Fall For My Ex’s Mafia Dad
Chapter 73

I dash from the room, pounding down the stairs that lead to the second floor, my mind set on nothing but the safety of my room, my bed, my closed door - But as I turn onto the second-floor landing, I slams into someone coming up the steps from the house's first level.

"Whoa! -" the person says, gasping in surprise and perhaps a little pain. "What -"

Frantic, I work to push beyond them, feeling and seeing nothing beyond the tears in my eyes that stream down my cheeks. I'm a bit feral now, like a rabbit doing anything it can to get back to my warren - I've just got to get inside, where I can be alone - "Fay," the voice says, worried and stern. He grasps me by my shoulders and I gasp, looking up, shocked to see Kent's face -

But no, a face like Kent's, but softer, younger - Daniel.

"Fay, are you alright?" he whispers, urgent. "What's why are you wearing that?"

I look up at Daniel, my mouth hanging open, not knowing what to say. My eyes flick to the door to my bedroom - there's no part of me that wants to have this conversation now. I just - I can't.

"I have to go," I mumble, pushing past him. I hear him call after me but I ignore it. There's a little guilt in me at this - I know that I haven't been fair to Daniel in all of this - but the guilt isn't strong enough to fight my panic, my fear, my desire to just be alone. I look once over my shoulder at Daniel as I push open my door, see him looking towards the stairs up to the third floor, putting things together. Does he even know what his dad has up there?

Before I can see what Daniel does next, though, I press my door shut, leaning against it and closing my eyes, panting a little. The dark of my room washes over me like cool water and I feel my shaking body start to ease, my pounding heart lighten.

I stand there for a long time, my forehead pressed against the door, my breath huffing hot against the white paint, my mind absolutely reeling. But as the minutes pass, and as I lean into the safety of my room, I'm able to start to put words to my emotions. God damn it. God damn it. What the hell just happened?

I push myself up and away from the door, starting to put the pieces together. Flashes of it come back to me as I move to my bed, unlacing the corset and letting it drop to the floor. Kent standing in the doorway, looking at me like a wolf at his supper. Kent wrapping a leather cuff around my wrist. Kent pressing his hand between my shoulder blades and pulling my hips back against him -

Kent moving his hand, his fingers, down the slick center of me -

I push my panties to the floor now, stepping out of them and standing naked in my room, my own hand drifting downward towards the place where Kent touched me only a few minutes ago -

Minutes, really? Was it that short?

Nobody had ever touched me like that. And as much as it terrified me, and as much as I wasn't ready for it to happen like that - chained to the wall, his to command -

There was certainly a part of me that...liked it? Maybe. I sigh, confused.

Even as I push myself to figure out how I feel, the strain and confusion of the situation washes over me. I sigh, heading for my wardrobe, wanting the comforting feel of cotton pajamas against my skin - not all of this silk and boning and laced-up restraint. As I pull on a t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts, I consider that at the heart of it, of the whole evening, the central fact was that it was terrifying for me.

And perhaps it's just me being a baby - being so naïve, and romantic, and sheltered. But as much as it sometimes gives me pleasure and a thrill to defy Kent, and to push him, and to drive him beyond his point of control - I am not sure I want to have sex like that. At least not the first time. Because there was something about the feeling of giving up control to him that, at some moments, felt...good?

But it went too far. I don't want to have sex that scares me, that makes me cry. I just want...well, I suppose I want to be held. And comforted. Because losing your virginity is scary enough - I'm not sure chains need to be added to the equation.

I'm staring passively into the wardrobe, lost in my thoughts, when my eyes fall on it. I pull Ivan's jacket from its place balled up in the back corner, where I'd tucked it maybe an hour ago. God, an hour, is that how it really took for my world to turn upside down like that?

I pull the jacket on, wanting its comfort and the memories of the parts of tonight that were so good. I tuck my nose against the jacket's collar and take a deep sniff of Ivan's warm and spicy scent. It's strange, that two men who are so similar on paper can make me feel so completely different on the same night.

And considering my two "dates" this evening, I definitely know which one I preferred.

I climb groaning into bed, pulling my covers up over me, still shaken from my experiences but starting to feel better. Just before I drift off to sleep, I grab my phone -

Not the Kent phone, the burner. The one Janeen gave me.

And I type in Ivan's number, and send him a quick text to say goodnight.

Half an hour has passed since Fay left the room, and Kent is still laying on the floor, crippled with pain and anxiety. He presses his eyes closed against it, wanting - quite desperately - to be anywhere else, to be anyone else.

God damn it, but he hates himself right now. Hates every choice he's ever made that has led him here, to this - to laying in his underwear on the floor of his secret room, feeling like the absolute worst person on earth.

Because he knows he's made a mistake - that none of this is what he wanted, or how he wanted it, with Fay. But for the life of him, he doesn't know how to not do precisely this.

As he considers that idea, Kent scolds himself, because - obviously - he knows how to not do this. He's had sex with women in much simpler ways - normal sex, good s*x, in a bed without ropes and chains. Not every woman he's ever brought home has been locked up in this room, restrained for him. He doesn't need the kink to have s*x - sometimes it's just an extra, a bonus that allows him to explore his obsession with control.

Because that's what it's all about, after all, Kent thinks ruefully. Control. Everything is about control - controlling his life, his world, the underworld, his business ventures, the threats to his power and everything he and his family have built. He has to keep a tight fist around all of it - absolutely all of it - or it will fall apart.

And Fay -

Somehow, fucking Fay -

This wisp of a girl, this tiny, naïve, coltish thing who knows absolutely nothing about this world-

Somehow, she is the thing that threatened to undo it all. Because she makes him absolutely lose control. With her, he has no idea what he will do next.

And the intensity of how he feels towards her - how much he wants her... Yes, on one level it's a physical desire - but Kent is forced to admit, now, laying on the floor staring at his ceiling that it goes beyond that. That the magnitude of what he feels is not just a desire for a woman he seeks to control, but...

God damn it.

It's a real, true pull towards her that he hasn't felt since he first met his wife. And the pull - it's inexorable. Heavy, like the chain of an anchor wrapped around his feet. Like gravity, with Fay at the center of the earth.

And this, all of this? The scaring her, the need to break her, to make her submit - it was all a fight against the power of that pull.

But deep down, he knows, it's like the ocean fighting the moon's sway over the tides. He can crash all he wants, but Fay is the force that calls the still waters within him to her. Makes them rise so high he thinks he might drown.

Give in, the voice inside himself whispers. Just swim down.

But god damn it, he can't. He can't.

Because if Kent gives in to just this one thing, the rest will fall - like dominoes, or a loose string on a sweater. It will all fall apart.

And so Kent lays for hours on that floor, trapped, stuck like a bug pinned to a board, torn between opposing forces. The first desire, the stronger one, is to let it all collapse as he takes her in his arms. That desire's insidious twin, however, still whispers into his ear that if he just pushes a little harder...he can break her. Make her fall in line. That he can have her in his world, just as he likes her - that he can make her fit.

Kent agonizes over it, truly torn over the question of which path to take, because he knows that these are the only two paths in his life. Because any option that keeps Fay out of his life...

Well. It's just not an option. Not anymore.

Kent has to come up with a plan. But all the while that he agonizes over his two options, a voice murmurs in the back of his mind that neither of these options really considers the true threat of the situation:

The very real possibility that Fay will break him first.

And take it all for herself.