Chapter 4 - The Man Who Said He Was Her Father
The custody hearing was set for six weeks later. Six weeks, Victoria's lawyers told her, was not a lot of time. But Victoria Harrington had built a billion-dollar empire by doing in six weeks what other people did in six years.
She hired the best family law attorney in the state — a woman named Eleanor Voss, who had never lost a custody case. She had Daniel Cross investigated from every angle. She found his arrests. She found his ex-girlfriends. She found the three different states he had lived in under three different names. She found the child support he had never paid, the jobs he had quit, the lies he had told.
And she found something else. Something that made her blood run cold.
Daniel Cross had not found Lily by accident. Two months before he showed up at Rose's door, he had been paid fifty thousand dollars by a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. The shell company was owned by another shell company, which was owned by a third. But Margaret, Victoria's investigator, was very, very good at her job.
The trail ended at Blackwood Capital.
Marcus Blackwood.
Victoria knew the name. Everyone in finance knew the name. Marcus Blackwood was the kind of man who bought companies the way other people bought groceries — quickly, cheaply, and without sentiment. He had been trying to get his hands on Harrington Financial for a decade. Victoria's father had blocked him. Victoria had blocked him. And now, apparently, he had found another way in.
"He's using Daniel Cross as a weapon," Victoria told Eleanor Voss, in the glass-walled conference room on the fortieth floor of Harrington Tower. "If Cross gets custody of Lily, he gets control of the trust. Fifty million dollars. But more than that — Lily is a Harrington. She has a claim to the family shares. If Blackwood controls Cross, and Cross controls Lily, then Blackwood has a seat at our table. A very big seat."
Eleanor Voss flipped through the file. "We can bring this up in court. Show that Cross is a paid proxy. That his interest in his daughter is financially motivated."
"Do it," Victoria said. "But be careful. Blackwood is smart. He won't have left a paper trail that's easy to follow."
She was right. And Marcus Blackwood was not just smart — he was ruthless.
Three days before the hearing, the story broke.
Billionaire Victoria Harrington Accused of Kidnapping Eight-Year-Old Flower Girl.
The headlines were everywhere. The tabloids. The morning shows. The internet. Daniel Cross had given an interview — tearful, rehearsed, devastatingly effective — in which he claimed that Victoria Harrington had "stolen" his daughter, that she had used her money and power to "bully" a grieving father out of his child's life, that she had even gone so far as to drug the child with a fake DNA test to prove a false relation.
It was all lies. Every word. But lies, Victoria knew, traveled faster than truth. And by the time the truth put its shoes on, the lies were already on the evening news.
The board of Harrington Financial called an emergency meeting.
"Victoria, this is a disaster," said Arthur Pendleton, the oldest member of the board. He had been her father's friend. He had held her at her father's funeral. And now he was looking at her like she was a liability. "Your personal life is affecting the company. The stock is down eight percent. Blackwood is buying. If this keeps up —"
"If this keeps up, Arthur, Blackwood will have his hostile takeover. Which is exactly what he wants. This is not a scandal. This is an attack. And I will not step down. I will not back down. And I will not apologize for finding my sister's daughter."
She stood up. The boardroom was silent. "I have given this company twenty years of my life. I have doubled its value. I have steered it through two recessions and one pandemic. If you want to question my judgment now — because I chose to protect an eight-year-old child — then you can call a vote. But until that vote passes, I am still the CEO. And I am still going to win this."
She walked out. She did not look back. But in the elevator, alone, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She was tired. She was so, so tired. And she was scared — not for herself, but for Lily. For Rose. For the fragile, beautiful thing they had built in six short weeks.
Her phone buzzed. It was the school. Lily had gotten into a fight.
Victoria arrived at the elementary school in ten minutes. Lily was sitting in the principal's office, her lip split, her knuckles scraped, her chin held high. Across from her sat a boy with a black eye, crying into his mother's shoulder.
"She hit him," the principal said, as if this were the most shocking thing that had ever happened. "She hit him three times."
Victoria knelt down in front of Lily. "What happened, sweetheart?"
Lily's eyes were wet, but she did not cry. "He said — he said you stole me. He said I was a gold-digger and my abuela was a criminal and — and he said my mom was a whore. So I hit him."
Victoria stared at her. Then she did something that made the principal's jaw drop. She laughed.
"Lily," she said, wiping a tear from the child's cheek, "you are never, ever, ever allowed to hit anyone again. Do you hear me? Never. But I want you to know something. I am proud of you. I am proud that you stood up for your family. And I am going to make sure that no one ever says those things about you again."
She turned to the principal. "The boy started it. He verbally assaulted my niece in front of witnesses. My niece responded inappropriately, and she will be disciplined — at home, by me. But I will also be speaking to the school board about the culture of bullying that allowed this to happen. And I will be suing the parents of that boy for defamation, because those words came from somewhere, and I intend to find out where."
She took Lily's hand. "We're leaving."
In the car, Lily was quiet. Then she said, very small, "Victoria? Am I a gold-digger?"
Victoria pulled the car over. She turned in her seat and looked at this child — this brave, bruised, beautiful child — and she said, with every ounce of conviction she possessed: "Lily, listen to me. You are the richest person I know. Because you know how to love. You know how to work. You know how to stand up for the people you love. Money doesn't make you rich, sweetheart. Character does. And you have more character in your little finger than that boy's whole family will ever have."
Lily nodded. She did not smile, but some of the weight lifted from her shoulders. "Can we go see Abuela? I don't want her to see me like this."
"Of course."
But when they got to the apartment, Rose was not there.
The door was open. The oxygen tank was gone. The television was still on, playing a soap opera Rose loved. And on the kitchen table, held down by a coffee mug, was a single sheet of paper.
Victoria picked it up. Her hands went cold.
It was a note. It said: If you ever want to see your grandmother alive again, withdraw the restraining order. Drop the custody case. And stay away from Daniel Cross. You have 48 hours.
Lily saw the look on Victoria's face. "What is it? Victoria, what's wrong? Where's Abuela?"
Victoria folded the note. She put it in her pocket. She knelt down in front of Lily, and she made her voice steady, even though her world was falling apart.
"Sweetheart," she said. "I need you to be very brave right now. Can you do that? Can you be very, very brave for me?"
Lily nodded. Her eyes were wide.
"Good. Because we're going to get her back. I promise you. We are going to get Rose back. And whoever did this — whoever took her — is going to regret it for the rest of their very short lives."
She called Margaret. She called the police. She called Eleanor Voss. And then she called Marcus Blackwood.
He answered on the third ring. His voice was amused. "Victoria. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Where is she, Marcus?"
"Where is who, Victoria?"
"Don't play games with me. Rose Martinez. The grandmother. She's been taken. And I know it's you."
Blackwood was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed. "Victoria, Victoria. You always were too quick to jump to conclusions. I'm a businessman. I don't kidnap old ladies. But I will tell you this. You have something I want. And I have something — or someone — you want. Maybe it's time we sat down and talked. Like adults."
Victoria's grip on the phone tightened. "If you hurt her —"
"Nobody's hurting anybody, Victoria. Not yet. But the clock is ticking. Forty-eight hours, wasn't it? I'd start moving if I were you."
He hung up.
Victoria stood in the middle of Rose's apartment, surrounded by the smell of cinnamon and roses, and she felt something inside her turn to stone. Marcus Blackwood had made a mistake. He had taken the one person who mattered more to Lily than anything else in the world. And in doing so, he had turned Victoria Harrington — already the most dangerous woman in New York — into something else entirely.
May you like
He had turned her into a mother fighting for her child.
And mothers, Victoria knew, did not fight fair.
