Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 33
Daniel tore the phone from Fay’s hand and stared at Colin’s bound wrists. The photograph had been taken minutes earlier; a digital clock behind the chair displayed the current time. Lorenzo had transformed a threat into an abduction without waiting for their answer.
Kent entered the room with three armed men. One glance at his son’s face told him the missing man mattered beyond ordinary friendship. He dismissed the guards, shut the door, and asked Daniel to explain everything before fear made the explanation useless.
Daniel tried twice and failed. Fay stood beside him but did not speak for him. This truth had already been stolen by cameras and blackmail; she would not steal the final act of owning it. At last, Daniel said Colin was not merely a friend. He was the person Daniel loved.
Kent became unnaturally still. Daniel rushed on, describing the fake engagement, the years of hiding, and the photograph Lorenzo intended to expose. With every confession, his voice grew steadier. Terror remained, but it no longer controlled the shape of the words.
Fay watched Kent’s face for disgust and found something more complicated: shock, grief, calculation, and an old father’s realization that he had made honesty dangerous in his own home. He asked how long. Daniel answered four years, then braced as if expecting a blow. Four birthdays, four Christmases, and countless dinners had passed while Kent mistook secrecy for distance and praised himself for not interfering.
Kent crossed the room and gripped the back of a chair instead. He said they would discuss the deception after Colin was safe. Whatever his feelings, no Alden would use a member of Daniel’s household as leverage and continue breathing comfortably afterward.
Daniel stared at him. “My household?” Kent met his eyes and repeated the phrase. It was not the acceptance Daniel deserved, but it was a public category Kent’s men would understand: protected, claimed, and beyond casual harm.
The abduction photograph contained few clues. Fay enlarged the background and noticed medical oxygen fittings in the wall, painted over but still visible. Colin was likely being held in an abandoned clinic or nursing facility, not Lorenzo’s guarded estate.
Kent ordered a search of properties connected to Alden shell companies. Daniel insisted on joining the rescue. His father refused until Fay pointed out that Colin might cooperate only if he heard a familiar voice. Kent relented on the condition that Daniel followed every command.
Fay expected to remain behind. Instead, Kent told her to prepare for dinner. Lorenzo wanted her at his table, which meant appearing to obey would keep his attention away from the search. She would enter on Kent’s arm while Daniel’s team moved on the holding site.
The plan divided every bond in the room. Daniel wanted Fay protected; Fay wanted to help find Colin; and Kent wanted all of them where he could see them. Strategy forced him to do what affection could not—trust each person beyond his immediate control. Even the guards seemed to feel the shift, waiting for orders from a family no longer pretending that obedience and loyalty were identical.
Fiona dressed Fay in the pale-gold gown rather than the bridal white. There would be no engagement announcement tonight, only a daughter visiting her father under hostile terms. The gown carried no crest, allowing Fay to enter as herself rather than as territory marked by either family.
Before they left, Daniel found Fay near the stairs. He thanked her for making him speak and admitted he did not know whether Kent’s restraint meant acceptance or delayed judgment. Fay said the distinction could wait until Colin was home. Survival sometimes bought time for courage to grow.
Kent appeared in a black dinner jacket, his calm sharpened into something lethal. He fastened a small transmitter beneath Fay’s pendant and explained that touching the stone twice would summon the extraction team. She asked whether he would be close enough to reach her.
“Always,” he said, then looked as unsettled by the promise as she felt. Their eyes held until Daniel cleared his throat. The moment broke, but the awareness remained—a private current running beneath a family crisis.
Lorenzo received them in a dining room set for six, though only three chairs were occupied. He kissed Fay’s cheek, greeted Kent as an old rival, and expressed surprise that Daniel had not attended. The empty places made Colin’s absence feel like another guest.
Fay sat between the two dons. Lorenzo served wine and asked what secret she had brought him. She answered that Daniel trusted the wrong people, but so did Lorenzo. His confident smile faltered when she mentioned the watermark that had led Kent directly to his involvement.
Kent placed the blackmail photograph on the table. He said Colin belonged to the Lippert household and demanded his release. Lorenzo leaned back, delighted that Daniel’s private attachment had finally reached his father. “Did he tell you what kind of attachment?” he asked.
Kent did not look away. “The kind you will not touch again.” The statement crossed the table like a drawn blade. For the first time that evening, Fay saw uncertainty enter Lorenzo’s eyes.
A phone rang in the adjoining room. Lorenzo’s lieutenant answered, listened, and went pale. Daniel’s team had found the clinic—but the chair was empty, the restraints cut, and a trail of blood led through a shattered rear window into the woods.