Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
“Just…go inside, Daniel,” Kent replies, clearly keeping a leash on himself. I feel my anger flare up inside me again, apparently wanting something to latch onto, anything. Why the hell is Kent being mean to Daniel? Daniel, after all, was perfect tonight.
I open my mouth to say something but Daniel just takes my arm and pulls me towards the stairs. I scowl but follow, holding my tongue and glaring over my shoulder at Kent’s tense form as he looks into the night.
“Easy,” Daniel murmurs to me, like you would to a spooked horse, so I turn my glare on him.
“I’m fine,” I hiss, pulling my arm from his grip and using my hands to bunch up the skirts of my dress so that I can more easily climb the stairs. Daniel holds up his hands innocently, letting me know he meant no harm and I scowl at him.
Together, in silence, we enter the house and head up the stairs, Natalia and Alessi already gone.
“How do you think that all went,” Daniel asks quietly as we reach my room, glancing around the hall to ensure that we’re alone.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, wrapping my arms around myself. “I hope…I hope I didn’t fuck it up as much as Natalia clearly wants me to. Why does she have it out for me like she does?”
Daniel cocks his head to the side and considers me for a moment. “Actually,” he replies, “I don’t really know. That’s a good point. She has…not been on team Fay for a moment since she got here. And I don’t really know why.”
“Right!?” I hiss in response, glad that he finally sees it from my point of view.
“Maybe,” Daniel considers, looking away from me a bit as he gathers his thoughts. “It’s a hint about where the Bianci allegiances really lie. Perhaps…not with your dad.”
“Oh,” I say, my eyebrows going up as I take his point. Until now I had thought that Natalia’s objection to me was a completely personal one. But actually…that kind of makes sense.
Daniel and I are both a little lost in our individual trains of thought when we hear a door open down the hall. We both jump a bit and then swiftly head to our rooms, wanting to get inside before having another encounter with an Italian tonight. Daniel gives me a fond little wave as he gets to his door and I blow him a kiss over my shoulder as I scurry inside mine, leaning back against it as I push the door closed.
But then, alone in my room…
Ugh.
I grimace and cover my face with my hand, realizing that now that I’m alone…I have to finally face my thoughts and figure out what the hell just happened.
I groan and make my way to wardrobe, yanking the doors open and quickly sorting through it. Wanting something more casual than the silky sets that Kent supplies for me, I quickly throw on a little tank top and a cheap pair of pajama shorts that I ordered for myself from Amazon. Striding towards the bathroom, I leaving my gorgeous dress in a heap on the floor, too angry to contemplate it now or to feel sorry about wrinkling that stunning silk.
As I brush my teeth and stare at myself in the mirror, I realize that I honestly have no idea what happened with Ivan tonight, and it pisses me off that I still can’t figure it out. What the hell was he playing at, pulling me away in the middle of a family party?
I sort through my memories of those few brief minutes, trying to remember everything but it all happened so damn fast. I spit out my toothpaste, thinking closely about the way Ivan made sure everyone was busy before he pulled me back to that secret space. Did he really want it to be secret? And why? So he could kiss me, or so he could tell me something that he didn’t want anyone else to know?
I groan as I head back into my room, throwing myself onto my bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to sort through everything Ivan did, every inch of it.
But as much as I try to concentrate, I find myself wondering, passively, what it would have felt like if we hadn’t been interrupted if Ivan had actually kissed me in that moment.
Not what it would have felt like physically that, I know, would have been great.
But honestly, how would it have made me feel?
And what would it have meant for me and Kent?
I groan again, pulling a pillow over my face in my frustration, not wanting to ask these questions and hating that I can’t stop my mind from going there. I’m still furiously upset and need to take out my emotions on something, so I kick my feet against my mattress again and again, hard, before falling back against it and continuing to stare at the ceiling.
The kicking didn’t work. My mind is still racing.
What the hell was Ivan thinking? In the moment, I really did believe him when he told me that he just wanted to get me alone so that he could warn me, to tell me to get out of this house. And honestly, that’s what my instincts still tell me now is true.
But Natalia did find us. Did Ivan plan that and just lie to me? Is he trying to drive a wrench between me and the Lipperts? Or between the Bianci’s and the Aldens? He’s played tricks like that before, like when he brought me to that mob bar and let me think that we were alone
Or! Did Natalia just outsmart him?
God, what a mess not only Ivan messing with my head like this, but Natalia finding out, and then telling Kent, making me look not only like I betrayed him but like I was deliberately embarrassing him and Daniel in front of his family
I’m about to start kicking again, when suddenly I hear a knock on my door. For a split second I go completely still.
And then I snap up in my bed, my eyes darting to the bottom of my door where I can sometimes see the shadow of feet standing
But there’s nothing
No, wait…
I jump up and hurry over to the little folded square I see sitting there. I fall to my knees in my eagerness to get it, dying to know precisely what it is, and as I grab it I realize that it’s a little sealed envelope. For a second I consider pulling open the door to see who delivered it
But I dismiss the idea, tearing the envelope open as my curiosity gets the better of me.
I pull out the little slip of paper and see only two short lines written there, in the same neat, tiny handwriting that I found in the books I read in Kent’s room. My eyes eagerly pass over them, and then my brow creases with a confused frown.
Press the top right corner in the back of your wardrobe, hard. Then come downstairs.
Destroy this note.
What the hell?
Confused, but intrigued, I get to my feet.
I stalk to my wardrobe, throwing open the doors again and pounding a fist against the top right corner of the wood at the back
And my jaw falls open when the wood clicks, a magnetic lock behind it releasing and revealing that the back of my wardrobe which I thought was solid is actually a god damn door.
I shake my head with rage at Kent for putting me in a room with a fucking secret passage that he never told me about. And then, my anger finding a new focal point, I dig my fingers behind the wood and swing it forward to reveal a very tight winding iron staircase that heads straight down.
“God damn it, Kent,” I growl, and then, crunching the note in my hand and not letting myself think about it, I climb through the door, pulling it closed behind me as I begin to storm down the stairs.
The iron is cold against my bare feet and I regret, for a moment, not bothering to put on any socks or slippers but I let my anger warm me, building in me as I hurry downward, honestly getting a little dizzy as I wind my way down at least three stories
I don’t hesitate when I hit the bottom, marching forward with my hands fisted by my side. There’s only one way to go anyway down the long stone corridor that’s dimly lit with florescent ceiling lights and arched slightly so that I can’t see what’s at the end.
I pass door after iron door built into the stone walls, passively wondering what the hell Kent keeps in those, letting my imagination run wild and letting that fuel me even more so that when I finally come around the final bend, when I finally see him standing there in front of a set of stone steps, his hands shoved in his pockets, glaring at me already
I’m good and steamed.
“What the hell, Kent,” I growl, quickening my pace, ready to rip into him. “You give me a room with a secret door?! Anyone could have broken in!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Fay,” Kent snaps back, “obviously I’m the only one with access to this corridor ”
“This corridor?!” I return, raising my voice to speak over him. “Oh, you mean this bullshit mafia Narnia that I found on the other side of my wardrobe!? Am I going to meet some magical faun who’s going to cut my throat because I dishonored his family!?”