Chapter 7 - MY EX-WIFE CAME FOR THE CHILDREN
Victoria fired.
The bullet struck the steel beside Marina’s hand.
I crossed the stage before she could fire again and hit her arm with a broken piece of railing. The gun slid into the orchestra pit.
Victoria clawed at my injured shoulder.
“You always arrive after someone else pays the price,” she hissed.
I pushed her away and dropped to my knees beside Marina.
“Take my wrist.”
The stage groaned beneath us.
Marina looked down at Lucas, then back at me.
“Get him first.”
“I cannot reach him until you’re safe.”
She caught my wrist.
A federal agent grabbed my belt while I pulled her over the edge. The moment she reached solid flooring, she turned and lowered the steel cable toward Lucas.
Together, agents lifted him from the platform.
Victoria disappeared through the burning backstage corridor.
Police pursued but found only her red coat beside an emergency exit. The diamond snowflake brooch remained pinned to the collar.
She had abandoned the symbol Blythe recognized.
She was not finished.
Lucas was transported to the hospital with a concussion and smoke inhalation. Marina rode beside him. She held his hand, but he drifted in and out of awareness.
When the twins saw him the next morning, they stopped in the doorway.
Lucas opened his eyes.
“Firefly,” he whispered.
Blythe ran first.
Juny followed half a second later, climbing onto the bed despite three nurses telling her not to.
The girls pressed themselves against their father while Marina covered her mouth.
I stepped into the hallway.
That reunion did not belong to me.
Mrs. Gable joined me.
“You saved them,” she said.
“I helped repair something my company broke.”
“You could allow yourself one decent feeling.”
“I don’t know how.”
“That is obvious.”
Mrs. Gable had worked for my family since I was twelve. She was the only employee who occasionally spoke to me as though I were still a stubborn boy tracking mud through the kitchen.
Lucas’s recovery came slowly.
He remembered the elevator failure and waking in Reeve’s clinic. He remembered Marcus telling him Marina died because Lucas refused to cooperate. He remembered escaping, living beneath Oakridge, and seeing Blythe through the heating vent.
He did not remember everything he did while drugged.
Marina sat beside him through the worst confusion.
Watching them together forced me to confront a feeling I had no right to possess.
I cared for Marina.
Not because she needed rescue. Not because the twins had transformed my empty estate. Not because guilt demanded attachment.
I cared for her because she challenged every easy story I told about myself.
She also had a living husband.
Whatever emotions existed inside me were mine to manage, not hers to carry.
Three days after Lucas woke, the state child-protection agency arrived with an emergency custody order for Juny and Blythe.
The petition claimed Marina exposed the children to dangerous individuals, concealed evidence in a criminal investigation, and lacked stable housing. It also described Lucas as mentally incompetent.
The order named the temporary guardian.
Victoria Waverly.
Marina read the document and began shaking.
“She tried to kill us.”
The caseworker, Elaine Porter, avoided her eyes.
“The court reviewed evidence submitted by the Waverly Family Foundation. Mrs. Waverly has been a licensed emergency foster sponsor for eleven years.”
“Those records are fraudulent,” I said.
Porter’s expression hardened. “Mr. Waverly, your estate is currently tied to an ongoing criminal investigation. You are not an approved placement.”
Juny hid behind Marina.
Blythe gripped Lucas’s hospital blanket.
Allison arrived with Marina’s independent attorney. They requested an immediate judicial review, but the order authorized removal before the hearing.
Federal agents could not interfere with a state family-court order without proof the judge was compromised.
We had thirty minutes.
I wanted to lock the hospital doors.
I wanted to surround the girls with guards and dare anyone to approach.
That would have confirmed every accusation.
Marina crouched before her daughters.
“You’re going with Mrs. Gable for a little while.”
“No,” Juny said.
“It’s not Victoria,” Marina assured her. “Mrs. Gable has been approved as an emergency caregiver.”
Allison had found a lawful alternative. Mrs. Gable maintained an independent residence on the estate grounds and had previously fostered children before working for my family.
Porter resisted, but the order permitted transfer to any approved placement.
Mrs. Gable signed the papers.
Victoria’s plan failed.
For the moment.
That evening, the judge who issued the order was arrested after investigators found payments from a Waverly Foundation account. Porter admitted Victoria pressured her supervisor to accelerate the removal.
The twins returned to Marina and Lucas.
But the attack exposed the depth of Victoria’s influence.
She could weaponize shelters, hospitals, courts, and charities while appearing benevolent.
The board called another emergency meeting.
This time, directors removed me as chief executive.
The stock price had fallen forty percent. Federal investigations paralyzed projects. Investors demanded “stable leadership.”
Nathaniel, still recovering, voted against removal.
The motion passed anyway.
The board appointed Charles Benton as interim CEO.
Records later showed Benton had received payments from Marcus.
I walked out of Waverly headquarters carrying one cardboard box.
After twenty years, security disabled my badge before I reached the elevator.
Reporters crowded the sidewalk.
“Did you knowingly sign illegal eviction orders?”
“Are you romantically involved with Marina Vale?”
“Did you stage the Oakridge rescue to protect your reputation?”
I answered only the first question.
“I signed an order I failed to read with the care human lives deserved. That failure was real. The criminal alterations do not erase it.”
At the estate, Marina waited in the library.
Lucas had asked to stay at the hospital for additional treatment. The twins slept upstairs.
“I heard about the board,” Marina said.
“They were correct that I failed.”
“That is not why they removed you.”
“No.”
She studied the cardboard box.
“What will you do now?”
“Finish the investigation.”
“You no longer control the company.”
“I still control my shares.”
“Until your father’s trust gives them to Victoria.”
Nathaniel’s warning returned.
The contingency transfer would activate if I were formally charged with misconduct connected to Oakridge. Benton could supply evidence. Victoria could emerge as the “responsible” replacement.
Marina removed a sealed envelope from her coat.
“Lucas remembered where he hid the original audit.”
“Where?”
“Inside Buttons.”
The one-eared teddy bear had belonged to Lucas as a child. Before the elevator accident, he stitched a microdrive into its missing ear and told Marina never to discard it.
Blythe carried the evidence through the blizzard.
She carried it into the basement where she was kidnapped.
She carried it past Victoria’s people without anyone understanding its value.
Marina handed me the drive.
Before I could take it, the estate lights went out.
Upstairs, glass shattered.
Juny screamed.
We ran toward the staircase.
A smoke grenade rolled across the foyer.
Through the haze, two masked figures carried the twins toward the open front doors.
May you like
This time, Victoria had not brought a court order.
She had come for the children herself.
