Chapter 6 - The Desperate Gamble
The fluorescent lights of the dingy airport motel room flickered hummed softly, casting a sickly yellow glow over the stained carpet and peeling wallpaper.
Margaret Hawthorne sat on the edge of the saggy queen-sized bed, clutching her chest, weeping uncontrollably as her daughter Beatrice tried to wipe her face with a cheap paper towel. Julian sat in the corner on an overturned plastic ice bucket, staring blankly at his phone, his designer shoes covered in mud.
Daniel paced the small room like a caged animal, his hair wild, his eyes bloodshot, pulling violently at his collar.
"We have to hit back!" Julian suddenly snapped, jumping up from the ice bucket, his face contorted in rage. "She can't just take everything! We have rights! You were married to her for six years, Daniel! Half of everything she owns belongs to you under California community property law!"
"Did you not hear what her lawyer said, you idiot?!" Daniel screamed back, turning on his brother. "The pre-nup I signed was bulletproof! Everything—the house, the company, the cars, the trust—was registered under her family's private trust before I even met her! I don't own a single square inch of anything!"
"Then we go to the press!" Beatrice hissed, her eyes glinting with malice. "We go to the local news channels! We tell them that Victoria Vance, the wealthy heiress, threw her husband and his elderly, sick mother out onto the street in the middle of the night! We destroy her reputation!"
"Do you really think the press is going to side with us?" Daniel laughed bitterly, throwing his hands up. "Victoria’s legal team already released the terrace security footage to the financial press this afternoon!"
Margaret gasped, her head snapping up. "What security footage?!"
Daniel pulled out his phone, holding it up so his mother could see the screen.
It was a headline on the front page of the San Francisco Financial Chronicle:
HAWTHORNE LOGISTICS CEO OUSTED AFTER ATTEMPTING TO EVICT BILLIONAIRE HEIRESS WIFE FROM HER OWN ESTATE
Leaked security footage reveals Daniel Hawthorne demanding wife Victoria Vance apologize to his mother before attempting to seize her two-hundred-thousand-dollar Porsche.
Below the headline was a crystal-clear high-definition video frame of Daniel holding my wrist on the terrace, flanked by Margaret’s triumphant smile, with little Noah cowering near my leg.
The comment section below the article was filled with thousands of brutal, unforgiving reactions:
- "What a complete loser! Pretending to be rich on his wife's money!"
- "Look at the mother smiling while he abuses his wife! Disgusting family!"
- "Glad she took her kid, her Porsche, and her money and bounced! Queen move!"
- "Boycott Hawthorne Logistics! Oh wait, she already fired him!"
Margaret sank back onto the pillows, her face turning completely pale as she realized the depth of their public humiliation. The elite high-society circles she had spent thirty years cultivating—the charity boards, the country clubs, the opera galas—were currently watching her disgrace on their smartphones.
"We're ruined..." Margaret whimpered, her voice cracking into a dry, hollow sob. "Our name... our reputation... it's all gone..."
"No," Daniel said, a dark, desperate light suddenly flashing in his eyes. He stopped pacing, his hands shaking as he pulled his coat back on. "No... there's still one thing she cares about. One thing she will pay anything to protect."
Julian looked at him, his brow furrowing. "What are you talking about, Daniel?"
"Noah," Daniel whispered, a terrifying, predatory smirk spreading across his face. "Victoria doesn't care about the money. She doesn't care about the estate or the company. She only cares about that boy."
"Daniel... what are you planning?" Margaret asked, her voice trembling with sudden fear.
"I'm his father," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a crazy, frantic register. "I still have legal parental rights until a judge says otherwise. If I take Noah tomorrow morning before her lawyers file the emergency custody injunction, she will hand over whatever I ask for just to get him back."
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"That's kidnapping, Daniel!" Beatrice gasped.
"It's not kidnapping if I'm his legal father!" Daniel snapped, grabbing his car keys from the nightstand. "I'm going to get my son. And Victoria is going to pay every single dollar she owes me if she ever wants to see him again."
