Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
“Jesus,” Kent mutters under his breath, glaring both at the envelope and at his hungover son. Then he pushes the document away from him. “I don’t want this either.”
“All of your lawyers agree, dad,” Daniel says, leaning forward to glare at him. “You’re going away for life you could even get the death penalty if you don’t agree to what they’re offering ”
“I didn’t do half these crimes, Daniel,” Kent growls, meeting his son’s eyes. “The only way I have a chance of getting out of this is if I can convince a jury to listen ”
“This isn’t Twelve Angry Men, dad!” Daniel snaps, banging a hand on the table. “You are not getting out of this on reasonable doubt! Even if you didn’t commit half those crimes, you still did the other half! What the fuck do you think half of a life sentence is, forty years? Is that seriously what you want, to get out of here when you’re eighty, to meet your fucking kid when they’re middle aged?”
Shocked, Kent sits back in his seat, staring at his son.
“Just…” Daniel sighs, frustrated as hell and feeling like he might barf at any second. “Would you please just take the deal, dad?”
“Is it any better?” Kent snaps, glaring at his kid and then looking down at the envelope. “Are they seriously offering less than forty years?”
“If you’re willing to…talk,” Daniel says, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers, “about the Russians. They’re willing to give you twenty.”
Kent blanches at the number, but then he shakes his head.
“It’s still too much. I need to walk.”
“You are not listening ”
“YOU,” Kent snaps, pounding his hand flat on the table. “Are not listening!”
Daniel, to Kent’s surprise, just groans and covers his face with his hands, leaning so far back in his chair that it tilts onto its two back legs.
“God, dad, why are you so stubborn? Would you…would you please just at least open the envelope? Consider it?”
Confused, but slightly persuaded at this strange request, Kent grabs the envelope off the table and tears it open. He pulls out the paper inside, looking through what his lawyers think is the best they can offer.
“I can’t take this,” he murmurs, shaking his head, still believing that a full acquittal is the only way to go.
“Read the last page,” Daniel sighs, still leaning back and covering his face with his hands.
Confused, Kent does so, frowning at the legal language that doesn’t seem to spell out anything special…
But then, there at the bottom, a few words are written in Fay’s slightly chaotic cursive script.
Take the deal, Kent.
He stares at them, shocked. And then, almost before he can stop himself, he runs a finger over the ink, tracing the letters she wrote.
Slowly, he lowers the paperwork to the paper and looks up at his son. Daniel, having leaned forward again without Kent noticing, stares right back at him.
“What’s going on,” Kent asks, stern. Because…why does Fay have anything to say about this? Why is she involved?
“Honestly, dad,” Daniel says, “she’s keeping me in the dark too. But you either trust her, or you don’t.”
Kent takes a long minute to sit back in his chair and think.
“One minute left,” the voice announces. “Say your goodbyes.”
“Dad…” Daniel says, spreading his hands wide, pleading.
“Fine,” Kent snaps. “I’ll do it.”
And then, on some impulse that neither of them could describe because they’ve never done it before in their lives father and son suddenly stand and throw their arms around each other, hard.
“I love you, dad,” Daniel murmurs into Kent’s shoulder.
“Hands off!” the loudspeaker blares. “No touching!”
“I love you too, kid,” Kent whispers back. “Tell her, too.”
“We said hands OFF!”
“Nah,” Daniel says, pulling back a little now to smile at his dad. “I’ll leave that to you.”
Then, as the guards burst through the door to separate them physically, Kent feels a sharp pain at the back of his head and gasps, pulling away from Daniel and staring at him in shock.
As the guards grab him by the arms and pull him forcibly away from his son, Kent watches in confusion as Daniel takes the tuft of hair held between his fingers pulled out from the roots and tucks it into the pocket of his pants.
My smile is very, very genuine when Daniel finally bursts into the examination room, because it has been absolute torture waiting here with Alessi and Natalia without him.
“Ah,” Alessi says, giving Daniel a big smile and taking a minute to wrap his arms around his nephew and kiss him on either cheek. Daniel goes a bit pale when Alessi holds him tight, pressing his eyes closed, and I laugh a little to myself knowing that Daniel’s hangover this morning was…fierce.
It had taken everything Janeen, Jerome, and I could do to haul him out of bed and get him dressed, but eventually Daniel welled up the strength to do it because he knew he had to. It’s a big day, after all.
Daniel gives Alessi a pained smile and then his eyes find me.
I raise my eyebrows to him in a silent question and he gives me the tiniest of nods, letting me know it’s done. I lay my head back against the padded seat behind me, relieved.
Good. At least this one thing went right.
“My Daniel,” Natalia coos, moving forward to him next, taking his fac in her hands and tsking in disapproval. “What did they do to you last night you look terrible, my little groom.”
“I did it to myself, Natalia,” Daniel says, giving her a soft smile. Natalia mumbles something about how she can’t possibly believe that, lifting her fingers to his hair to push it into order, but before she can get very far the doctor comes into the room.
“Ah,” he says, smiling at Daniel. “So, the father has finally arrived.”
“Apologies, Dr. Banks,” Daniel says, tucking away his suffering and reaching out a hand to shake the doctor’s. “I had to visit my father this morning and the traffic on the way back from the prison was heavier than expected.”
“Sorry to hear that,” the doctor says, his eyebrows going up. Of course, he knows who Daniel’s father is everyone does. Kent’s arrest has been national news, and our wedding to my surprise made the media as well, making the connection between Kent and Daniel more apparent than it’s ever been.
“Now,” the doctor says, clapping his hands together and smiling between Daniel and I. “I understand that we’re here for a paternity test!”
Daniel comes to my side now, taking my hand and beaming down at me. “It’s not that we have any actual hesitations here, doctor,” Daniel says, looking at me and not at him. “But, this baby has two families who crave…assurances. Still,” he looks up and turns that charming Lippert smile on the doctor again. “We can all rest assured that the results will not be a surprise.”
Natalia and Alessi say nothing as they stand quietly at the side of the room, Alessi beaming as if he has no hesitations at all and Natalia looking like she doesn’t believe a damn word Daniel’s saying.
The doctor, picking up on some of Natalia’s tension, clears his throat. “Well,” he says, “motives aside, the procedure is simple enough. Mr. Lippert,” he says, nodding to Daniel, “we’ll take a DNA sample from the inside of your cheek. And Mrs. Lippert,” he says