Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Son He Raised
Vince was still in the car at seven in the morning, still in his wedding suit.
Teo walked out to the gate in his socks and came back in with him.
Carmine was at the head of the long dining table in his shirtsleeves, with black coffee and no sleep.
I sat at his right in his gray sweater, with my legs folded under me on the chair.
Vince stopped in the doorway.
His curls were flat on one side and his collar was open and his eyes were red.
He looked twelve years old.
"I need to ask you something," he said.
"Sit."
"I'd rather stand."
"Then stand."
Vince looked at the long table, at the chair he had sat in since he was a boy, and did not move.
"Is it true?"
"Yes."
"All of it. Ottavio and Mom."
"Yes."
"You knew when I was two." Vince's voice shook.
"You knew when I was ten and you took me fishing at the lake house."
"You knew when I told you I wanted to be Don."
"I knew every day," Carmine said.
"And you let me hate you."
"I let you be angry at me for being strict. I let you be a boy. That's all it was."
Vince laughed, one ugly breath.
"I came here to ask you to look at me and say I'm not yours."
"I won't."
"Dad."
"You are my son," Carmine said, "and you will be my son when you hate me, and when you're forty."
"I will not disown you for something your mother did before you were born."
Vince's face crumpled.
He turned it away fast, toward the window, toward me.
"Lee."
I had not expected him to speak to me.
"I swear on my mother's grave I didn't know," he said. "None of it. The ring, Serafina, all that. I thought I was winning."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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