Chapter 4 - what Victor wanted
By noon, I knew three things.
First, the baby had been born into a war that began long before he drew his first breath.
Second, my family had known more than they ever intended to tell me.
And third, Dennis Roth was afraid of his uncle in the specific, measured way powerful men are only afraid of people who understand the exact shape of their vulnerability.
Victor Roth arrived that afternoon without warning.
He did not storm in. Men like him never stormed. They entered as though every room already belonged to them.
He was in his late fifties, silver at the temples, elegant in a way that made Dennis’s colder style suddenly seem almost young. He smiled when he saw me holding the baby, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes.
“So this is the young woman causing all the noise.”
Dennis stepped between us before I realized he had moved.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
Victor ignored him and looked at me instead.
“Miss…?”
“Elsie.”
“Elsie.” He said my name as if testing whether it might prove useful later. “You’ve been put in an unfortunate position. Family mistakes can be very messy.”
“Then stop making them.”
That earned me a real smile.
He glanced at the baby. “And this little boy? If he is who Astrid believed he is, he deserves discretion, not spectacle.”
My arms tightened around the child.
“I didn’t ask for spectacle. I asked for responsibility.”
Victor spread his hands. “Exactly. Which is why I’d like to help.”
There was a velvet softness to his voice that made me want to reach for something sharp.
He proposed a private arrangement. Full financial support. A residence. Security. Legal protection against the kidnapping accusations my mother was now spreading everywhere she could reach. In exchange, the baby would be transferred into “appropriate guardianship” while paternity and trust matters were quietly handled by the Roth family office.
“Appropriate guardianship?” I repeated.
Victor’s eyes flicked briefly to Dennis. “Not everyone with a biological connection is equipped to handle the pressures of succession.”
That was not aimed at me.
It was aimed at Dennis.
Before I could respond, Dennis said, “You’re not taking him.”
Victor turned, irritation flashing across his face so quickly that someone less used to watching people closely might have missed it.
“I’m trying to prevent damage.”
“You’re trying to control the only variable you didn’t expect.”
The two men stared at each other.
No shouting. No raised voices.
Just history standing up in a room and reminding everyone it had teeth.
Victor looked back at me.
“You seem intelligent, Elsie. So let me be blunt. If Astrid understood the clauses she was reading, then she knew this child could destabilize an entire corporate structure. She also knew her own history would make her a disastrous public mother. If she entrusted him to you, perhaps she meant for someone stable to act before lawyers made that impossible.”
“Is that your way of saying she’d lose him?”
“It’s my way of saying courts can be persuaded.”
He left fifteen minutes later.
After the door shut, I looked at Dennis. “He wasn’t here for the baby.”
Dennis loosened his tie with one hand, a tiny gesture of strain. “No.”
“He was here to see whether you already believed him.”
His eyes met mine.
“And?”
I asked.
His answer came without hesitation.
“No.”
That should have reassured me.
Instead, what unsettled me was the expression that crossed his face next—a flash of something like guilt.
Mara arrived before I could ask about it.
She had traced the clinic’s privacy payment.
It did not come from Victor.
It came from a consulting shell that had funded my mother’s bank account twice in the past six months.
I read the page once.
Then again.
Beatrice hadn’t merely reacted after Astrid gave birth.
She had been paid.
May you like
And suddenly my mother’s insistence that I become the baby’s public shield felt much less like family selfishness—
and much more like part of a contract.
