The night has been surgically deadly for all of us. Victoria has made sure of that. But the genius of Damian and Alexander had saved the family from the complete ruin she had deadly laid for me, the twins and Alexander. I felt relieve for a while but not for long.
Victoria is playing her last card.
The news breaks on a morning too calm to be real.
I'm pouring milk into Zane's cereal when Damian storms into the kitchen, his usual composure stripped to bone-white worry. His eyes cut across the space, sharp, unflinching, and land on me.
"Selene," he says quietly, almost too gently for the storm behind him, "don't go online."
But I already have.
The screen glows cold, headline after headline blooming like poison across every major network:
BILLIONAIRE ALEXANDER KNIGHT ACCUSED OF ABUSE, ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN HIDDEN IN SECRET MANSION.
INSIDE THE KNIGHT ESTATE: POWER, PASSION, AND DANGER.
EX-FIANCÉE VICTORIA HAYES FILES FOR EMERGENCY CUSTODY OF TWINS. "HE'S UNFIT, SHE'S UNSTABLE."
For a heartbeat, I can't move.
The world tilts, and all I hear is the quiet crunch of Zane's spoon. Zara giggles, unaware that her mother's lungs have forgotten how to breathe.
"Mommy, what's wrong?"
I can't answer.
Because the article is a weapon, forged in familiarity, every photo, every angle, a piece of our stolen privacy. Someone followed us. Someone knew.
And Victoria's voice echoes inside the text, her venom disguised in legal phrasing and moral concern:
'For the children's safety… until the environment can be proven stable.'
Stable.
That word lands like an insult. Like judgment.
"Where's Alexander?" I whisper.
Damian exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. "With the lawyers. Half of the board has turned on him. They're freezing his accounts, questioning his mental fitness. Victoria's lawyers filed a temporary motion this morning,"
He stops when he sees my hands shaking.
The milk pitcher trembles, spilling across the counter like an aftershock.
By the time I reach his office, the air feels heavier than I remember.
The glass walls that once reflected dominance and polish now trap the suffocating heat of chaos. Papers scatter across the table. His phone vibrates nonstop. Lawyers' voices roar from the speakerphone, their words a blur of legal jargon and half-threats.
Alexander stands behind his desk, his jaw locked in that unholy combination of fury and control. His tie is undone. His knuckles white against the table edge.
He looks like a man carved out of war.
"Selene." His voice is quiet, too quiet. "You've seen it."
I nod, barely holding my voice together. "Victoria went public."
A mirthless smile cuts across his face, dark and thin. "She didn't just go public. She weaponized everything I've ever built, every board member I ever trusted, every journalist I ever paid to stay silent. She's not after the company anymore."
He turns to face me. His eyes, those once unreadable eyes, now shimmer with something dangerously human. "She's after you. After them."
My throat tightens. "The custody suit…"
"Isn't about custody." He cuts in sharply, pacing. "It's leverage. She's painting me as unfit, controlling, manipulative, emotionally volatile, and you as complicit. She wants the twins because she can't have me."
There's no room for tears here, but I feel one burn behind my lashes anyway. "What will happen?"
He stops pacing, finally still. "I'll stop her."
It sounds simple. But his tone, low, deadly, restrained, carries the chill of inevitability, not promise.
Hours blur into chaos. Lawyers parade through the mansion, their words a symphony of panic dressed in professionalism. The twins are kept upstairs with the nanny. The air hums with phone calls, statements, denials.
But I can feel it, the shift.
The empire is cracking.
And somewhere beneath all that glass and power, Alexander is too.
That night, I find him in the study, alone, the city burning in reflections against the window. His sleeves rolled up, his tie discarded. A single file lies open before him: Victoria's custody petition.
He doesn't look up as I enter.
"She claims I'm dangerous," he murmurs. "That my influence, my business, my… reputation make me unfit to parent."
"She's lying."
"She's not lying," he says softly. "She's twisting truth. The kind that sounds believable because it almost is."
He finally meets my eyes. "I am controlling. I do dominate every room I walk into. And I've done terrible things for this family's safety." His hand tightens into a fist. "That's why she'll win public sympathy."
I walk closer, feeling that familiar tension between us, the invisible thread that always hums with both danger and need.
"You protect what's yours," I whisper.
He stares at me like the words are both a balm and a curse. "And that's exactly what she'll use against me."
A bitter silence stretches. I can feel the weight of his thoughts, the self-blame, the fury, the helplessness he'll never admit aloud.
Then, a faint noise, the soft buzz of Damian's encrypted laptop left open on the desk. A new message flickers onto the screen: VICTORIA FILED MOTION TO FREEZE PRIMARY ASSETS. COURT DATE IN 48 HOURS.
Two days.
Two days before she tries to take everything.
Later, when the mansion quiets, I lie awake listening to the rhythm of my own fear. Every sound feels amplified, the tick of the antique clock, the distant hum of city traffic, the faint storm pressing against the windows.
It's strange, how you can love someone who frightens you and still feel safest in their shadow.
Because somewhere deep down, I know he won't lose.
He can't.
But at what cost?
The next morning, the war begins.
Alexander arrives in court dressed not as a man accused, but as a king who intends to burn the throne room before surrendering it. Every move is calculated, the calm handshake with opposing counsel, the slight tilt of his head that signals quiet dominance.
He doesn't glance at Victoria once. But she looks at him like she's been waiting her whole life for this ruin, the way her lips curve, bittersweet, like a woman tasting her own destruction and finding it divine.
Her lawyer reads from the petition, each word designed to wound:
"Pattern of coercive behavior."
"Environment of intimidation."
"Children raised under potential psychological distress."
When my turn comes, I swear my voice trembles but doesn't break. I tell the truth. The quiet truth. The one that doesn't fit tabloids or headlines:
That he never hurt me.
That he never once raised his voice to our children.
That his control, however suffocating, was born not of cruelty, but of fear.
The courtroom listens. The silence between us fills every space words cannot.
When Victoria takes the stand, she wears elegance like armor. She weaves her narrative, betrayal, abandonment, years of devotion discarded for a "passing fancy." She paints herself as the victim of his callousness, her heartbreak as motive for justice.
And I see it, then, not a villain, but a woman haunted by unreturned love.
A ghost who never learned how to leave.
Her gaze finds mine once, across the room.
There is no hatred there, only devastation disguised as hatred.
When it's over, the hearing adjourned, the hallway outside the courtroom becomes another battlefield.
Reporters swarm. Cameras flash.
Victoria passes me, her perfume sharp as memory. She leans in just enough to whisper, her voice low and precise:
"You think you've won because he loves you? Wait until that love destroys him."
Then she's gone.
And I stand there, frozen, watching Alexander through the glass doors, surrounded by lawyers and cameras, looking every bit the untouchable god the world once feared.
But I can see it, the crack beneath the surface, the wear in his stance. He's bleeding, not in body, but in soul.
That night, back at the mansion, he doesn't speak.
He walks past me, loosens his tie, and pours himself a drink he doesn't touch.
I follow him to the balcony, the same balcony where, months ago, he first recognized me again after six years apart.
Now, the air between us is heavier, thick with unspoken exhaustion.
"She's not done," he says finally, eyes on the horizon. "Victoria doesn't lose quietly. This… custody attack, the scandal, they're preludes. She'll move next on the company. She'll force the board to turn. The press will crucify us."
"Us," I repeat softly.
He looks at me. The word lingers between us like a promise and a threat.
"You're part of this now, Selene. Whether you like it or not."
My pulse stutters. "And if I want out?"
His jaw tightens. He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat of his breath, the gravity of everything he can't say.
"Then she wins."
He sets his glass down, his voice turning rough. "They'll drag your name through the same mud as mine. The twins will grow up reading headlines about the woman who ran. About the father who couldn't protect them."
His fingers brush my cheek, a fleeting, trembling touch that betrays the control he pretends to still possess.
"I can survive anything, Selene," he whispers. "But not losing them. Not losing you."
And for a fleeting second, I see the man beneath the legend — terrified, human, breaking quietly under the weight of his own vengeance.
That night, I sit by the twins' beds, watching them sleep. Zara curls her fingers around her brother's, soft breaths syncing in perfect rhythm. Their innocence feels sacred — untouchable — and yet, I know the world is already reaching for it.
Outside, thunder rolls in the distance.
Somewhere, Victoria sharpens her next move.
And Alexander Knight, the man the world calls unbreakable, stands at the window of his empire, watching it trembles under the cost of his love.