Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 56
Daniel ripped the transmitter from Ivan’s jacket and crushed it beneath his heel. Mara stopped him too late; an intact device might have revealed its destination. The red light died, leaving them uncertain how much Grant had heard.
Ivan stared at the ruined seam. He claimed the jacket had remained in hotel security since the masquerade. Three employees had access to the storage room, and one disappeared after the federal raid. Grant’s people could have planted the device, but so could Ivan himself. His shock looked real, which proved nothing. Fay had learned that trained men could feel one emotion genuinely while lying about everything surrounding it.
Fay ordered everyone out except Mara. Kent objected from the corridor until she reminded him that Ivan was injured, unarmed, and protected by a court order. She needed answers without two rival men turning each sentence into a contest.
Mara scanned the room and activated a signal jammer. Ivan watched Fay reclaim control with an expression containing admiration and regret. He said Grant had trained him to exploit exactly this instinct—to become the one dangerous man who appeared willing to respect her.
“And did you?” Fay asked. Ivan said the respect became real before the assignment ended. That did not erase the original manipulation or the intelligence he had already delivered.
He admitted photographing Daniel and Colin, providing Rafe with schedule information, and approaching Lorenzo under federal direction. The photographs were supposed to pressure Daniel into cooperating with an investigation, though Ivan knew exposure could place Colin in physical danger. He denied authorizing abduction, the shooting at the estate, or Grant’s attempt to take Fay during the raid. Distinguishing sanctioned betrayal from unsanctioned violence did not make the first harmless.
Mara recorded the confession. Ivan understood it could end his immunity. He asked only that she separate provable crimes from acts Grant ordered under sealed authority.
Fay wanted to hate him cleanly. Instead, she saw another person shaped into a weapon by grief and powerful men. Compassion did not require trust, and understanding did not require access to her life.
She told Ivan their personal connection was over. Any future contact would occur through counsel or the clinic board. His face tightened, but he accepted the boundary without bargaining.
Before Fay left, Ivan warned that Grant’s most valuable evidence had never been paper. The task force collected private audio for years. If the jacket transmitter reached Kent’s house even once, every confession recorded near it could support a conspiracy case.
Fay remembered accepting the jacket for the short walk outside the museum, then returning it before entering the car. It had not crossed the estate gates. Relief came too quickly.
Ivan said another device might already be inside. Grant designed redundancies and often planted ordinary gifts months before needing them. Any object received through Lorenzo, Rafe, or Ivan required examination.
Kent launched a full electronic sweep. The search found microphones inside two framed engagement photographs, a power adapter in Daniel’s room, and the underside of a desk delivered by the Alden family. Technicians also detected dormant transmitters designed to activate only when certain names were spoken. Grant had not merely listened continuously; he had taught the house itself to wake for secrets.
The devices had captured weeks of arguments, strategy meetings, and admissions. One microphone sat outside Kent’s office, close enough to record his confession about destroying Elise evidence. Another had recorded Daniel acknowledging the fake engagement and Fay discussing security operations. Even evidence of coercion could be edited into proof that she knowingly joined a criminal conspiracy.
Daniel blamed himself because the power adapter belonged to a graduation gift from Lorenzo. Kent refused the guilt. Grant had exploited trust, not carelessness, and responsibility belonged to the person who planted the device.
Fay heard the lesson Kent had struggled to learn applied to his son with unexpected grace. Their relationship had changed in increments too small for either man to acknowledge directly.
Technicians isolated the transmitters without disabling them. Feeding false audio through the network might convince Grant the surveillance remained undiscovered. Mara warned that manufacturing conversations could also appear as obstruction.
They chose silence instead. Sensitive discussions moved to a screened room while ordinary household sounds continued near the devices. Staff received cover stories without learning why, reducing the risk that frightened behavior would alert Grant. The estate became a stage where every casual word required calculation. Fay felt the exhausting irony of fighting surveillance by performing normality inside the place once presented as her safest refuge.
That evening, Kent found Fay in the garden. He did not ask about Ivan’s confession, only whether she needed distance. She said she needed truth without being forced to choose which damaged man deserved sympathy.
Kent offered his hand but stopped before contact. Fay stepped into his arms despite the ten-day boundary, needing comfort rather than desire. Above them, a security light blinked—and one supposedly neutral garden camera silently uploaded the embrace to Grant.