip curling. “Not stupid.”
Jerome laughs a little, and Ivan renews his glare. “Seriously? This is it? I listen, and I walk? You’re not going to tear me limb from limb and dump me in the ocean off the back of your house?”
“Ivan,” I say, my voice gentle as I slowly walk towards him. “We’re friends. I’ve always liked you. And quite frankly, after all of this, I don’t really see why we can’t call it even and leave on good terms. But,” I bend over now that I’m very close to him, bringing my voice close to his ear. “Don’t make any mistakes about it. I will have you killed you if you come after me, or my family, or even my new little puppy. Ever again. Are we clear on that?”
And I lean back a little so that there’s barely a hand’s breadth between our faces, staring into his cool grey eyes. To my pleasure, they widen a little in surprise as he sees how completely serious I am.
“All right,” he breathes, nodding once as I straighten. “I’ll listen, and then I’ll go, and we’ll be…even, Fay. We’ll be even.”
“And by ‘we,’ you recognize that you meant Kent too, right?”
Ivan hesitates, gritting his teeth, because he knows I’m asking him to give up the vendetta he’s carried in his heart for years.
“Agreed,” he finally grits out. And I nod.
“Okay,” I say, heaving a little sigh. “Daniel?” I gesture towards the baby monitor. Daniel reaches for it, flicking the button that turns it on. There’s a fuzz of noise as he puts it back on the desk, a little green button in the corner lighting up.
Jerome moves to Ivan’s chair, turning it so that he faces the monitor as Daniel turns the volume up. Ivan glances up at me once before leaning forward, looking at the screen. “What the hell is this?” he murmurs, curious. And then his eyes go wide as he hears my mother’s voice, halfway through her negotiation with Kent.
We all listen quietly for a minute or two, with nothing interesting happening yet, and just as I lean forward to put some of my weight on the back of Ivan’s chair, another contraction hits.
I stand up straight, turning and heading for the bathroom, wanting to be out of Daniel and Ivan’s eyeline before this truly takes hold
“Fay,” Daniel calls, frowning after me.
“Just a second!” I say over my shoulder, working hard to keep my voice light as I scurry into the bathroom. I shut the door behind me just in time, my body bowing almost in half as the pain overtakes me.
And suddenly, as I grit through the pain, I feel a very strange little popping sensation and then…a rush of liquid down my legs.
Shit. Shit.
I groan, not because it hurts but because my water just broke at the most inconvenient moment. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, so I just moan low through the pain and wait for the contraction to pass. When it does, I grab one of Kent’s precious fluffy towels sorry, Kent and do my best to pat my legs dry with it, leaving my poor ruined panties on the floor and dropping the towel on top of them.
I mean, it’s a mess but…
I glance at my watch and then back towards the room. Shit. Shit. The contraction was only five minutes after the last one this time. God damn it, the labor took so long to get started why is it going so fast now!?
And have I missed anything important in the conversation?
I spin towards the door.
As I pull the bathroom door open, I grit my teeth again and glare down at my belly.
“You’ve sure got crap timing, little baby,” I mutter, but as I step out I almost trip, immediately, over the puppy, who stares up at me with worried eyes. I can’t help the little laugh that stumbles from my lips.
“Come on, puppy dog,” I murmur, shaking my head at him and starting to walk across the room back to the grouping of boys by the desk. The puppy runs to keep up with me, clearly eager to be at my side, clever boy that he is.
Daniel steps aside as I reach the desk, making room for me to squeeze in. I bend over, peering at the screen with the rest of them.
“Did I miss anything?” I ask Daniel quietly, not looking at him.
“No,” he murmurs in reply. “It’s taking him a minute to get her on the right track.”
I nod, understanding. Kent’s job was to kill time negotiating with my mom until we turned on the baby monitor when we turned it on in here, a green light appeared on his as well, so he’d know we were listening.
Now the real talk begins.
I feel Ivan’s eyes on me and I turn my face to his.
“What the hell is this about?” he hisses, clearly not understanding.
“Just listen,” I say, turning my face back to the monitor.
We all fall silent, tuning in. The puppy sits on my foot and I glance anxiously at the clock, hoping to hell that Kent talks fast. Because, ridiculously, I’ve got about five minutes until I’ll need to dash into the bathroom again and boys are dumb, but they’re going to start figuring out that I don’t have to pee that frequently.
“What’s Ivan’s role in all of this?” Kent says quietly, snapping my attention back to the screen. I focus on his form and I can see his hands steepled together as he sits casually in the chair across from my mother. “Do you want to make any…appointments? Concessions for him, as part of the deal?”
“I made him some promises,” my mom says cagily, “that I’d prefer to keep. But if he needs to be jettisoned in pursuit of the bigger goal, I don’t mind that either.”
“Fay’s fond of him,” Kent says quietly. “She doesn’t want him hurt.”
“She’s soft-hearted,” my mom replies, dismissive. “Honestly, Kent, I thought you’d have picked a tougher character, like your first wife. At least she had a little spirit to her.”
Kent shrugs, not defending me but not confirming her assessment of me either. “I can’t have Ivan coming after me when you and I have made a deal, Victoria,” he says, staying on track in the conversation. “I know that he wants me more than he wants Bianci or Alden. Those are your priorities, not his.”
“You’re giving her the Alden family?” Ivan breaths, looking at me with wide eyes as he cleverly puts the pieces together. “Fay, they fucking belong to you they’re your family, they’re in your pocket why would you give them up to the FBI!?”
“Just watch,” I growl, not taking my eyes from the screen as I reach out and shove his shoulder. “Listen.”
Kent’s playing his role well but god, fuck, this has to go just right…
“So,” Kent says carefully, “you don’t want any protections for Ivan?”
“He’s not on my list of priorities,” my mother says, her voice dry. “I promised him that we’d take down you, Kent, to get him on board. But I always had my eyes on bigger targets. If this means having to disappoint the kid and cut him loose?” she shrugs, “what the hell do I care? Unless…you don’t think you can take him, Kent. What are you, scared?”
Kent laughs a little, shaking his head, dismissing the idea.