Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 42
Fay withdrew her hand from Ivan’s before the kiss could become a performance. His smile deepened, as though resistance interested him more than compliance. Lorenzo watched them with the satisfaction of a man who had arranged precisely the introduction he wanted.
Ivan claimed the cigarette case found at the cottage had been stolen from one of his cars. The dead gunman’s tattoo, he said, belonged to a mercenary crew that copied syndicate symbols to inflate its price. He supplied a police report for the stolen property and photographs showing three other objects missing from the same vehicle. Every explanation was plausible and impossible to verify. Evidence offered too neatly could be another kind of lie.
Fay asked why his name had appeared beneath the leaked photograph. Ivan produced a slim folder containing banking records. The tabloid’s anonymous payment originated from an account controlled by Rafe, the same captain who abducted Colin. Ivan suggested someone had scheduled the leak before Rafe died and attached Ivan’s name to provoke a war.
“How convenient,” Fay said. Ivan agreed. Unlike defensive men, he did not insist she believe him. He merely invited her to test the evidence and decide which enemy benefited when Kent reacted without thinking.
Lorenzo shifted the meeting toward the clinic. Ivan offered enough money to purchase the building outright, staff it for five years, and establish a trauma program. The amount could transform Fay’s plans from public relations into medicine that saved thousands of lives.
She refused immediate acceptance. An independent board would investigate the origin of every donation, and no donor would receive operational control. Ivan praised the condition, then asked whether Kent had accepted the same scrutiny.
The question exposed an imbalance Fay had not addressed. Lippert money already funded security, legal work, and initial design contracts. She had demanded independence in structure but not audited the source of the first dollar.
Lorenzo encouraged her to think beyond Kent’s rules. Fay answered that independence from one dangerous man did not require dependence on two others. Her father’s smile tightened, while Ivan laughed with genuine pleasure.
He liked that she spoke to power as if it were an unruly patient. Fay corrected him: patients deserved care, privacy, and trust. Power usually needed limits. Ivan asked whether she had placed limits on Kent or merely inspired him to pretend.
The panic transmitter warmed beneath her sleeve, reminding her that Kent’s men were listening. Fay refused to defend him. She asked Ivan why an international syndicate leader wanted a neighborhood clinic badly enough to attend a planning meeting himself.
Ivan said reputation opened doors that guns could not. He did not present philanthropy as innocence. He described charity as infrastructure: doctors created loyalty, legal services created information, and grateful neighborhoods noticed strangers long before hired guards did. The candor was calculated, yet refreshing after a lifetime of men disguising control as protection. Fay also heard the warning beneath it—Ivan’s kindness formed a surveillance network more elegant than Kent’s cameras.
He offered to release a public statement denying responsibility for the photograph. In exchange, Fay would tour one of his legitimate medical charities and allow him to present a formal proposal. The facility treated undocumented families and survivors of domestic violence, two populations the Victoria Alden Center hoped to serve. Rejecting the visit without investigation could deprive Fay of useful methods simply because she distrusted the teacher. Lorenzo called the bargain reasonable.
Fay agreed to review the facility with her attorney and security present. Ivan accepted every condition without negotiation. His ease made her more suspicious, not less. A man willing to grant small freedoms usually intended to purchase something larger.
The meeting ended after noon. Lorenzo embraced Fay and whispered that Ivan represented a future in which she could become a partner rather than an ornament. She reminded him that arranging a second powerful man around her did not resemble liberation.
Ivan walked her to the elevator. He said Lorenzo underestimated her, Kent feared her, and Daniel hid behind her. “What do you do?” Fay asked. Ivan pressed the call button and answered, “I watch until people reveal what they are worth.”
The doors opened on Kent. He had abandoned the listening room upstairs when the meeting ran long and entered the building against their agreement. Two guards stood behind him pretending not to notice the confrontation already forming. His gaze moved from Ivan’s proximity to Fay’s uncovered hand. Fay felt the old impulse to manage his reaction and deliberately let it pass.
Ivan greeted him with the warmth of an old friend. Kent ignored the performance and asked Fay whether she was ready to leave. She said she was, then deliberately introduced the men as if neither controlled the space.
Inside the elevator, the three stood in unbearable silence. Ivan congratulated Kent on surviving the shooting and wondered aloud whether a bodyguard who used himself as a shield remained a king or became a weakness.
Kent answered that a man who sent others to kill from a distance was neither. Ivan’s smile vanished for the first time. Fay felt the machinery beneath their polished manners lock into place.
When the elevator reached the lobby, Ivan stepped close enough to murmur beside Fay’s ear. “Ask Kent what happened to the last woman he tried to protect.” Kent heard him—and the fear on his face was more revealing than any denial.