Chapter 9
Julian slowly lifted his eyes from the paper. He looked at Callie, who was cowering against the wall, unable to meet his gaze. Then he looked at Doreen, whose eyes were darting frantically toward the door.
"You..." Julian’s voice was barely a whisper, a sound of profound, devastating betrayal. "You tried to take my son?"
"Julian, listen to me!" Doreen begged, her voice rising into a panicked shriek. "It was for the family! Callie can't have children! And the debts—your father made a mistake with the investments! We needed the land rights to save the company from bankruptcy!"
"You tried to steal my child from my wife while she was recovering from surgery?!" Julian roared, the sudden, explosive fury in his voice making the chandelier overhead vibrate.
He lunged forward, slamming the torn papers onto the small coffee table with enough force to rattle the crystal glasses. He towered over his mother, his hands shaking with violent, righteous rage.
"I gave you everything!" Julian yelled, tears of pure fury burning in his eyes. "I worked eighty hours a week so you could live in that Greenwich mansion! I bailed Father out of his bad loans three times! And you repay me by trying to kidnap my newborn boy?!"
"Julian, please!" Callie cried out, reaching for his coat. "We didn't hurt them! We were going to give him a good life! He would have had everything!"
Julian ripped his coat away from his sister's grasp as if her skin were poisonous. "You are dead to me. Both of you. Do you hear me? If you ever come within a mile of my wife or my children again, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your lives in a state penitentiary."
Doreen let out a bitter, ugly laugh from her chair, her mascara smeared across her bruised face.
"You think you have the power to put us in prison, Julian?" Doreen sneered, her desperation turning into venomous malice. "Look at your wife! Look at the thugs standing behind her! She’s not the innocent little cleaner you brought home! She’s a criminal! She’s the head of the Vale Syndicate! When the board finds out you married into a mafia dynasty, your career will be finished! You will be ruined!"
Julian froze.
The room fell into an absolute, breathless silence.
Julian slowly turned around, his eyes locking onto Seraphina. He looked at her calm, aristocratic posture, the tailored suits of the four men standing guard, and the dark platinum serpent signet ring resting on her finger.
The pieces of the puzzle—the private security, the locked hospital wing, the strange deference Chief Pierce had shown—began to align with terrifying, undeniable clarity.
"Sera..." Julian whispered, his voice trembling as he looked into her grey eyes. "What is she talking about?"
Seraphina did not look away. She did not flinch. She sat with her chin raised, regal, beautiful, and completely unapologetic.
"She is telling the truth, Julian," Seraphina said softly, her voice filled with quiet, devastating honesty. "My name is Seraphina Vale. I am the daughter of Dominic Vale, and for the last four years, I have run this city’s northern docks, its transport unions, and its private holdings."
May you like
Julian took a slow step backward, the air leaving his lungs. "You... you lied to me?"
"I never lied to you about who I am with you, Julian," Seraphina said, reaching out her hand toward him. "I loved the man who gave me half his sandwich in an empty office building. I loved the man who didn't care about power or blood. But when your family brought the wolves to my children’s cradle, I had to remind them whose house they were standing in."
