Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father novel Chapter 32

My heart pounding, I press the stop button on the remote as fast as I can and return my wide eyes to Kent, who is still looking at me.

Please, please, please. By all that is holy, let him not have seen me watching his sex tape.

“What are you doing in here,” he asks, angry.

“Um,” I say, terrified, hoping he doesn’t pick up on the tremor in my voice. “Fiona brought me here? Said I could look through some…” my eyes dart around the room for an answer that is not porn. “Some family photo albums? And home videos?”

He narrows his eyes at me, his eyes flicking to the pile of vintage Playboys on the floor. “She shouldn’t have brought you down here,” he says, moving aside so that I can leave the room. I quickly get to my feet, flicking the power button on the remote so that the TV goes blank.

Then, dropping the remote, I scurry out of the room, praying with all my might that Kent does not go back in to see what tape is in the VCR.

He closes the door behind me as I head for the steps. “Go upstairs,” he says. “Don’t come down here.”

Glad to obey, I hurry out into the kitchen, heaving a sigh of relief. I head back towards the main part of the house, looking forward to going to my room so I can bury my nose into a very different kind of book, my hand sliding to the back pocket of my jeans to check on my phone.

My hand slides over smooth denim. I stop dead in my tracks, panicked, and pat all over my body looking for it. Then, slowly, I turn back towards the little door. I definitely felt it in my back pocket when we left the patio…

God damnit. My phone must have fallen out in the weird porn room.

Steeling myself, I know I have to go back. If my dad or Janeen ever called I didn’t have it – I’d just die with guilt.

On tiptoes, I walk back to the little door in the kitchen, pulling it open a crack to listen. I don’t hear a sound. Tentatively, I put a foot on the step, waiting for a creek. Nothing. Then, silently, I hurry down the stairs and through the hallway.

I let myself back into the little room and grab my phone, which is sitting on the leather chair. Then, for good measure, I pop the VHS out of the VCR and put it back in its black casing, which I slide back on the shelf. There, good. Now no one will ever know.

I leave the room and, quiet as a mouse, shut the door behind me. I begin to creep back along the hallway when I hear something to my left.

I stop dead, terrified that I’ve been caught.

But no one comes out to scold me.

I hear the sound again to my left, a kind of snap, and then a muffled groan. Unable to stop myself, I consider the door from which the sound is coming. It’s thick, made of iron, with no window. It has a bolt on the outside, like a prison.

But I can also see that the bolt is not locked.

I know it’s a mistake. I know I shouldn’t.

Even as I know these things, though, I stare at the door, consumed by my need to know more.

I take two steps closer, reaching out a hand to grip the metal handle and then, my inner voice still screaming at me to stop, I pull it open just a crack and look inside.

The noise from inside is suddenly louder without the thick door to keep it in.

I see two men facing me, strapped to chairs, fabric gags tied across their mouths. They’re moaning, one sobbing, as they look at something just out of my sight, terror in their eyes. As I watch, though, their torturer reveals himself.

Kent, dressed in his suit pants and an undershirt, steps into my line of sight. My eyes take in the strong muscles of his back, the rage that I can see pulsing through him just by the way he stands over these men.

He’s wrapped his belt around his hand, a long piece of it hanging down from his fist, the buckle dangling. As I watch, Kent rips his fist to the side, letting the belt drag across the men’s faces like a whip, the buckle tearing the flesh of their cheeks.

“TELL ME,” Kent commands, his shoulders heaving. The men tremble before him, crying. They shake their heads no, but this is apparently not the answer that Kent wants. He drops the belt, moving to the man on the left and pulling a knife from his pocket.