Chapter 4 - The Patriarch’s ShadowMy mother did not make social calls unless there was a hostile takeover in progress or a family scandal threatening to leak into the Wall Street Journal.
I stared at the glowing screen for three seconds before pressing the answer button and putting it on speaker, keeping my eyes locked on Sloan.
“Mother,” I said, my voice devoid of warmth.
“Vincent,” Eleanor Vance’s patrician, perfectly modulated voice echoed through the quiet suite. “I heard the most absurd rumor from the legal registry downtown. Apparently, one of my executive assistants noticed an emergency guardianship and paternity filing bearing your name and a confidential infant case number at NYU Langone.”
I didn't blink. “It’s not a rumor.”
A sharp, incredulous intake of breath hissed through the receiver. “Are you out of your mind? A child? Without consulting me, without vetting the mother’s background, without even ensuring proper legal structuring for the family trust? Who is the mother? Some opportunistic gold-digger who trapped you while you were traveling?”
Sloan flinched visibly as if she had been struck across the face.
The cold fury that had been simmering in my chest instantly boiled over into a murderous rage. I took two rapid steps toward the bedside table, snatched the phone, and brought it directly to my ear.
“Listen to me very carefully, Mother,” I hissed, every single syllable dropping like a frozen icicle. “If you ever speak of my wife—or my daughter—in that tone of voice again, I will personally strip every asset, every board seat, and every cent of discretionary funding from your philanthropic foundation before the sun sets today.”
Silence crashed over the line. For thirty years, no one—not rival CEOs, not federal regulators, not even my own father—had spoken to Eleanor Vance that way.
“Vincent... you are threatening your own mother over a...” she spluttered, losing her legendary composure.
“I am warning you,” I interrupted, my voice lethal. “Willa Vance is my legitimate heir, and Sloan is the only woman who matters in this penthouse. If you attempt to interfere, if you send lawyers, if you send private investigators, or if you ever mention the word gold-digger again, you will spend the rest of your retirement living off state welfare checks. Do I make myself clear?”
“You’re making a catastrophic mistake,” she whispered furiously before the line went dead with a sharp click.
I lowered the phone, my hand trembling slightly with adrenaline. When I turned back around, Sloan was staring at me, her mouth slightly parted in shock.
“You... you didn't have to do that,” she whispered. “Your mother controls half the social establishment in Manhattan. She can make life very difficult for you in high-society circles.”
“Let her try,” I said, tossing the phone onto the blanket. “High society can burn to the ground for all I care. Nobody insults my family.”
Sloan’s expression softened, a complex shadow crossing her green eyes. “Your family... you still call us that.”
“You are my family, Sloan,” I said, stepping closer to her, closing the distance until I could smell the faint scent of lavender and baby lotion on her sweater. “I’m the one who walked away. I’m the one who screwed up our marriage because I was too arrogant to realize that building a home requires more than just paying the mortgage.”
She looked down, biting her lower lip. “We were miserable at the end, Vincent. Don't rewrite history. You were working eighty-hour weeks, and I was drowning in a house that felt like a museum.”
“We were miserable because we stopped talking,” I corrected gently, reaching out to brush a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. My fingers grazed her cheek, and she shivered involuntarily at the contact. “We let ambition and silence build a wall between us. But I’m not letting you build another one now.”
Before she could answer, a sharp, urgent beep echoed from the medical monitoring console by the bassinet.
Dr. Harrison Vance spun around from the computer screens, his face instantly draining of color.
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“Vincent! Sloan! Look at her vitals!” Harrison shouted, rushing over to the bassinet.
My heart stopped. I bolted across the room, shoving past the medical equipment, my entire world instantly narrowing down to the tiny, fragile form of my daughter.
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