Chapter 3 - The Penthouse Ultimatum
The private elevator shot up forty-five floors in breathless, sickening silence.
Owen refused to be transferred back to Gideon, burying his little face deep into Mallerie’s neck and letting out pathetic whimpers whenever the billionaire moved too close.
Mallerie rhythmically patted the boy’s back, her heart aching with an intensity that defied all logic.
She could feel the steady beat of his little heart against her own ribs.
When the elevator doors finally parted, they opened directly into the sprawling, glass-walled penthouse of the Vale Tower.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of Lake Michigan, churning black and cold beneath the city lights.
The interior was a fortress of polished slate, dark walnut, and minimalist leather, completely devoid of warmth.
The only signs of life were a sleek designer crib in the corner and a sprawling playpen filled with untouched wooden toys.
Mallerie stepped onto the plush ivory rug and immediately stopped dead in her tracks.
She held Owen close, her chin lifted in open defiance.
“Before we go one step further into this fortress, Mr.
Vale, we establish three ground rules.”
Gideon unbuttoned his suit jacket, tossing it carelessly onto a leather armchair.
He turned around, raising an aristocratic eyebrow at the banquet server standing in his living room.
“You negotiate quickly for someone whose life I just saved from an armed operative.”
“I’m not negotiating, I’m setting boundaries,” Mallerie snapped, her voice trembling slightly but never wavering.
“Rule number one: nobody locks any doors between me and the exit.
Rule number two: nobody touches my phone or monitors my calls.
And rule number three: you do not make a single decision regarding this baby without me standing in the room.”
Gideon’s dark eyes locked onto hers with piercing, clinical appraisal.
He was used to judges, governors, and rival cartel bosses cowering in his presence.
Yet this woman, wearing a cheap catering uniform stained with infant tears, was barking orders in his penthouse.
“Rule one is accepted, provided my security teams remain outside the perimeter,” Gideon replied calmly, rolling up his crisp white sleeves.
“Rule two is rejected.
Your phone will be swept for tracking bugs immediately by my cyber unit, and if clean, returned to you.
Rule three is non-negotiable—I am his legal father, and until a piece of paper proves otherwise, my word is law.”
“Then get the paper,” Mallerie challenged, taking a step toward him.
“Call a certified lab right now.
Do the DNA test tonight.”
Gideon stared at her, the silence stretching between them like a taut wire.
“Do you have any idea what you are asking for, Mallerie?” he murmured, his voice dropping into dangerous darkness.
“If this boy is yours, it means the boy I buried next to my wife ten months ago was not my child.”
The weight of his words crashed into the room.
Mallerie froze, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
Gideon walked slowly toward the glass window, looking out over the glittering grid of Chicago.
“My wife, Helena, suffered from chronic heart disease,” Gideon said, each word sounding like it was being dragged through broken glass.
“The doctors warned her that carrying a child would kill her, but she defied every specialist in the hemisphere.
She went into premature labor at St.
Jude Memorial on November seventeenth.”
Mallerie’s hands tightened around Owen.
“The same day,” she breathed.
“The exact same night,” Gideon confirmed, not turning around.
“Helena went into cardiac arrest during the delivery.
The surgical team managed to deliver a boy via emergency Caesarean, but Helena died on the operating table three hours later.
Dr.
Harrison Vance told me the newborn had suffered severe oxygen deprivation.”
Gideon turned back around, his face etched with agonizing, decades-old pain.
“Three days later, Vance informed me that my son’s organs had failed.
He handed me a cold, deceased infant wrapped in a blanket.
I buried that child in the Vale family mausoleum next to my wife.”
Mallerie felt the room spin around her.
“Then...
who is Owen?”
“Twelve hours after I buried that child, Dr.
Vance contacted me in secret,” Gideon continued, his eyes burning with cold fire.
“He told me there had been a catastrophic administrative error in the neonatal intensive care unit.
He claimed that two premature boys had been born to mothers named Reed and Vale, and that the nursery nurses had swapped the crib identification tags during the chaos of my wife’s cardiac arrest.”
Mallerie felt a scream building in the back of her throat.
“He told you...
what?”
“He told me that my real son was alive, kept in isolation under your name,” Gideon said, his jaw clenching until the muscle twitched.
“He brought Owen to my estate under cover of darkness, complete with stamped birth certificates, blood type documentation, and hospital discharge records confirming he was Helena’s biological son.
He told me the dead infant I had buried belonged to a woman named Mallerie Reed, who had already signed the cremation waivers and left the hospital.”
“That is a monstrous lie!” Mallerie screamed, her voice cracking with pure agony.
“I never signed a cremation waiver!
I begged them to let me see my baby’s body, and Vance told me the hospital had already transferred the remains to the county morgue because of infectious bio-hazards!
I spent three months trying to get his medical files, and every single department stonewalled me!”
Owen began to wail, agitated by Mallerie’s screaming.
Mallerie immediately collapsed onto the plush sofa, rocking the child against her chest, her tears falling hot and fast onto the baby’s cashmere collar.
“They stole him from me,” she wept, kissing Owen’s forehead over and over again.
“They stole my little boy while I was sedated, and they handed him to a billionaire so they could cash a massive check.”
Gideon stood frozen in the middle of the room, the terrifying realization settling into his bones.
He had paid Dr.
Harrison Vance a five-million-dollar 'philanthropic donation' to St.
Jude’s neonatal wing the day Owen was brought home.
He had believed he was rewarding a doctor who had miraculously rectified a horrific bureaucratic mistake.
Now, looking at the catering server who held his son with the fierce, protective terror of a biological mother, the truth began to unravel.
Gideon pulled a encrypted satellite phone from his pocket and hit speed-dial.
“Marcus,” Gideon commanded, his voice cold enough to freeze blood.
“Get Dr.
Vance.
May you like
Drag him from his bed, bring his personal medical ledger, and bring the fastest, most discreet geneticist in the Midwest to this penthouse.
If Harrison Vance attempts to run, break both his legs.”
