Chapter 3 - The Ambush
The quiet inside the Upper West Side penthouse was broken only by the cartoonish sounds of an animated movie playing on the monstrous flat-screen television mounted against the limestone fireplace.
Noah was curled up on the rug, his little brow furrowed as he methodically arranged a collection of vintage model cars that Sebastian had apparently ordered up from the building’s concierge within an hour of our arrival. Ivy was happily coloring in a massive sketchbook with a box of sixty-four crayons, humming an off-key tune. Owen, however, sat quietly by the floor-to-ceiling glass, his little fingers tracing the raindrops that had begun to streak the surface.
My phone, resting on the kitchen island, had buzzed eighty-seven times in the last three hours.
My best friend, Chloe, who ran the small floral boutique where I worked three days a week, had sent twenty-two messages:
*MAYA WHERE ARE YOU?*
*WHY IS THERE A BLACK ESCALADE PARKED OUTSIDE THE SHOP?*
*TURN ON THE NEWS RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD.*
I hadn't turned on the television. I didn't need to. I knew what the financial and gossip media would do when Sebastian Vale detonated his life. The headline would be sensational: *Billionaire Heir Dumps Society Princess on Eve of Multi-Billion-Dollar Merger.* They would dig. They would hunt. And eventually, their bloodhounds would pick up the scent of an apartment in Astoria.
The heavy front door clicked, the biometric lock chiming with a soft, melodic beep.
Noah’s head snapped up. Owen pulled his stuffed dog closer to his chest.
Sebastian walked in. He looked completely drained. The adrenaline that had carried him through the morning had burned away, leaving behind the dark, bruised shadows beneath his eyes. His knuckles were slightly swollen, a fact he quickly tried to hide by shoving his hands into his pockets the moment he saw me looking.
“Everything is done,” he said quietly, pausing in the foyer, keeping a respectful distance from me and the kids. “Mercer has been taken into custody. Arthur has been stripped of his executive powers. The building security has been completely purged and replaced with private contractors who report solely to me.”
I stood by the kitchen counter, my arms wrapped around my waist. The apartment was warm, but a deep, bone-chilling cold had settled into my marrow.
“You think this solves it?” I asked, my voice flat, hollow. “You think you can just march into an office, throw around your billions, slap down some corporate paperwork, and suddenly the last four years of my living hell are erased?”
“No,” Sebastian said, stepping forward, his voice cracking with an agonizing humility. “No, Maya. I don't think that. I know that if I spent the next fifty years bleeding for you, it wouldn't make up for one single night you had to sit alone in the dark wondering how you were going to feed our children. I know that.”
“Then why are we here, Sebastian?” I demanded, tears of exhaustion finally stinging my eyes. “Why did you bring us to this gilded cage? Is this your way of easing your conscience? You buy them expensive cars, put them in a high-rise, and pretend you’re a father?”
“I brought you here because Arthur Vale is a cornered viper!” Sebastian said, his voice rising with urgent, raw desperation. He took two long strides, stopping just two feet from me, his hands trembling at his sides as if fighting every instinct to grab me and pull me against his chest. “Clarissa’s family isn't going to roll over, Maya. They’ve lost billions today. Clarissa’s father, Victor Hart, has ties to maritime unions that operate on the edge of the law. They will look for leverage. And the moment the media figures out who you are—the moment they realize you have three Vale children—the paparazzi will swarm your apartment in Astoria like locusts. They would have crushed you and the kids on the sidewalk just to get a picture of Owen’s eyes!”
I opened my mouth to fire back a furious defense, but the words died in my throat. Because down in the pit of my stomach, I knew he was right. I had seen what the tabloids did to women who had secret babies with billionaires. They would paint me as a gold-digging mistress. They would stake out the children’s preschool. They would flash cameras into their tiny, terrified faces.
“Mommy?”
A small, soft voice pulled us apart.
We both looked down. Ivy was standing there, holding up a piece of paper. On it was a crude, scribbled drawing of four stick figures beneath a giant, lopsided yellow sun. Three small figures and one tall figure with long brown hair. But off to the side, Ivy had drawn another tall figure with black scribbled hair, holding hands with the smallest stick figure.
“Look, tall man,” Ivy said, thrusting the drawing toward Sebastian’s legs. “This is Owen, this is Noah, this is me, and this is Mommy. And this is you. But you don't have a smiley face because you looked like you were going to cry in the park.”
Sebastian dropped to his knees as if the little girl’s words had physically severed his tendons. He stared at the drawing, his breath hitching in his throat. With hands that were trembling uncontrollably, he gently took the corners of the paper.
“I... I don't have a smiley face,” Sebastian whispered, a ragged tear slipping down his cheek. “Because I was so sad that I didn't know you, Ivy. But look...” He pulled a gold Montblanc pen from his breast pocket, clicked the top, and carefully, with absolute concentration, drew a massive, curving smile on the face of the black-haired stick figure. “Now I’m smiling. Because I found you.”
Ivy giggled, clapping her hands. “Mommy, he drew on my picture!”
I had to look away. I had to turn my face toward the Hudson River to stop Sebastian from seeing the devastating crack that had just ripped through the armor around my heart. He was an arrogant, ruthless, infuriating bastard who had broken me into a million pieces. But watching him look at our daughter with that expression of pure, unadulterated, worshipping love was a torture I wasn't prepared to survive.
Before the moment could stretch further, Sebastian’s personal phone buzzed violently on the marble counter.
Sebastian stood up, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand, his demeanor instantly snapping back into that of a razor-sharp corporate commander. He looked at the caller ID. His eyes darkened.
He tapped the speaker button. “Speak, Vance.”
“Mr. Vale,” Vance’s deep, gravelly voice echoed through the speaker, tight with tension. “We have a situation at the Astoria address.”
My heart stopped. “My apartment?”
“Go on, Vance,” Sebastian commanded, his eyes locking onto mine.
“A private process server, accompanied by two high-tier attorneys from the firm of Barrows & Sterling—Arthur Vale’s personal litigators—just arrived at Ms. Lindqvist’s building,” Vance reported. “They were attempting to serve an emergency petition for temporary emergency custody on the grounds of maternal neglect and child endangerment. They also brought three freelance photojournalists from the *Manhattan Daily Post*.”
A cold, suffocating panic surged into my throat. “Neglect? Endangerment? I have never neglected my children! How dare they! How dare he!”
“Arthur moved faster than I anticipated,” Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a deadly, freezing calm that was infinitely more terrifying than any shout. “He knows he lost the board. So he’s going after the children through the family courts. If he can secure temporary custody through a corrupt emergency injunction, he can force me to the negotiating table to reclaim the shares.”
“They’re not getting my babies,” I whispered, my voice rising into a panicked shriek as I looked at Noah, Ivy, and Owen playing blissfully on the floor. “I will kill him, Sebastian. I swear to God, I will take a kitchen knife and kill your grandfather before he touches them!”
Sebastian stepped forward, and this time, he didn't ask for permission. He reached out, grabbed my upper arms, and pulled me flush against his hard, broad chest.
“Look at me, Maya,” he commanded, his voice vibrating through my bones. “Look at me!”
I looked up, my vision blurred with furious, terrified tears.
May you like
“Nobody touches them,” Sebastian said, every syllable hammered out like tempered steel. “Nobody takes them. Arthur has billions, but I have more. He has corrupt judges, but I have the truth. You are not going back to Astoria. You are staying here. And tomorrow morning, Arthur Vale is going to realize that when he declared war on you, he signed his own death warrant.”
***
