Fall For My Ex’s Mafia Dad
Chapter 104

Daniel laughs as if he's said something incredibly funny and my reaction is totally normal, looping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. "Laugh," he orders in my ear, a little urgent. "They'll look away."

I do as he says, not nearly as good of an actress as he is, but then again - he's had his whole life to practice. But he's right, after I give a little laugh as if Daniel has said something that's a little scandalous but ultimately hilarious, his family gives us a couple of confused smirks and then turns back to their business. When they've all looked away, I snap my face back to Daniel's, my expression totally serious.

"Spill," I demand. "Now. Tell me everything." I drain my glass of prosecco, needing to bolster my courage.

Daniel sighs and shakes his head. "I don't know all of the details, Fay. What I heard is from my Italian cousins when I would go and visit them in Italy, and even what they knew was hushed up. It was apparently a big scandal."

I nod, urging him to go on as I slip his Manhattan out of his hand and take a sip, deciding I need even more courage. Daniel gives me a little chagrined frown as if he was looking forward to that drink, but he doesn't take it back.

"Dad was destined for mom - engaged to her at birth to unite the families, as I was to you. And my grandfather - he was incredibly good to my dad. When dad went to Italy, he went basically as a pauper - his father, the head of the Lippert family, had been killed, and my mom had nothing. So, the fact that nonno respected the engagement, when he could have married his eldest and favorite daughter to someone else, was...a big deal. Dad should have been grateful." Daniel sighs, shaking his head, and I nod, understanding. "But he wasn't?" I ask, needing to know more.

He shrugs and shakes his head, unwilling to commit to that idea. "He was grateful, Fay - he was just..." Daniel sighs and looks over to where his dad stands with a group of his family, Natalia again by his side. Kent is easy to spot, of course, being the tallest in the

room.

"He what," I prompt, frustrated by his pauses.

"He was in love with Natalia," Daniel says simply, turning back to me and laying it out plainly. I feel my blood go cold in my veins. "They - they tried to elope to Rome. But they were caught, and dad was punished, and..." Daniel shrugs, indicating that he doesn't know much more, "a year later, he married mom. And Natalia stood next to my mother at their wedding, and since then she's always been a close family friend. That's all I've got."

"Ohmygod," I murmur, mushing the words together in my shock as I stare at Natalia across the room, slumping in my seat a little and raising Daniel's drink to my mouth again to take a sip. "That explains so much..."

"It does?" he asks, looking over at Natalia curiously.

"Um, yah," I say, glaring at him a little for being so dumb. "Why Natalia never got married? Why she looks at Kent like that when she thinks he's not looking? Why she's doing her utmost to prove that she's the perfect Italian woman, wife, and mom? And then, Daniel - why she looks at you with such adoration, and treats you like you're the son she never had? Because you are the son she never had."

Daniel's eyes go wide at this realization and he looks at her again, shocked to think that...well, yes, in some alternate universe, Natalia would be his mother, not Lenai. And that perhaps Natalia wanted that very badly.

"Plus," I add, my voice a little bitter now, "the way she sticks to your dad like a little burr? Look at her, standing next to him, like she's ready to take him back the moment he gives her any sort of hint that he wants her." "Really?" Daniel asks, turning that wide gaze on me now. "Do you think Natalia's going to make a play for him, after all this time?"

I sigh a deep breath and gesture towards where she's draping herself on Kent's arm, laughing up at some joke he made.

"Come on, Daniel," I say, my voice derisive. "Your dad is not that funny."

"No, he's not," Daniel murmurs, seeing it himself. "Oh weird," he adds, turning back to me. "My fiancé and my auntie, both competing for my dad." He scowls and snatches the drink out of my hand now, draining it. "And no one going for me." "What," I ask, laughing at him now. "Do you want Natalia to go for you?"

"What?" Daniel gasps. "Ew, no, Fay -"

"Because," I continue, laughing now, "you're not technically related, and with how messed up this family tree already is, it could work -"

"Gross!" Daniel exclaims, standing up and pulling me with him, both of us laughing now. "Come on, we need a refill," he says, guiding me back over to the bar. We're both still giggling at the idea of Daniel getting together with Natalia, and I'm egging him on by imitating her Italian accent and thinking of things she'd say to him on their wedding night - how she'd boss him around, and the things she'd complain about - when someone comes up behind us at the bar.

"What's so funny," Kent asks, surprising us, and Daniel and I turn as one, bursting into laughter when we see him standing there. Kent frowns at us, but not in a mean or angry way. Honestly, he looks a little pleased to see us having fun, but just...displeased to be left

out?

Or maybe frowning is his default expression. I don't really know, and I'm laughing too hard to care.

"Nothing," I say, wiping my eyes free of a few tears of mirth as the bartender delivers my glass of red wine. "Just...a stupid joke," I continue, my giggles fading. Daniel nods, smiling at his dad and taking a sip of his second Manhattan. "Red wine?" Kent asks, frowning at my choice as I take the glass off of the bar.

"Oh god," I moan, slumping my shoulders and looking up at him. "Not you too. Can't anyone just let me drink what I want to drink?"

"Do what you want, Fay," Kent shrugs, his frown deepening. "I just thought on a summer night that something like a glass of prosecco -"

Daniel and I lose it again and Kent just rolls his eyes, deciding to ignore us. He pushes past us to the bar to get a drink. Daniel loops his arm through mine. "Come on," he says, "let me introduce you to some of my actual aunts and uncles -" "Ones you don't plan to marry?" I prod, grinning.

"Oh, I didn't say that," he replies, giving me a dirty little smirk and leading me over to a group.

Before we can arrive, though, there's a disturbance at the door - raised voices that ring wrong against the laughter and happy chatter that fills the party. Daniel and I stop in our tracks, turning to see what's happening, and for the second time that night I feel my blood go cold.

Because standing at the door to Kent's family party is a large group of people who I'm sure were not invited.

And at the head of the group, in a grey Gucci suit, is my father.

And standing a step behind him in black Armani, his crisp white shirt already unbuttoned and his eyes already on me, is Ivan.

"Well, Lippert?" my father calls to Kent, who has turned away from the bar and is glaring at the group standing at the door. "Are you going to turn us away from this happy affair?"

Everyone is absolutely silent as Kent pauses for a second and then slowly, with perfect deliberation, begins to cross the floor. He stops about halfway, leaving about twenty feet between him, and my father, and my...

My what? My maybe-boyfriend? The lion tamer I make out with sometimes at taco stands and my dad's mountain house?

"Of course," Kent replies to my father's question, his voice at once even and dangerous. "Come have a drink, Alden. You're going to be family soon enough as it is. Bring your...friends with you," Kent concludes, slowly raising his glass of whiskey to his lips and taking a casual sip.

Every line of Kent in this moment is a graceful warning that they can enter...

But they're on his turf now, and playing by his rules.