Fall For My Ex’s Mafia Father

Gifts

Chapter 15 – A Pawn in their Game–1

Alden narrows his eyes at me and looks back at Kent. I’m a little shocked, I admit, that he hasn’t addressed me yet. I stand awkwardly in front of him and Daniel quietly takes my hand, giving it a squeeze of support.

“Is this for real, Lippert?” Alden asks, a threat behind his glare.

Kent nods slowly. “We did a test. It’s a 99% genetic match for paternity. I can show you the paperwork upstairs, and you can have it verified by your own doctors. But, with that kind of proof at hand, Alden.” He spread his hands out, hoping Alden takes him at his word. “Why would I lie?”

Alden nods and returns his gaze to me, staring for a moment. Then, he shocks me again by breathing out a huge breath of air and rubbing a hand down his face. “Damnit, but you look like your mother,” he mutters.

eyes.

My mouth falls open when I see the glimmer of tears in his My heart goes out to him, then. He’s a solid rock of a man, but I can see that deep feelings run beneath.

“Where is she?” he demands.

Surprised, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “She died,” I say, grimacing inwardly at my bluntness. Alden’s face falls minutely. Surely, after all these years, he knew it would be unlikely that she would be alive, but still – he’s upset by the

“When?” he asks.

“Years ago,” I whisper, sorry to be the one to tell him. “I was young – I had just turned six.”

I feel horrible – I had no idea that he cared for her as much as he clearly does. I had assumed she was

–

what had Fiona called

herself? a goomah. His mistress, or his girlfriend, not someone he really I cared about.

crossing his arms

I say, my voice hardly more than a whisper now.

“And where has she been laid to

a small cemetery by our home – in the churchyard. I can take you there, if you like,”

sadness to anger at the flip of a switch. He turns his burning eyes to me. “In a churchyard?” He shakes his head. “He didn’t

turning, then, from pity to anger. How dare he suggest that David was anything but an angel in our

step forward. Daniel holds my hand tighter, in a warning that comes too late –

was nothing,” Alden growls.

“He raised me

me,” the words rip from Alden’s

I cower back, my eyes going wide. Alden takes a

the truth, girl,” he says, taking another step. “Did he know about your

stay silent, keeping my face still.

you from me, my daughter, not his! And he should

I’m afraid of this man. That if this is what he’s like the first time meeting his daughter, then I can’t imagine the kind of things my mother must have gone through. She must have experienced moods that made her decide to pack up and leave him, to give up everything she’d ever known to keep me

B

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Gifts

– A Pawn

Game–2

place she’d so desperately left. Why did I let myself get so wrapped up in this world? I cower away from my father.

voice rings out behind me, cool and

to him but

unite our families through marriage is holding strong. Your daughter is engaged to my son. I anticipate that the wedding will be swift, in the next few months,

low in his throat. “This is a trick,” he says. “How can they be engaged,

“We met before, by some miracle,” he says, giving

conveniently, of the fact that we

his father, and then over at mine, and suddenly realize that Daniel is in on this. He and his father carefully planned this meeting, this conversation. In one swoop, they gave Alden back his daughter

again. It doesn’t matter what I want at all, whether or not I want to marry Daniel. Because Daniel, too, is a player in this game, moving me

my mouth to protest, but Alden