Chapter 12 - The Shark and the Shield
The legal office of Silas Vane was located in a skyscraper that seemed to pierce the very clouds of Manhattan.
Silas was a man who didn't care about truth;
he cared about winning,
and Marcus had paid him a retainer that could have bought a small island.
"It’s a difficult case,
Marcus,"
Silas said,
leaning back in his leather chair and tapping a gold pen against his chin.
"She’s powerful.
She’s wealthy.
And she has the moral high ground."
"I don't care about the high ground,"
Marcus snapped,
pacing the length of the office.
"I want visitation.
I want my name on those birth certificates.
I want the world to see that I’m trying to be a father."
Silas smiled,
a cold,
predatory expression.
"Then we attack her character.
We claim she purposefully hid the children to alienate them from their father.
We claim she’s emotionally unstable and using the children as pawns in a corporate vendetta."
Marcus paused,
a flicker of hesitation crossing his mind as he remembered the way I had looked at the kids.
But the thought of his falling stock prices quickly smothered any lingering guilt.
"Do it,"
he said.
"Do whatever it takes."
Back in Austin,
I was already ten steps ahead.
I sat in a conference room with my own legal team,
a group of women who had been with me since the beginning.
"He’s going to go for 'parental alienation',"
Arthur,
my lead counsel,
said,
laying out a stack of documents.
"It’s the standard move for men like him."
I looked at the photos of my children pinned to the board—
Noah at his science fair,
Sophia at her dance recital,
Ethan and Olivia building a fort in the living room.
"Let him try,"
I said,
my voice as cold as a winter morning.
"Every doctor’s bill,
every school tuition,
every single night I spent in the ER with a sick child—
I have the receipts.
I have the logs of every time I tried to call his old office in the first month."
"We need to prepare the children,"
Dana added softly.
"If this goes to a hearing,
they might have to speak to a guardian ad litem."
The thought of my children being subjected to the cold,
clinical questioning of a court official made my blood boil.
They were happy.
They were healthy.
They were loved.
And now,
because of one man’s ego,
their peace was being threatened.
"I will not let him near them,"
I vowed,
slamming my hand on the table.
"He didn't want the struggle of raising them,
so he doesn't get the reward of knowing them."
That night,
I sat on the edge of Noah’s bed.
He was awake,
staring at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression.
"Mama?"
he asked,
turning his head to look at me.
"Is that man from the dinner...
is he our father?"
The question I had dreaded for years finally hung in the air.
I didn't lie to them.
I had always told them their father was a man who wasn't ready to be a parent.
"He is the man who helped me bring you into the world,
Noah,"
I said carefully.
"But being a father is something you earn every day.
And he hasn't earned it."
"I don't like him,"
Noah said firmly.
"He made you look sad."
I kissed his forehead,
my heart aching with a mixture of love and fury.
"You don't have to worry about him,
my brave boy.
I am your mother,
May you like
and I am your father,
and I am everything you will ever need."
