Fall For My Ex’s Mafia Dad
Chapter 186

Jerome, Daniel, and I are all pretty much exhausted as we pull up to the bar the next day around noon, when it opens. Jerome and I stayed up pretty late explaining the details of the plan to Daniel, and then telling him what we need him to do next... ...and then a couple more hours patting his back when he hyperventilated, convincing him not to runs away from us screaming.

Because...yeah, it's a little crazy. But it's going to work!

"I can't believe this is how I'm spending my Saturday," Daniel murmurs as Jerome turns the car off in the nearly-empty parking lot of a very, very crappy bar. "You know that we could just go have brunch, right? Somewhere nice?" "I bet they can rustle up some brunch here," I say from the back seat, leaning forward to pat Daniel on the shoulder.

"At least some peanuts," Jerome adds, glancing at me and laughing a little.

"Seriously, why are we here?" Daniel asks, frowning at us. Because while we told him pretty much everything else....we kept this one a secret.

"It's a surprise, Danny," I say, opening the car door and hopping out, smoothing down my black dress as I smile towards the door. I'm actually excited for this one too. I haven't seen her in a long time, and I miss her.

Daniel sighs as he stands by my side and we wait for Jerome to come around the car. "I don't like this Danny thing, by the way," he says, frowning down at me.

"Yes, that's my nickname for him," Jerome says, grinning at me as we start for the door. "You can't get it on it now - it's very personal."

"I can do as I please," I say, flicking my hair back over my shoulder and lifting my chin. "I am a very powerful mafiosa, after all."

"That remains to be seen," Daniel murmurs, a little smirk on his face.

But as soon as he ducks into the bar, and sees who is standing by the counter?

That smirk falls away, completely replaced by shock.

"Hey, sugar," Fiona says, laughing as she comes out from behind the bar and walking over to Daniel with open arms. "I missed you too, kid."

"Oh my god," Daniel murmurs, wrapping Fiona tight against him and lowering his dark head to press against hers. "Oh my god - Fiona - I...I honestly thought you were dead -"

"Dead!?" she laughs, pulling away. "Honestly, he was mad at me, Daniel - and rightly, I betrayed him big time. But he likes me too much to kill me -"

"I didn't think he liked anyone too much to kill them," Daniel replies, staring down at Fiona in awe, "not even me -"

"Yeah well," she laughs, giving him a wink, "I did some really weird shit in bed. I earned some respect."

Daniel blushes scarlet as Fiona pats him on the cheek and gives Jerome a hug and a quick greeting before she turns her attention to me.

"Well well well, baby Fay," she says, wrinkling her nose and giving me a grin as she takes my hands and looks down at my stomach. "Looks like someone got you into some trouble."

And then, before I can respond, she steps forward and wraps me in a warm hug as well. "I missed you, little cousin," she murmurs in my ear. "I'm so glad you came. I've been worried about you."

"I've been worried about you too," I murmur, holding her close and closing my eyes. Fiona - she was so, so good to me, the entire time that we were in that house together. And while she, too, betrayed Kent...I just can't bring myself to be mad about it. Because she never betrayed me.

After a long moment Fiona pulls away from me. "Looks like Kent has been busy," she says, and I go a little pale as she looks down at my stomach with a wink. Anxious, my hands instantly go to my belly.

But then I scowl when she laughs at me, because I should have guessed that she would know immediately. I mean, she for sure knows that it wasn't Daniel.

"Oh, come on, Fay," she says, laughing again. "I saw how he looked at you the minute you came into that house. I wasn't even jealous! I couldn't compete," she shrugs, "didn't even want to." "So, you're not...mad?" I ask, hesitant.

"It's not like you stole my boyfriend, Fay," she says, patting my cheek. "Kent and I - we liked each other a lot, but it was more transactional than that. Nothing close to what I saw between you two."

"I can't believe you caught it before the rest of us," Daniel says, shaking his head. Jerome just smirks and I consider him, wondering how long he knew.

"It wasn't hard," Fiona replies, "if you were looking for it. But what the hell happened to that vasectomy I heard so much about?" she asks, frowning and looking down at my stomach again. "Was that a lie?" "No," I sigh, "it was real. It just...got patched up, or something."

"Wow," she says, her eyes going wide. "Sounds like I got out of there right in time!"

And then we're both laughing as she warps her arm around my waist and leads me over to the bar, Daniel coming along. Jerome, as planned, quietly steps aside and works his way around the room with a little device that's supposed to detect any places in which the room has been bugged.

I glare at the little device in his hands for a moment as Fiona works her way to the other side of the bar, wishing to hell I'd had that a couple of months ago to scan my bedroom. It would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble.

"As much as I love a reunion for reunion's sake," Fiona says as Daniel helps me up onto a barstool, "I have a feeling that there's more going on here."

"Can't a cousin just come for a nice cup of tea?" I ask, coy.

"They can," Fiona says, leaning against the bar and studying me with narrowed eyes now. "But you're not here for that. You're different. No longer my little baby Fay...you're all grown up."

I smile at her, leaning forward and resting my chin in my upturned palms. "Maybe not all the way grown up. I still need my cousin's help."

"Really," she says, continuing to clean the glasses and raising an eyebrow at me. "With what?"

"Phone, please," Jerome says, putting his hand out to Fiona and nodding to me, letting me know that the room is clean.

"What?" she asks, a little appalled at the request.

"Just to take into the other room while you chat," Jerome says, giving her a warm smile. "Can't risk being recorded."

"Oh," Fiona says, looking between me and Daniel. "Oh, so this is a real talk."

She pulls her cell phone out of a purse sitting near her and puts it in Jerome's hand. He moves quickly away, carrying it to the next room. Fiona crosses her arms and looks between us. "Before you start," she says, raising a finger. "You should know that I still work for your dad, Fay. Anything that you don't want him to hear about...you should probably keep to yourself." "Is he good to you, Fiona?" I ask quietly, looking down at the bar and then up into her eyes.

She just frowns at me as Jerome comes back to my side.

"Because it looks to me," I continue, my voice soft, "that he asked you to take a very dangerous job informing on Kent for years, and then - when you were found out - he didn't compensate you very well for all of that labor. Or all of the information you provided." Fiona blushes a little, looking around the crappy bar which can't be paying her well and which is nowhere near the quality of living to which she became accustomed under Kent's care. "Well," she says, a little chagrined, "I was a shit spy, wasn't I? I got caught." "You weren't a shit spy," I say, shaking my head. "You worked for years doing that, and Kent never suspected for a single second. My dad just convinced you that you were bad at it because he doesn't feel like he needs to respect you."

"What are you doing, Fay," Fiona snaps, staring hard at me. "You are getting into some dangerous waters right now. And you might want to stop - because as much as I admit I don't really like your dad, and I think he's doing kind of a shit job making the right choices for this family? I am not ever going to betray this family."

"I'm not asking you to betray it," I say, leaning forward and holding her gaze. "I'm asking you to...consider a change in leadership."

"What," she scoffs, laughing at me as she starts to shake her head. "What, you want me to follow you now, baby Fay? After you've had, what, three months of experience? You want to take over the Alden family business?"

"No, Fiona," I say quietly, still holding her gaze seriously. "I want you to do that."

And her jaw falls nearly to the floor.

Fiona stares at me, and then Daniel, and then Jerome for a long, long moment before shutting her mouth, hard. "All right," she says hastily, looking around the room anxiously. "I'm listening. And that does not mean that I am in. But I am listening." And then Daniel, Jerome, Fiona and I talk for a long, long time.

By the time we're finished making our offer to Fiona, the bar has filled up a little bit with some of its regular clientele - neighborhood folks, mostly, but no one who's paying a great deal of attention to us. Fiona serves a couple of beers and then comes back shakes her head at me, a small smile on her lips. "I always knew you had the balls, little cousin," she says. "I just never knew if you'd find them or not."

"Yeah well," I say, shrugging and sipping on the Shirley Temple that Fiona made me, "one learns a certain set of skills at Kent's knee."

"Oh yeah?" she says, smirking. "Bent you over his knee, did you? He likes that."

"Enough!" Daniel almost shouts, cutting the air between us with a slice of his hand. "No more of that! Too much sharing of things I do not need to know!"

Fiona and I are still laughing, hard, when the old beige rotary phone next to her starts to ring. She makes a move to answer it but I grab her hand instead.

"Fiona," I say quietly, my heart in my eyes as she looks into my face. "I understand that you might say no. And that's okay. But if you do...could you please not totally f**k me over? Or tell anyone anything that's going to get me killed?"

Fiona clicks her tongue and takes my hand, squeezing it. "I promise you, cousin," she says quietly, holding my eyes. "If I decide to say no, then this conversation never happened. You're my baby Fay. I'll never hurt you."

Tears sting my eyes a little bit as I nod to her, smiling, grateful. Daniel puts a warm hand on my back, letting me know that he thinks we can trust her.

"But really, kid," she says, nodding towards the phone. "You want me to get this one."

"What?" I ask, confused, pulling my hand away and letting her reach for the phone.

"It's for you," Jerome says quietly, leaning forward from Daniel's other side. "I, um...I set it up. Because I thought you needed it."