"My mob boss ex-husband claimed on live TV he had no children—unaware his 10-year-old twins were watching."

Sophie stepped forward beside her brother, smoothing the skirt of her blue sparkly dress with a regal grace that made every socialite in the room gasp.

"We didn't forge anything, Grandmother," Sophie spoke, her bright gray eyes fixing on Victoria with a cold, terrifying disdain that mirrored Ethan’s own signature glare. "Though if you keep screaming, you're going to ruin the press photos being taken by the four journalists standing near the bar."

Victoria choked on her own breath, looking over her shoulder to see four independent news photographers rapidly snapping pictures of the confrontation.

Ethan dropped flat onto his knees right on the red carpet before the two ten-year-old children.

The sight of the four-billion-dollar crime boss of Chicago kneeling in his tailored three-piece suit in front of two children made the surrounding lieutenants look at each other in total, speech-bound awe.

Tears—real, heavy, unadulterated tears—spilled over Ethan’s eyelashes, cutting clean tracks through his severe, carved face.

"Ten years..." Ethan choked out, his voice breaking into broken, pathetic sobs as he looked at Noah and Sophie. "Ten years... I had children...? I had twins...?"

He reached out his broad, calloused hands toward them, his fingers trembling, desperate to touch their small arms, yet terrified that his touch would make them disappear like a ghost.

Noah didn't flinch away, but he didn't step into his embrace either.

"Ten years ago," Noah revealed, every word dropped into the quiet ballroom like a heavy block of cold iron, "you threw thirty dollars at our mother's feet in the pouring rain. You told her she was trash. You told her to get out of your life."

Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, letting out an agonizing, guttural groan of pure, unadulterated remorse that vibrated straight through his chest.

"And for ten years," Noah continued, "our mother worked two jobs, paid for our schooling, sat awake through our feverish nights, and built a life for us without a single cent from Sullivan Holdings."

Noah pulled a small leather ledger from his inner tuxedo pocket, opening it with practiced, business-like precision.

"According to Illinois family law and your public tax filings," Noah stated, looking down at his ledger, "you owe our mother forty-two million dollars in retroactive back child support, plus interest. However, as I told my mother yesterday... I am willing to waive the punitive interest fees if you assign ten percent of Sullivan Logistics’ voting shares directly into a private startup fund managed by me."