Chapter 6 - Blood and Paper
The video played silently on the iPad screen in the dim hospital hallway, but the venomous subtitles burned like acid.
Clarissa Hart stood before a forest of microphones, wearing an impeccably tailored black dress that made her look like a mourning widow. Her eyes were artfully glistening with unshed tears, her lower lip trembling with masterfully rehearsed fragility. Beside her stood Victor Hart, her father, a thick-necked shipping magnate with cold, ruthless eyes.
*“I stayed silent as long as I could to protect the dignity of the families,”* Clarissa’s voice projected through the speaker, sweet, sorrowful, and lethal. *“But the public deserves the truth. Sebastian Vale has been subjected to a malicious, coordinated extortion campaign by a former domestic employee—a woman who has resurfaced with three children, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars to keep silent about alleged paternity. Sebastian is suffering from severe emotional distress following the strain of our corporate restructuring, and this woman is exploiting his vulnerability. The Hart family will not stand by and watch Vale Enterprises fall into the hands of a criminal blackmailer.”*
Victor Hart then stepped to the microphone, his voice a gravelly roar. *“We are demanding a full, independent federal inquiry into the wire fraud and extortion committed by Maya Lindqvist. And we are filing an injunction to freeze all secondary trust distributions until court-ordered, independent DNA profiling can be conducted by our private medical examiners.”*
The screen went black as Sebastian’s thumb slammed into the power button.
The plastic casing of the iPad cracked beneath the violent pressure of his grip.
“She’s calling me a blackmailer on national television,” I whispered, the blood roaring in my ears until I could barely hear my own voice. “She’s telling the world I’m an extortionist. My children... they’re going to grow up with this on the internet. They’re going to google their names and see that the world thought they were a scam!”
“No, they won't,” Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a register that made the ambient temperature of the hallway plummet. He handed the cracked iPad back to Vance. “Because Clarissa Hart has just made the fatal mistake of playing her hand before she checked the deck.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, terror and exhaustion warring within me.
Sebastian turned to Vance. “Call Dr. Marcus at the Central Diagnostic Lab. The blood draw we did on Owen, Noah, and Ivy yesterday afternoon—is the full genomic sequencing complete?”
“Completed two hours ago, sir,” Vance replied crisply. “Ninety-nine point nine-nine-eight percent direct paternal match on all three children. The documentation is signed, certified, and sealed by the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.”
“Good,” Sebastian said, a terrifying, predatory smile curving the corner of his lips. “Now tell me about the financial audit we initiated on Hart Global Logistics three weeks ago.”
Vance’s stone face cracked into a rare, cold grin. “Victor Hart’s shell companies in Panama have been laundering illicit shipping kickbacks through the Port of Newark. The forensic accountants finished compiling the ledger last night. It’s an airtight RICO case.”
I stared at Sebastian, the breath catching in my throat. “You knew? You knew about her father’s illegal business before all this happened?”
Sebastian looked at me, his eyes softening as he reached out, his thumb gently tracing the dark circle beneath my left eye.
“I didn't want to marry Clarissa, Maya,” he whispered, his touch sending a jolt of raw electricity straight to my heart. “I never loved her. I never touched her. My grandfather forced the engagement three months ago by threatening to liquidate the charitable foundation my mother created for pediatric cancer research. I agreed to the engagement solely to buy time while my investigators dug into Victor Hart’s empire. I was looking for a weapon to destroy the merger from the inside out. I was fighting a war to free myself so I could spend the rest of my life searching for you.”
The air left my lungs. “You were searching for me?”
“Every single day,” Sebastian murmured, his voice thick with four years of buried agony. “I hired four different private intelligence firms. Arthur had Mercer intercept every inquiry, feed them false trails, telling them you had emigrated to Australia. I thought I had lost you forever. Until yesterday morning, when I saw Owen’s eyes by the Bethesda fountain.”
He leaned closer, his forehead resting lightly against mine. The heat radiating from his skin enveloped me, breaking down the final, stubborn barricades of my defenses.
“I am going to end this tonight, Maya,” he breathed against my lips. “There is an annual Metropolitan Heritage Gala tonight at the American Museum of Natural History. The entire high society of Manhattan will be there. Clarissa and her father are hosting the keynote address to launch their public smear campaign against you.”
He pulled back, his silver eyes blazing with a glorious, unholy fire.
“We are going to that gala. You, me, and the legal proof of our family. And I am going to make Clarissa Hart and Victor Hart drown in their own venom on live television.”
“Me?” I gasped, looking down at my worn sneakers, my faded jeans, and my oversized sweater. “Sebastian, I don't belong in that world! I’m a florist from Queens! Those people will tear me apart!”
Sebastian grabbed both of my shoulders, his grip unyielding, his voice ringing with absolute, unshakable conviction.
May you like
“You are not a florist from Queens, Maya. You are the woman who survived four years of impossible odds. You are the mother of the future rulers of the Vale dynasty. And tonight... you are going to walk into that room wearing the Vale family emeralds, on my arm, as my only queen. Let them try to tear you apart. I will burn anyone who even looks at you with disrespect.”
***
