Chapter 6

​The library was colder than the hallway. The morning sun cutting through the floor-to-ceiling windows did nothing to warm the atmosphere. Arthur Vance sat at the center of the mahogany table, three folders laid out before him with the kind of geometric precision that suggested he had spent the last six hours measuring the distance between the margins.

​Bella sat across from him, her posture a rigid line of defiance. She hadn’t slept. The shadows under her eyes were the only cracks in her professional armor. She kept her hands in her lap, hidden beneath the table, so Dante wouldn’t see the way her fingers twisted together.

​Dante stood by the fireplace. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the folders. He had traded his suit jacket for a dark sweater, but he looked no less lethal.

​"The Zurich lab returned the results at 0200 hours," Arthur began, his voice dropping into the clinical tone of a man reading a death warrant. "The markers are definitive. Probability of paternity for Leo, Maya, and Toby Vance is 99.99 percent."

​The silence that followed was heavy, a physical weight that pressed against the walls. Bella didn't flinch. She had known this truth for four years, but hearing it spoken by a Blackwood lawyer made it feel like a sentence.

​Dante didn't move. He didn't erupt in fury. He didn't demand an explanation for the three years of silence. He simply closed his eyes for a heartbeat, his jaw tightening just enough to betray the storm beneath the surface. He looked at the folders as if they were live grenades.

​"Thank you, Arthur," Dante said. His voice was a low, hollow vibration. It wasn't the roar of a wounded beast; it was the quiet of a man realizing the world he had built was a hollow shell.

​"So," Bella said, the word sharp as a razor. "The biology is confirmed. The referral for Leo is signed. We’re done here."

​She stood up, reaching for her portfolio. She didn't look at Dante. She couldn't. If she looked at him now, she might see something other than the enemy, and she couldn't afford that weakness.

​"The car is waiting outside," Bella continued. "We’re going to the hospital for Leo’s intake, and then I’m taking my children back to the hotel. We’ll find a way home that doesn't involve your flagged security lists."

​"Sit down, Bella."

​Dante didn't turn around. He was still staring at the fire, his hands gripped behind his back.

​"I’m leaving, Dante. We have the signature. Our business is concluded."

​"It hasn't even begun." Dante turned then. The look in his eyes wasn't anger. It was something much more dangerous: a cold, calculating clarity. "You think you can just walk out of here because the paperwork is done? Those folders don't just contain medical data. They contain the future of Blackwood Global."

​Arthur cleared his throat, sliding a second set of documents across the table. "Ms. Vance, the legal reality changed the moment those results were verified. Under the Blackwood Trust, these children are no longer just your dependents. They are the primary heirs to a multi-billion-dollar estate. Legally, they carry the weight of the crown."

​Bella looked at the papers. She didn't touch them. "They are four years old. They don't carry anything but their backpacks."

​"In the eyes of the board, they are leverage," Dante said, stepping toward the table. He leaned down, his palms flat on the wood. "In the eyes of my father, they are targets. And in the eyes of the law, I have a duty of care that supersedes your desire to run back to a small town and pretend I don't exist."

​"I told you the conditions, Dante. No contact. You stay in the hallway."

​"The hallway just got a lot longer, Bella," Dante said. He looked at Arthur. "Explain the inheritance outline."

​Arthur adjusted his glasses. "The Blackwood Inheritance Outline, Section 4-Alpha. Upon confirmation of paternity, the Trust automatically triggers a series of protective and financial protocols. A trust fund has been established for each child—Leo, Maya, and Toby. The assets are currently valued at three hundred million each, maturing at age twenty-five. However..."

​Arthur paused, his eyes flickering to Dante.

​"However," Dante took over, his voice steady. "The funds are tied to the children’s physical location. The Blackwood Charter stipulates that all primary heirs must reside within a secure, Blackwood-owned facility until the age of eighteen. This isn't my rule, Bella. It’s the firm's. It was designed to prevent kidnappings and internal coups."

​"You're trying to trap us," Bella whispered. "This isn't an inheritance. It’s a cage."

​"It’s a fortress," Dante corrected. "If you take them back to that rental house, you are knowingly endangering three Blackwood heirs. I will be forced to file for emergency custody on the grounds of child safety. Arthur has the petition ready to be filed by noon."

​Bella felt the blood drain from her face. She looked at Arthur, searching for a lie, but the lawyer simply nodded.

​"If you leave now, Ms. Vance, you leave without the children. The security detail outside is authorized to prevent any movement of the heirs that hasn't been cleared by the Trust’s security head."

​Bella's hand went to her throat. She looked at Dante—really looked at him. He wasn't the man who had loved her three years ago. He was the man who ran the machine.

​"You wouldn't," she breathed. "You wouldn't take them from me. Not after what you saw in that medical file."

​"I’m not taking them from you," Dante said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. He laid it on the table. It was the inheritance outline, embossed with the Blackwood seal. "I’m inviting you to stay. In Bedford. In the east wing. With the doctors, the security, and the trust funds. You stay as their guardian. You stay as the head of the audit. You stay as whatever you want."

​"But I stay," Bella finished for him.

​"You stay," Dante agreed. "Because the moment you cross that property line without my signature, you become a mother in a custody battle with a man who owns the court. And I promise you, Bella, I don't lose."

​Bella looked at the book. She thought about Leo’s breathing. She thought about the school bus she had missed and the quiet life she had tried to build. It was gone. The dinosaur drawing had been replaced by a gold-embossed seal.

​"I want the audit completed," Bella said, her voice a ghost of itself. "I want full access to your father’s sub-ledgers. If I’m staying in this house, I’m going to find the rot that started this."

​Dante didn't flinch. "Done."

​"And the no-contact rule?"

​Dante looked at the door leading to the east wing. He thought about the three folders. The three lives.

​"I won't enter their rooms," Dante said. "But I will be at the dinner table. And I will be at the hospital during Leo’s treatments. You can keep me out of the nursery, Bella, but you can't keep me out of their lives. Not anymore."

​He pushed the inheritance outline toward her.

​"Sign the acknowledgment of the trust protocols, and I’ll tell the drivers to stand down. You can take Leo to the hospital in twenty minutes. In a Blackwood car. With a Blackwood escort."

​Bella looked at the pen. It felt like a mountain. She looked at Arthur, then at Dante.

​The power had shifted. The children were no longer her secret; they were his assets. And in the world of Dante Blackwood, assets were never allowed to walk away.

​She picked up the pen. Her signature was a jagged, angry mark on the bottom of the inheritance outline.

​"You've won, Dante," she said, her voice trembling. "Are you happy now?"

​Dante picked up the folders and tucked them under his arm. He didn't look happy. He looked like a man who had just realized that winning the game didn't mean he had won the girl.

​"I'll see you at the hospital, Bella," he said.

​He walked out of the library, leaving her alone with the gold-embossed book and the silence of a house that had just become her prison.