Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
But as the whiskey begins to loosen their lips and the minutes tick past, it gets easier. Daniel starts by telling Kent how glad he is to have him back and confessing, guiltily, that he actually suggested they leave him in jail. Kent sighs, assuring him that he doesn’t blame him for that, which lifts the first of many weights off of Daniel’s shoulders. From there, the conversation really begins.
And it turns, as perhaps was always necessary, to Lenai.
“We never talk about her, dad,” Daniel says quietly, looking down into his second glass of whiskey. “I always…wanted to. But…I feel like we can’t.”
Kent looses a long breath then, covering his face with his hand, shame running through him. “That’s my fault, Daniel, and I’m sorry for it. I didn’t…know what to say. Your mom was…she was always so much more in touch with you, with how you were feeling. I didn’t know how to handle you when you were upset and it’s not an excuse, it’s my fault. But when you cried? God, Daniel, it broke my damn heart, and all I knew how to do was run away before I went to pieces too.”
Daniel briskly wipes at his cheeks and Kent pretends not to see, but then he catches himself and forces himself to look at his son, to witness his emotions, to watch him cry. And he has to clench his jaw so tight that he swears his teeth will crack, because the sight of it…
But to Kent’s shock, Daniel just laughs at him. “You know you can do it too, dad,” he murmurs. “You won’t dissolve like a pillar of salt if you let loose a few tears.”
Kent smirks a little, grateful for Daniel’s sense of humor. “You sure about that?”
“Nope,” Daniel says, sniffing and shaking his head, meeting his father’s eyes again. “We just…mourned so separately for her, dad. I never felt like I could talk to you about it. Never felt like you wanted to talk.”
“I don’t want you to ever think I forget about her, Daniel,” Kent says, his jaw again tight. “Or that it didn’t mean something to me when we lost her, just because…we didn’t, and we don’t, talk about her.”
“I don’t think that ”
“No,” Kent says, shaking his head and taking another big sip of his drink. “Let me say this. Because it’s important your mom was an incredible person, and a wonderful mom, and a good wife. She was my partner in everything. She is singularly responsible for anything good I ever did, and any good traits that either of us have come directly from her. But we married and had you so young, and it was such a…a stressful time in our lives.”
Kent’s words fade out and he shakes his head, remembering it the stress of having to go out and complete whatever task the Bianci’s sent him to do, licking whatever boots he could to get a foot in this underworld, trying to restart the Lippert crime organization to pay the Bianci’s back for…for saving him, for raising him.
And in doing so, selling his soul to the Bianci family.
And god damn it, selling Daniel to them as well the grandchild they desperately wanted, that Lenai wanted as well.
“I was…so fucking scared, Daniel,” Kent murmurs, raising his eyes to meet his son’s. “When you were born? I was terrified of how much I already loved you, of…not being able to build a good enough life for you. Of someone hurting you, of using you against me?” he shakes his head, looking down at the table, unable to bear the memory of it.
“God, dad,” Daniel murmurs, and Kent looks up to see his son wiping tears off his face again. “You could have told me. I thought you…didn’t like me.”
Kent scoffs, shaking his head again. “I love you, Daniel. You’re everything to me. Seeing you happy, these past few days, laughing with Jerome and Fay? Safe?” He sighs, looking down. “Fay gave you everything I always wanted.”
Daniel and Kent take a long time then, sharing memories of Lenai, of Daniel’s childhood, some of which Kent doesn’t remember. But some things are vivid, and some are the same the grief and heartache they both felt as she grew sicker, the disconnection they felt when she died. The shared desire that they both had to reach out to each other, though neither knew how.
It is a long, difficult chat, dredging up mountains of memories that both had neatly stored away.
But the whiskey does its work, loosening their tongues, giving them courage to ask the difficult questions that have been on their minds for years.
And so finally, as Daniel pour their third glasses, he draws himself together and speaks the one that’s been in his heart for months now.
“Did you love mom?” Daniel asks, taking a deep breath. “The way that you love Fay?”
Slowly, Kent raises his head and meets his son’s gaze, but he doesn’t say anything.
Daniel lets out his breath slowly, beginning to nod.
“I don’t want to lie,” Kent says softly. “Or to undermine what I had with your mom. She was…my partner and my wife. I treasured her, and loved her deeply, but we were…playing roles that her father picked out for us. We were a very strong match as far as a mafia marriage went, but there was never, between us…”
“I get it,” Daniel says, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, it’s going to sound weird but…is it kind of how I feel about Fay?”
Kent pauses in shock but then laughs, raising his eyebrows as he considers the possibility. “I mean, I was actually attracted to your mother, Daniel she was a beautiful woman ”
“Okay, yeah,” Daniel concedes, “but beyond that. A deep friendship and dedication? Fay if we were actually going to raise this baby together, we’d be good at it. We’d be a good match and we love each other. But between us…”
Kent nods, considering that perhaps Daniel does understand it more than he thought he could. Fay and Daniel, after all, were likewise an arranged match between two old mafia families from the start.
“Well,” Daniel says, taking a deep sip of his whiskey. “You should probably tell Fay all of this too.”
“What?” Kent asks, his brows knitting together. “Why?”
“She thinks mom was your one true love,” Daniel says, shrugging and filling Kent’s glass too. “She’s said it to me, I think more than once.”
Kent groans, looking down into his glass before taking a big swig. “Damn it,” he murmurs. “I wanted to be done with difficult conversations for the day.”
“That one won’t be so bad,” Daniel says, leaning back in his chair. “Fay’s easy to talk to.”
Kent pauses before lifting an eyebrow at his son. “Are you implying that I’m difficult to talk to, Daniel?”
“Oh, no, dad,” Daniel says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “You’re just the most terrifying person on the planet ”
Kent laughs then, shaking his head and taking another sip before sliding his glass onto the table. “All right,” he says, smirking at Daniel now, finally ready to face the other elephant in the room. “So. How’s Jerome doing?”
“Oh my god,” Daniel mumbles, looking at the glass of whiskey resting in his hand. “I’m not sure there’s enough whiskey in the world for this conversation.”
“Nope!” Kent says, leaning forward and smacking his son on the shoulder. “I’m all liquored up now. Let’s get it all out in the open, kid.”
Daniel sighs, shaking his head and still not looking up at his dad for a long time. Kent waits, trying to be patient. When Daniel finally speaks, his words come out shakier than he thought they would. “Did you know already? That I’m gay, before you found out about Jerome?”
Kent lets his hand slide from Daniel’s shoulder then as he sits back in his chair, studying his son seriously. “I did,” he replies, his words as simple and honest as he can make them.
Daniel stills for a moment and then looks up a bit, but not yet enough to meet his father’s eyes. “How long?”
Kent hesitates for a second and then speaks softly. “Since you were a kid, Daniel. Your mom knew too.”
“What?” Daniel breathes, his eyes going wide.
Slowly, Kent nods. “She saw it first. That you really liked the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and not for the girl in all the corsets and lace.”
Daniel snaps his head up, his jaw open, staring at his father. “Are you…are you serious?”
Kent starts to laugh then, shrugging. “I mean, was she wrong?”
“No,” Daniel says in shock, leaning back in his chair and sliding a hand down the length of his face just as his father does, mildly appalled at the idea of his parents having this conversation when he was a kid.
Kent laughs harder now, shrugging apologetically.
“Did she…did she care?” Daniel asks. And then, “…do you?”
“She didn’t,” Kent says quickly, his words a promise. “And I don’t. We were…worried for you, because we knew the world you were going to grow up in wasn’t going to be kind to you if that’s the way you felt and who you loved. And because we knew you had to marry a woman no matter what arrangement you came to with her. We talked and decided not to talk to you about it until you were older, until you came to us. Which in retrospect…was a mistake.”