Chapter 8 - The Confrontation
Two days later, I was discharged.
I didn't leave through the underground parking garage like a fugitive.
I walked out through the main grand entrance of Mount Sinai, dressed in an ivory wool coat, my hair styled, holding Aurelia securely against my chest in a custom velvet sling. Marcus Vance walked beside me, his ebony cane clicking against the granite steps, surrounded by our private security detail.
Waiting on the sidewalk behind the velvet ropes were dozens of photojournalists and reporters.
And standing in the center of the pavement, held back by two security guards, was Daniel Sterling.
He looked unhinged.
His designer suit was wrinkled, stained, and reeked of stale sweat. His hair was greasy, his eyes bloodshot and hollowed out with dark, purple bruises of exhaustion. He hadn't shaved in three days.
When he saw me, he lunged forward against the security guard’s arm. “Vivienne! Vivienne, please! Look at me! Just look at me for one second!”
The reporters’ cameras clicked furiously, flashes exploding like lightning in the crisp morning air.
I stopped at the top of the marble steps.
I looked down at him.
“Let him speak,” I told Briggs quietly.
The security guard released his grip. Daniel stumbled forward, catching himself on the handrail, panting like an exhausted dog.
“Vivienne,” Daniel wept, tears cutting clean streaks through the grime on his face. “Vivienne, baby... look at what they’re doing to us. The press is destroying my life. My father is in federal prison! They seized our house! The locks were changed on the brownstone yesterday! I have nowhere to go! I slept in my car!”
“You had a choice, Daniel,” I said, my voice carrying over the clicking cameras, cold and steady. “In that ballroom, you had a choice between the woman carrying your child and the monsters who raised you. You made your choice.”
“I was scared!” Daniel screamed, dropping to both knees on the concrete, right in front of the flashing cameras. “I didn't know what to do! My mother has controlled me my whole life! You know how she is! You know how terrifying she can be! I just wanted to keep the peace!”
“You didn't want to keep the peace,” I said, stepping down one step, looking down at him from the heights of a world he would never touch again. “You wanted your inheritance. You wanted your mother’s approval. You thought I was nobody, so my dignity cost you nothing.”
I reached into the pocket of my coat and pulled out a single folded document.
I tossed it onto the concrete at his knees.
Daniel grabbed it frantically, his eyes scanning the bold, black print: **FINAL DECREE OF DISSOLUTION AND VOLUNTARY TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS.**
At the bottom of the page was his own desperate signature from two days ago, right beside mine.
“You signed away your daughter for the promise of a trust fund that doesn't exist,” I said. “The Sterling Group assets have already been liquidated at public auction. My father bought the debt notes for eleven cents on the dollar and dissolved the company this morning.”
Daniel stared at the paper. His jaw trembled. “No... no, Victoria said... Victoria said if I signed, there would be a settlement! She said you would give me a stipend!”
“Victoria lied,” Marcus Vance said from beside me, his voice a low, terrifying rumble. “Corporate warfare, Daniel. You play it every day, don't you? Except this time, you weren't playing against an intern. You were playing against me.”
Daniel’s face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated madness. He looked up at Aurelia, who was sleeping peacefully against my chest, oblivious to the pathetic creature kneeling on the stone.
“That’s my daughter!” Daniel shrieked, scrambling to stand up. “That’s a Sterling! You can't take my blood! Give her to me!”
He didn't even make it half a step.
Briggs stepped forward, caught Daniel by the collar of his filthy jacket, and drove him face-first into the concrete with a single, controlled motion.
Two NYPD officers, who had been standing beside the media barricade, immediately stepped in, pulling Daniel’s arms behind his back and clicking heavy steel cuffs around his wrists.
“Daniel Sterling,” the officer said loudly for the press microphones. “You are under arrest for violating an active emergency order of protection, criminal trespassing, and harassment.”
Daniel thrashed against the pavement, screaming, his face pressed against the cold stone right beside the dropped divorce decree. “Vivienne! You can't do this to me! I’m Daniel Sterling! I’m a Sterling! You’re nothing without me! You’re just a penniless nobody!”
The crowd of reporters scoffed openly. One photographer laughed.
I didn't look back.
I walked down the remaining steps, stepped into the warm, leather interior of my father’s armored Maybach, and sat down.
My father climbed in beside me, pulling the door shut.
The heavy door sealed with that familiar, hydraulic click. The sound of Daniel’s screaming, the shouting of the reporters, the roar of the Manhattan traffic—all of it vanished behind double-paned acoustic glass.
There was only silence.
May you like
And the soft, rhythmic breathing of my baby girl.
***
