Fall For My Ex's Mafia Dad novel Chapter 338

It’s so overwhelming that I fear I’ll drown in it.

God, how did Kent do this every day, year after year? He’s so much stronger than me.

I successfully evade Daniel all evening, but at night? When it’s just me, retiring to my bed alone?

He knows he has me trapped.

I kind of expect the tapping on my door when it comes. And in response, very immaturely, I quickly shut off my book light and close my eyes, pretending that I’m asleep.

I hear a sigh outside my bedroom door before it creaks open. Inwardly, I curse the loss of the little lock that Kent put on my bedroom door at his house. Why do I keep getting bedrooms without locks on the doors?

I keep my eyes closed so I can’t see what Daniel’s doing, even though the light from the hallway spills in and changes the darkness on the inside of my eyelids to a light orange-red.

“Fay,” Daniel sighs, and I sigh too, knowing I’m trapped. “I know you’re not asleep. I saw your light go out.”

I open my eyes and stare at my wall, still unwilling to face him.

“Why won’t you ask, Fay?” Daniel says quietly, closing the door behind him and coming to sit on the edge of my bed. “I mean – I won’t tell you anything if you don’t want to hear. But…why don’t you want to know?”

“Because,” I murmur, and a sudden hitch comes to my throat. Daniel inhales sharply and moves upward on the bed, sitting behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder as I work to get ahold of myself.

“Because,” I say again, forcing myself to turn to steel, to be tough. Because – in all of this, I have to be tough, or it will all collapse. “The point was that you got the hair, and you got him to agree to the plea deal. Any other information…doesn’t matter right now, Daniel.”

“Doesn’t it?” he murmurs, laying down behind me and starting to stroke my back in a comforting way. I close my eyes again. “Doesn’t it matter, if hearing that he’s okay will make you feel better?”

“But what if he’s not okay?” I whisper, terrified.

“Well then I won’t tell you.”

“Well then your not telling me will tell me that he’s not okay!” I protest, and Daniel laughs. Then he stops stroking my back and tugs on my shoulder, asking me to turn.

I do ask my husband asks, turning towards him in bed so that he can see the tears slipping down my cheeks. Daniel makes soft, comforting, chiding noises – telling me that it will all be okay as he wipes the tears from my cheeks. But I just shake my head.

I laugh again, shaking my head. Because in saying that to me, Kent wouldn’t be being mean – he would just be telling me what I need to hear.

“Kent has never been big on hesitation,” Daniel continues. “If you have a plan, and it’s a good plan? You don’t get it done by constantly rethinking it. So…” he shrugs. “Let’s do this thing. All right? We’re all on board.”

“Okay,” I whisper, closing my eyes again and nodding, letting myself trust Daniel’s trust in me.

“Kent didn’t want to do it,” Daniel whispers, and I open my eyes, biting my lip and looking up at him. “He didn’t want to take the plea bargain,” he says, and then his lips quirk into a smile, “was real pissed off about it, in fact.” I laugh, imagining it, because of course he was.

“He only agreed when he saw your handwriting,” Daniel continues. “He trusts you, Fay.”

I take a deep breath, letting Kent’s faith bolster me as well.

Because if Kent and Daniel think I can do this?

Well…maybe I really can.