Forbidden Temptation My Mafia Fiance's Alpha Father (Brooklyn and Aden) novel Chapter 29

Chapter 29
Brooklyn

I realize, suddenly, that although Remington is my real father, I am terrified of him.

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. The moods she must have experienced, the cruelty, enough to make her pack up and leave him, to give up everything she’d ever known to keep me away.

And yet here I am, in the place she was so desperate to leave behind.

I know I didn’t have a choice. I know Aden threatened Stephen and Jolie. But somehow, I wish I could have fought harder against all of this.

“You cannot hurt him,” I say through gritted teeth. “He let me go.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he stole you in the first place.”

I clench my fists by my side. How much denial could a person be in? Stephen didn’t steal my mother. She ran. And that’s Remington’s fault, not his.

“Enough.” Almost as if he knew I was about to say something I’d deeply regret, Aden’s voice rings out behind me, cool and calm. I close my eyes in relief at the sound, remembering he is still right there. I know, deep down, he won’t let anything happen to me. “There is more to discuss.”

Remington’s angry eyes flash toward him. Unlike Aden, he chose to be an Alpha. He didn’t cast it aside. Aden is beneath him in rank, but he isn’t acting like it. Still, Aden holds his ground.

“The good news, Remington, is that our engagement pact is going to hold up, after all these years. Your daughter is engaged to my son.” He nods at Hudson, who steps forward. “I anticipate that the wedding will be swift, within the next few months, if it can be arranged.”

My father’s growl is low in his throat. I can only imagine how his pack, those that do his dirty work, fear him.

“This is a trick,” he says. “How can they be engaged, when you just found her yesterday?”

Hudson is the one who answers this time.

“We met before, by some miracle,” he says, standing up straighter. “We were already dating, actually.”

No mention, conveniently, of the fact that we broke up well before this ring ever landed on my finger.

I look between Hudson and his father, and then over at mine, and suddenly realize that this was always the plan. To give Remington back his daughter and claim her as their own, in one swift moment.

This giant, sparkling ring on my finger was never really about our engagement. It was a way to mark me. To show clearly who I belonged to.