Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
I raise my head to meet her eyes. “The only way to keep us all safe,” I say, nodding lightly. “Mom threatened Kent if we didn’t give her to Bianci. So,” I shrug weakly. “We are giving her to Bianci instead.”
Janeen stares at me with her mouth open, shocked and I think a little appalled.
“Someone has to go down, Janeen,” I whisper, agonized because while I am steady in my choice…I know that others will judge me for it. “Mom made sure someone was going down, and I’ll be damned if I was going to let it be me or any one of us.”
Janeen freezes as she stares at me, realizing what I’m saying.
That…that my mom is the one going down.
That I’m handing her to Bianci, telling him freely that this is the American FBI agent who has been seeking his fall.
And he…he can do whatever he wants with that information.
Can do whatever he wants…with her.Janeen’s head snaps to the side and my gaze follows it, both of us going rigid at the sight of Daniel and Jerome suddenly reappearing in the room god, I didn’t even notice that they’d left and leading a stumbling woman forward out of the hallway, her arms zip tied behind her back, a black bag over her head.Gio is suddenly at my side, murmuring questions to me, telling me to lay back so that he can perform an examination, ordering Janeen to go get towels
But Janeen and I both just sit there, perfectly still, staring at my mother being lead away to the door.
“Fay,” Gio says, shaking my shoulder
But I can’t I can’t look at anything else
“Stop!” Janeen calls, suddenly jumping to her feet.
Something about her movement shakes me too, breaking me from my shocked reverie. I suddenly turn to Gio as Janeen strides away from me. “Gio,” I gasp, “what are you doing you have to take her to your grandfather ”
“No,” he murmurs, looking at me steadily, “we decided Daniele and Jerome, they will take her in my stead ”
Anxious, I glance over at Kent, who stands between me and my mother, his eyes steady on me. Because I mean this wasn’t the plan
But he gives me a firm nod, commanding me to trust him, before he turns away to handle Janeen, who is striding for my mother.
I exhale a shaky breath and nod back to Kent, reaching out my hands for Gio’s even as I keep my eyes on Janeen.
“All right, Fay,” Gio says, his voice taking on the calm and steady tones of a doctor well practiced in emergency medicine. “Look at me it’s time for you to focus on this ”
But I ignore him as Janeen stops in front of my Daniel and Jerome, my mother clutched between them. “Take off her hood,” Janeen says, crossing her arms. “I want to look at her.”
Daniel hesitates, looking at his father.
Slowly, Kent nods.
I pant a little, feeling the next contraction coming on shit, are they supposed to move this fast? and I grope for Gio’s hands even as I keep my eyes trained on Janeen.
“Fay, you have to pay attention ” Gio commands, his face stern.
I send him a quick glancing glare. “Shut up, Gio,” I growl
And to my shock, he does, clenching my hands in his but falling silent.
I turn my eyes back to my sister as my mother’s black hood is removed, as her eyes dart around to take in everyone in the room
My husband and his boyfriend on either side of her, holding her fast.
The father of my child, the man she thought she was negotiating with for the past half-hour, looking at her sternly without an ounce of pity in his eyes.
Her daughter, panting and pale on the couch, clearly in labor with her first child, a stranger holding her hands.
Until finally, my mother’s eyes move to the beautiful young woman standing in front of her, her purple hair spilling around her shoulders.
I watch Janeen closely, my heart breaking for her too.
Because…I mean, at one point, this woman was her mother as well. Or at least, she pretended to be.
“Do you know who I am?” Janeen asks quietly.
My mother stares at her for a long moment before she slowly nods, just once.
Janeen studies her, her face blank.
And then, quick as a snake, Janeen’s hand flies through the air, her palm slapping hard across my mother’s cheek with a loud smack.
I can hear my mother groan as her head snaps to the side.
“Fuck you,” Janeen growls, her voice shaking with her vehemence. “Fuck you for what you did to that girl,” she continues, pointing a finger towards me. “For abandoning her. She is perfect, and it was the biggest mistake of your life, choosing to live it away from her side.”
Janeen’s chin lifts now and tears spring to my eyes, because I know my sister I can see it in the way her lips press to a thin line, the way she sets her shoulders, that she’s determined not to let my mother see her cry. “And fuck you for me too. And for dad you abandoned us as well, when we loved you. And for that, you deserve whatever’s coming your way.”
Janeen steps back then, her shoulders shaking a little with the effort it takes to hold it together. My mother raises her head then, looking one last time at Janeen’s face, her eyes…unreadable.
“I’m done,” Janeen says, nodding to Daniel. “Do…whatever it is you were going to do. I am done.”
Janeen turns on her heel, stalking away, moving back towards Gio and I as Jerome puts the bag back over my mother’s head, Kent quickly ushering orders for which car to take and how to drive.
I hear Janeen asking Gio what she can do, Gio telling her again to go get towels, Janeen’s footsteps moving away. But even as the next contraction hits me with a wave of pain, all I can see is my mother’s red hair disappearing beneath the black bag
Her slim shoulders, hunched now with fear, as Daniel and Jerome lead her towards the door
The shape of her as she disappears through it
Disappears from my life
And I gasp in pain and…I don’t know. Horror? Shock? As I realize that this is absolutely the last time I’ll ever see my mother again.
Tears drip from my eyes as Gio turns me towards him, trying to coach me through some breathing as the pain steadily grows in my back, my sides, my abdomen, in my bones as the baby shifts, moving lower, getting ready
But I can’t I can’t concentrate
Because…how do I feel about this? Should I be devastated, should I be clinging to this moment, remembering the way she looked as she’s lead away?
Or…am I just mourning her twice? Wasn’t she dead to me already? Am I just mourning a ghost? Because that woman…