Chapter 6 - THE LION’S VISIT“Sebastian!”

The pounding on our apartment door wasn't polite. It was heavy, rhythmic, and terrifying. The entire door frame shuddered under the force of the blows.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” Ivy whimpered, running from the kitchen and burying her face in the hem of my sweatpants.

I scooped her up into my arms, pressing her face against my shoulder, while Noah and Owen huddled near the kitchen island, wide-eyed and trembling.

Sebastian stepped in front of us, his broad shoulders shielding my children, his face hardening into an expression of pure ice. He didn't even look back at me when he spoke.

“Get the kids into the back bedroom. Lock the door. Do not come out no matter what you hear.”

“Sebastian, I’m not running from your family anymore,” I said, my voice shaking but fierce.

“Maya, please,” he turned his head, his eyes locking onto mine with desperate intensity. “Trust me just this once. Let me handle my bloodline. Protect our children.”

The weight of those words—our children—hung in the air. I nodded once, grabbed Noah and Owen by the hands, and rushed them into the back bedroom, locking the heavy bolt behind us. I pulled out my phone with a trembling hand, dialing 911, keeping my finger hovering over the call button.

Out in the living room, Sebastian unlocked the front door and pulled it open.

Standing in the hallway was his grandfather, Arthur Vale, flanked by two towering private bodyguards in dark sunglasses.

Arthur leaned heavily on his silver-headed cane, looking around the modest, peeling hallway with undisguised contempt before his cold gaze landed on his grandson.

“Have you completely lost your mind, boy?” Arthur’s voice boomed through the thin walls of the apartment, easily reaching my ears through the closed bedroom door. “Sleeping in your car outside a tenement building like a lovesick teenager? Throwing away forty years of family legacy for a broke girl and three bastards?”

“They aren't bastards, Grandfather,” Sebastian’s voice cut back like a razor blade. “And keep your voice down. You’re scaring my children.”

“Your children?” Arthur let out a harsh, barking laugh. “You have no proof they carry Vale blood! They could belong to any street mechanic in Brooklyn!”

“I looked into my son’s eyes yesterday,” Sebastian roared, the sound shaking the apartment walls. “They are my eyes! They are your eyes! And thanks to the files I pulled last night, I know exactly why I never knew they existed!”

A sudden, heavy silence fell over the living room.

“What are you talking about?” Arthur’s voice lost a fraction of its booming confidence.

“I heard the recording, Grandfather,” Sebastian said quietly, dangerously. “I heard you telling Daniel Mercer to offer Maya fifty thousand dollars to disappear, and if she refused, to make sure she was ruined so thoroughly she’d never dare show her face near Vale Tower again. You stole my wife. You stole my children. You stole four years of my life.”

“I protected this family!” Arthur shouted back, his rage flaring up. “That girl was a liability! She was an anchor dragging you down from the Fortune 500 throne! I did what any patriarch would do to preserve the bloodline!”

“You didn't preserve anything,” Sebastian’s voice dropped to a chilling whisper. “You destroyed it. And now, you’re going to turn around, walk back down those stairs, and never, ever come near my family again.”

“And if I don't?” Arthur challenged.

“Then I resign from Vale Enterprises today,” Sebastian said without a single second of hesitation. “I liquidate every single share of stock I own, I hand over my controlling stake to the board, and I spend every last cent of my personal fortune dragging your name through every court, tabloid, and federal prosecutor's office in this country until you die in a prison cell.”

Inside the bedroom, listening through the wood, my breath caught.

He was willing to give it all up. The billions, the empire, the power—everything he had ever worked for. For us.

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For a terrifying, agonizing moment, nobody moved. Then, the heavy thud of Arthur’s cane echoed against the floorboards as the old man turned around without another word, signaling his bodyguards to follow him down the stairs.

The war had been declared. And Sebastian had just burned his own ships.