Chapter 3 - Blood Ties and Broken Egos
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
Margaret slowly lowered herself into a nearby chair, her knuckles turning pale against the armrests. “What did you just say?”
Serena was shaking so violently that her teeth clattered together. I walked over to the side table, poured a glass of warm water from the carafe, and knelt beside her, forcing her trembling fingers around the glass.
“Drink this,” I said, keeping my tone firm and steady. “And stop speaking in riddles. If Tristan knew Leo wasn't his, why did he pretend to be blindsided in front of us today? Why did he ask you if you knew there was a chance the baby wasn't his?”
Serena took a ragged sip, water spilling down the front of her soaked sweater.
“Because Tristan is an actor,” she whispered, staring into the dark amber liquid. “He wanted an audience. He needed his mother and you to witness him acting shocked so that when he took everything, he would look like the noble, wounded victim.”
“Took everything?” Margaret asked, her voice dangerously quiet. “What is he trying to take?”
“The settlement from the Rotterdam accident,” Serena said, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. “The scaffolding didn't just collapse on Tristan by accident. It collapsed because the senior structural engineer—Julian Vance—cut corners on the steel bracing.”
I froze. “Julian Vance? Tristan’s cousin?”
“Yes,” Serena said, looking up at Margaret. “Your nephew. Julian was the project director for North Sea Infrastructure. When the site failed, Julian knew he was facing criminal negligence charges and prison time. But Tristan survived. And instead of suing Julian or the company, Tristan made a deal behind closed doors.”
Margaret gasped, her hand flying to her throat. Julian was the son of her late husband’s estranged brother—a family branch that had moved to Belgium thirty years ago and made a fortune in maritime construction.
“What kind of deal?” I demanded.
“Julian was having an affair with me,” Serena confessed, her voice dropping to an ashamed whisper. “I was Julian’s personal assistant. When I found out I was pregnant in late September, Julian panicked. He had a prominent wife, a family name to protect, and millions in corporate stock at stake. He couldn't afford a public scandal on top of a criminal investigation for the bridge collapse.”
The puzzle pieces began slamming into place with terrifying precision.
“So Tristan stepped in,” I said, the bile rising in my throat.
“Tristan agreed to claim the baby as his own,” Serena said, tears running freely down her face. “In exchange, Julian signed over three million euros from a private offshore fund into *Vance & Laurent Holdings*. Tristan was supposed to bring me to America, legally adopt Leo, divorce you, and claim that he was financially ruined by medical bills so Julian’s money would remain untouched in Europe. Tristan told me you were cold, that you only married him for his potential, and that you were draining his mother’s money while he was away.”
“He lied to you,” I said, my voice cold as ice.
“I know that now!” Serena cried softly. “The moment we landed in New York, he changed. He took my passport. He took Leo’s birth certificate. He told me that if I ever spoke to Julian again, or if I told anyone about the Luxembourg account, he would use his legal status as Leo’s registered father to take my son away from me and put me on a plane back to France with nothing!”
She grabbed the hem of my trousers, looking up at me with pure, unadulterated desperation.
“He doesn't love Leo! He doesn't love me! He just wanted the three million euros, and he needed a family to parade around so Julian’s board of directors wouldn't suspect the money was a bribe to cover up the safety violations! Claire... please. I don't care about the money. I don't care about Tristan. Just don't let him take my baby.”
Margaret slowly stood up. The fragile, aging woman who had leaned on me for three years seemed to vanish, replaced by the matriarch of an old, proud family whose honor had been dragged through the gutter by her own flesh and blood.
She walked over to the desk, picked up the heavy landline telephone, and dialed a number from memory.
“Margaret, who are you calling?” I asked.
“Arthur Pendelton,” Margaret replied, her voice steady and lethal. “The best criminal defense attorney in this state, and an old friend of my husband. If my son thinks he can turn my home into a staging ground for international extortion and human trafficking, he is about to learn what happens when a mother stops protecting her child.”
Before Margaret could finish dialing, the French doors burst open with a deafening crash.
Tristan stood framed against the black night, drenched in rain, his eyes blazing with madness. He had a heavy iron tire iron in his right hand, his knuckles white, his chest heaving like a wounded beast.
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“You stupid b*tch,” Tristan snarled, glaring directly at Serena, who screamed and scrambled backward behind the desk. “Did you really think you could run to them?”
***
