Maya POV
The kitchen clock said 3:17 AM.
Maya had been staring at her laptop for six hours. Not moving. Not sleeping. Just reading article after article about Isaac Hale like she could find some kind of answer buried in the internet.
She'd already read them all.
Multiple times.
"Billionaire Isaac Hale Built Empire Worth $4.2 Billion"
"The Man Boston's Elite Fear Most"
"Isaac Hale's Ruthless Business Tactics Leave Competitors Destroyed"
There were older articles too. From when she'd known him. From when he'd been just Isaac instead of Isaac Hale the Legend. Back then he'd been brilliant but human. Now he was something else. Something harder. The photos showed a man with no softness left in him. The kind of person who could look at someone and calculate their worth in seconds.
The kind of person who'd told her eight years ago that he didn't have room for a family.
Except now he did. Now he had decided he wanted the family she'd hidden from him.
Maya pulled up another article. This one had quotes from his business partner James. "Isaac Hale doesn't lose. It's not in his DNA. Whatever he wants, he takes."
She closed the laptop.
The house was quiet in that way that only 3 AM houses were quiet. Too quiet. Like the world was holding its breath. She made her fourth cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table in the dark. She didn't turn on the lights. The dark felt safer somehow.
Her phone sat next to her coffee mug. She kept waiting for it to ring again. Another lawyer. Another threat. Another piece of the life she'd built crumbling away.
At 6:02 AM, it did.
She'd been expecting it so hard that when it actually happened, she almost didn't answer.
"Ms. Thompson? This is Robert Chen. I'm your attorney. I hope I didn't wake you."
He had. She'd dozed off somewhere around 5 AM, her head tilted against the kitchen chair like she didn't have anywhere else to sleep.
"No, I was awake," she lied.
"Good. We need to talk about the papers Isaac Hale's team filed this morning." Robert's voice was calm like this was routine for him. Probably it was. He probably dealt with custody battles all the time. "They're demanding paternity confirmation within seventy-two hours. They're also requesting an immediate custody evaluation and a formal meeting to discuss visitation terms."
Maya's stomach dropped.
"They want this done fast," Robert continued. "Which tells me Isaac Hale is serious about this. He's not going away. He's not going to negotiate quietly. He's filing for emergency custody consideration which means he thinks he has grounds to take the boys immediately if he wanted to."
"Can he do that?" Her voice came out like a whisper.
"Not without a court order. But Maya, we need to be prepared for what's coming. He's going to push. Hard. The question is how hard are you willing to push back?"
She thought about Oliver asking if his dad was going to take him away. She thought about Ethan going pale when the doorbell rang last night.
"What do you recommend?" she asked.
"I recommend we meet with his team and show good faith. We cooperate with the paternity test. We agree to a meeting. We don't look like we're trying to hide anything. The more we cooperate, the more the courts will see you as the reasonable party."
"When?" Maya asked, already knowing the answer would be soon.
"They want to meet this morning. 10 AM at their offices in Boston. Downtown. Can you make that?"
It was 6:15 AM.
She had three hours and forty-five minutes to pull herself together and walk into a room with Isaac Hale and pretend she wasn't terrified.
"Yeah," she said. "I can make it."
She hung up and sat in the dark for exactly two minutes.
Then she moved.
She showered. She washed her hair. She stood under the water so hot it hurt because feeling pain was better than feeling nothing. She wrapped herself in a towel and stood in front of her closet like the clothes mattered. Like what she wore would change anything.
She picked dark jeans. A blue blouse. A blazer that made her look professional. Not desperate. She wanted to look like a woman who'd built something. A woman who didn't need Isaac Hale. A woman who'd done fine without him.
Which was true.
Except it wasn't true because she was terrified and he could probably tell.
She did her makeup in the mirror. Foundation to cover the circles under her eyes. Mascara so she looked awake. Lipstick because color made you look confident even when you were falling apart.
She looked like a stranger.
At 9:15 AM, she called Sophie.
"I'm meeting with him this morning," Maya said without saying hello. "I'm meeting with Isaac. His lawyers."
"Oh baby," Sophie said. "Where are the boys?"
"With Mrs. Henderson. I told her it was a work emergency."
"Okay. Okay, you're going to be fine. You're going to walk in there and you're going to be honest and you're going to remember that you did what you thought was best for them. That matters."
But did it? Had she done what was best or had she done what was best for herself?
"I have to go," Maya said.
She grabbed her purse. She grabbed her keys. She looked at the time. 9:33. She was going to be early and she wanted to be early because being early meant she got to the room first. She got to feel powerful for five minutes before Isaac walked in and took that away.
Before she opened the front door, she looked up the stairs.
The boys' bedroom door was closed. She could picture them in there. Ethan probably already awake and thinking about something complicated. Oliver probably still asleep, his face peaceful because he didn't know yet that his world had changed.
She should tell them.
She should tell them she was meeting their father.
Instead, she left a note on the kitchen table saying she'd be back by lunch and got in her car.
The drive downtown took twenty minutes. She knew where the law offices were because she'd looked them up. Forty-second floor of a building that looked like it touched the sky. Glass and steel and money.
She parked in a visitor spot and sat in her car.
9:48 AM.
Twelve minutes.
She pulled down the visor and checked her makeup again. She looked like she was about to go to war. She probably was.
She got out of the car.
The lobby was all marble and expensive air conditioning. Her heels clicked against the floor like a countdown. Click. Click. Click. Each step taking her closer to a room where Isaac Hale was probably already waiting.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside.
She pushed the button for the forty-second floor.
As the elevator rose, she caught her reflection in the polished doors. She looked like a woman about to lose everything. She looked like a woman about to lose her sons.
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened.
And there he was.
Standing in the hallway outside the conference room like he'd been waiting for her.
Isaac Hale.
Older. Colder. More powerful than anything she'd ever seen.
And the way he looked at her when she stepped out of that elevator made her realize something that turned her blood to ice.
He wasn't here to negotiate.
He was here to take what was his.
And he was going to do it no matter what she said or did.
His expression didn't change. His face was carved stone. But his eyes. His eyes were the eyes of a man who'd just found something he'd thought was lost forever.
The eyes of a predator who'd caught his prey.
"Maya," he said. Like it was a statement. Like saying her name was claiming her.
And when she tried to speak, nothing came out.