Chapter 9: The Last Move
I took a photograph of the screen with my own phone before Sloan could close the app.
"Don't delete it," I said.
"Don't respond to it.
Don't touch it."
She set her phone down like it had burned her.
"He was there," she said.
"That night.
He was outside the hospital."
"Or he paid someone to be." I was already texting Marcus.
"Either way, he kept it.
He held onto that photo for four weeks and waited to use it."
"What does he think it proves?" Her voice had gone flat, the way it did when she was frightened and refusing to show it.
"Nothing.
It proves nothing.
It's a photograph of a woman leaving a hospital." I looked at her.
"But it's designed to make you feel watched.
To make you feel like he has more than he does.
It's a pressure tactic."
"It's working," she said quietly.
Willa had fallen asleep in the bouncer.
The apartment was very still.
"He's running out of moves," I said.
"The bar referral went in this afternoon.
Petra's statement is being formalized.
The DA's office called Marcus an hour ago — they're opening a file." I sat down on the floor beside her, my back against the couch.
"This photo is what someone does when they have nothing left that actually works."
Sloan looked at the sleeping baby.
"What if he does something worse?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know." She pulled her knees up.
"He threatened to contest paternity.
He had someone photograph me at the hospital.
He sent a threat from a prepaid phone this morning." She turned to look at me directly.
"Vincent, I have been alone with your daughter in this apartment for three months.
He knew I was here.
He could have—" She stopped.
"He didn't," I said.
"He didn't yet."
I held her gaze.
"I'm going to call a security firm tonight.
Someone in the building, someone on the door, until this is resolved.
And I'm going to ask Marcus to request an emergency protective order based on the photo and the prepaid text."
She studied me.
"You've thought about this already."
"On the way home."
She was quiet.
Then: "You're not going to London next week."
"No."
"Or Dubai."
"No."
She looked away.
Something shifted in her face — not relief exactly, but the careful, guarded thing that lives just before relief, in the moment when you want to believe something but don't yet trust that it will hold.
"I need you to understand something," she said.
"I'm not going to let Willa be used as the reason you stay.
If you're here because of her and not because you actually want to rebuild something, then I need to know that now.
Because I can't do this halfway.
I did this halfway for three years and it nearly—" She stopped.
Breathed.
"I need the whole thing or I need you to be her father and nothing more.
Those are the only two options I have left."
It was the most honest thing she had said to me since I walked through the door.
Maybe the most honest thing she had said to me in years.
"I ended our marriage," I said, "because I told myself I was better alone.
That I worked better alone.
That I was cleaner and more efficient and less distracted without anyone waiting for me." I looked at Willa.
"Four weeks ago I was in Singapore celebrating a deal.
I didn't know my daughter existed.
I didn't know she had stopped breathing twice.
I didn't know you were here, alone, paying forty-three thousand dollars and fighting my brother's threats in the middle of the night." I looked back at Sloan.
"I was wrong about being better alone.
I was wrong about most of it."
She didn't say anything.
"I'm not asking you to trust that overnight," I said.
"I'm asking you to let me show you.
Over time.
Here."
Sloan looked at me for a long moment.
Then she looked at Willa.
"Okay," she said.
Same word as before.
But it carried more weight this time.
Marcus called at nine that evening.
I put it on speaker.
"The DA's office moved faster than expected," he said.
"They executed a search warrant on Dominic's apartment this afternoon.
They recovered the prepaid phone, a printed copy of the false narrative he prepared against Petra, and—" A brief pause.
"A second letter.
Addressed to you.
Unsent."
"What did it say?"
"It was an offer," Marcus said.
"He was going to propose that you pay him two million dollars to destroy the edit log and sign a statement saying the clause had been a mutual agreement." He paused again.
"He hadn't sent it yet.
I think he was waiting to see how far the board process went before he played it."
Sloan's hand found my arm.
She didn't say anything.
Just left it there.
"Attempted extortion," I said.
"That's how the DA is framing it," Marcus said.
"Combined with the document tampering and the coercion of Petra Voss, they're looking at multiple counts.
His attorney called me an hour ago asking about cooperation terms."
"Tell them the terms are full disclosure and full cooperation," I said.
"And tell them that any deal goes through the DA, not through me."
"Understood." A pause.
"Vincent.
It's done.
He has nothing left to threaten you with."
After Marcus hung up, Sloan and I sat in the quiet for a while.
Willa slept.
The city moved outside the windows, indifferent and continuous.
"It's not fully done," Sloan said eventually.
"The legal process will take time."
"It will."
"But he can't hurt us anymore."
I looked at her.
"No.
He can't."
She nodded slowly.
Then she stood, picked up Willa with the practiced ease of someone who had done it ten thousand times in four weeks, and carried her toward the bedroom.
At the door she stopped and looked back.
"Come see her settled," she said.
May you like
"You should know what that looks like."
I followed her.
