While Claire wrote, “Your son is being placed on a ventilator.
Please call me,” Daniel had posted a photograph of champagne glasses over the Mediterranean.
While she wrote, “The doctor needs family medical information,” he had appeared in a yacht video with his arm around another woman.
While she wrote, “I don’t know whether he will survive tonight,” Daniel had ignored her and attended a nightclub in Ibiza.
Daniel threw the pages onto the floor.
“This is private.”
“You posted half of it publicly.”
“My friends posted those videos.”
“And you smiled for every one of them.”
Daniel paced through the empty room, looking toward the kitchen and hallway as if Claire might emerge and explain that the scene was some desperate performance.
“Where did she go?” he demanded.
Robert closed the folder.
“You will communicate with her through counsel.”
“Counsel?”
“You were served electronically while you were in Rome.
The physical copies are in this folder.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Served with what?”
“A petition for dissolution of marriage.
A request for temporary sole custody.
An emergency financial restraining order.
And a demand for a full accounting of marital funds.”
For the first time, Daniel looked frightened rather than angry.
“She can’t take my kids.”
Robert’s jaw tightened.
“You left them.”
“I took a vacation.”
“You left two newborns with a woman still recovering from childbirth.
You emptied their medical savings.
When your son stopped breathing, you refused to return.”
“I didn’t know it was that serious.”
Robert bent, picked up one of the scattered screenshots, and held it in front of him.
The message read: NOAH IS ON A VENTILATOR.
PLEASE COME HOME.
“You knew exactly how serious it was.”
Daniel’s mouth opened, but no answer came.
His phone rang.
The name on the screen was Vanessa.
Robert saw it before Daniel silenced the call.
Vanessa was the blonde woman from the yacht video.
She was not merely someone Daniel had met overseas.
The attorney’s review of the financial records had uncovered months of hotel charges, restaurant bills, and gifts purchased before the twins were born.
The European trip had not been an impulsive escape from crying babies.
Daniel had planned it with his mistress while Claire was pregnant.
Robert took another document from the folder.
“Who is Vanessa Hale?”
Daniel’s face shifted.
“A friend.”
“A friend for whom you purchased jewelry three weeks before Lily and Noah were born?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It became my business when Claire called me from a hospital because your son was fighting to breathe and she could not afford medicine.”
Daniel laughed once, harshly.
“So this is what she did? She called you crying, and now you’re playing hero?”
“She did not cry.”
The answer seemed to unsettle him.
Robert remembered the call clearly.
