Chapter 283

“But I do need to know it –“

“You don’t!”

“Kent!” I interrupt, frustrated again, smacking my hand against his stomach to make him listen to me. “Something is going down! Someone is trying to kill you, to kill us! And I want to help –“

“Fay,” Kent sighs. “There’s nothing you can do to help – I’ve got it handled. And even if you could help, I don’t want you to help.”

“Why not?” I ask, a little appalled.

“Because” he says, turning his face towards me. “I don’t want you involved in any of this – you or Daniel. I want all of this gone, dead, dusted. I don’t want you to know any of this because the more you get caught up in it, the dirtier you’re going to get, and the larger chance there is of you getting hurt. Or...kidnapped. Or fucking arrested, Fay.”

I blink in surprise. I never, ever considered that any of my connections to this could be...illegal. I mean. I haven’t done anything wrong.

Have I?

“Kent, I’m already involved in this,” I remind him softly. “I was born into this.”

“You were free of it,” he grumbles. “Your mom made sure of that. I’m the asshole who roped you back in.”

I bite my lip, realizing that’s true, but I shake my head anyway. “I don’t want out, Kent,” I say softly. “Not if it means...leaving.”

Leaving you, I finish in my head. But I’m not ready to say it yet.

“And I don’t want you to go,” he sighs, turning fully to me now so that we’re face-to-face, just inches apart on the mattress. “So, would you please just let me keep you out of it, Fay? It’s not – it’s not at all that I don’t trust you. I’m just – trying to end this, and it’s easier to do that if you and Daniel aren’t involved.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, unable to stop myself from reaching out a hand and laying it against his cheek. Kent turns his face into my touch, pressing into my palm. “What are you trying to end?”

“All of this, Fay,” he sighs, his body relaxing into the mattress now, almost as if his secrets were a weight on him. “I want...out of the world of crime.

Completely. I want to go legit.”

“Really?” I ask, shocked. “Wh-why?”

Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father Chapter 0282 “Are you so disappointed, Fay?” he murmurs, and I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Are you only attracted to me if there’s a hint of danger to it?”

“No,” I reply, laughing a little. “I just...never thought of you outside of it. Why do you want this?”

“I’ve wanted it since I was old enough to want,” he replies, his words distanced and thoughtful now. “Ever since I saw my father being murdered.”

I go cold as I remember Kent telling me that story, about watching his father bleed to death before him in a brutal mob hit. He had only been a child, and then was almost immediately sent away to Italy.

“I owed – we owed – the Bianci’s everything in exchange for what they did for me,” he continues. “And I gave it all to them – I gave them the business and the connections that they wanted when I came back to America, made them more money than they’ve ever had, gave them a grandson to inherit it all, gave them my god damn heart when I married Lenai –“

I go still a little when I hear him mention her, when he finishes his words angrily through clenched teeth.

Because I have to admit – on a night when I think Kent might be leaving me, the last person I want to think about is the woman I can never live up to.

Lenai.