CHAPTER 8
"What a pathetic display," Charles sneered, his cold blue eyes sweeping over the humble room with total disgust before settling on me. "A Van Doran heir reduced to playing with cheap wooden trinkets in a public hospital."
Sienna instantly stiffened, placing a protective hand over Theo’s back as fear flickered across her tired features.
I stood up slowly, stepping between my father and my family, my tall frame casting a long, dark shadow over the elderly billionaire who had controlled my life for decades.
"Get out of this room, Charles," I said, my voice deceptively calm, but carrying a deadly edge that made his legal team take an involuntary step backward.
"I am here to protect the family legacy, Elliot," Charles declared arrogantly, pulling a stack of legal documents from his assistant's leather briefcase. "I have filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court for full legal custody of Theodore based on maternal financial instability and paternal abandonment."
A bitter, cold laugh escaped my chest as I took three deliberate steps toward him, towering over the old man who thought money gave him the right to play God.
"You are twenty minutes too late, Father," I said smoothly, pulling my own sealed legal folder from my inner suit pocket and slapping it hard against his chest.
Charles frowned, opening the folder to reveal official court documents signed by the chief judge of the New York family court just two hours ago.
"I have officially recognized paternity, established a fifty-million-dollar irrevocable trust for Theo, and legally married Sienna Clark in an emergency bedside ceremony witnessed by the hospital chaplain at seven this morning," I revealed, watching his arrogant face turn pale.
Sienna gasped softly from the bed, her hand touching the thin silver band I had placed on her finger while Theo was resting earlier that morning.
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"You married her?" Charles gasped, his knuckles shaking as he stared at the binding marriage certificate.
"She is a Van Doran now," I declared fiercely, grabbing him by his lapels and forcing him out into the hallway. "And if you ever come within a hundred yards of my wife or my son again, I will buy out your holdings and leave you penniless in the street."
