Chapter 41 Chapter 41
Valentina
The flight back to New York felt longer than the one to Amsterdam. No one said it out loud, but we all felt it, the shift. The rupture.
Ambrose hadn't shouted on the plane. He hadn't touched me. Hadn't even looked at me for most of the flight.
He sat across the aisle in the private cabin, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes closed as if resting. But I knew he wasn't sleeping. His jaw would tighten every few minutes. His thumb would tap once against the armrest.
He hadn't spoken to me after the meeting not after I refused to sign. Not after the chaos. Not after the police involvement forced the board to adjourn indefinitely.
The official narrative was "temporary disruption due to regulatory interference."
But underneath that? Something had broken. The girls were gone. That much he knew.
What he didn't know was where they were. And that ignorance was eating him alive.
Two rows ahead, Lucien remained composed, flipping through documents as if the world hadn't tilted. If Ambrose suspected him, he didn't show it. But the silence between father and son was thick.
At one point during the flight, Ambrose's gaze finally shifted to me.
"You embarrassed me," he said quietly, loud enough for only me to hear.
My spine straightened instinctively. "I asked questions."
"You defied me."
"I protected my name."
A pause.
His lips curved not a smile. Something sharper. "You believe this is over?"
The words settled like ice down my spine. I held his gaze. "I believe innocent people shouldn't be treated like inventory."
Something flickered in his eyes then. Annoyance.
"You're naïve," he said simply. My heart skipped. "This situation will be handled," he added. "The leak will be found. The girls will be retrieved."
Retrieved. The word made my stomach twist. But I said nothing.
When we landed in New York, the air felt different. In the car ride home, he took a call. "I don't care what it costs," he said into the phone, voice low and lethal. "Find out who tipped the authorities. I want names."
"And Rotterdam is frozen until I say otherwise."
Another pause.
"Yes. I'm aware of the losses."
He hung up.
The rest of the ride was silent. I knew what he was doing. Damage control. Asset reshuffling. Threat containment.
He didn't know the girls were already moved out of reach. That Lucien had positioned them somewhere safe, likely already coordinating their return home through channels Ambrose couldn't trace without implicating himself.
But Ambrose would search. And if he couldn't retrieve them...He would look for someone to punish.
When we arrived at the mansion, the gates closed behind us with a heavy metallic finality.
Inside, everything looked the same. The marble floors. The towering ceilings. The art.
He stopped at the base of the staircase.
"Valentina."
I turned slowly.
"You made a public display of moral righteousness in my boardroom," he said. "You delayed operations. Caused unnecessary scrutiny."
"I asked for transparency," I said carefully.
His eyes hardened.
"You will not do that again. You are my wife. Everything you have—security, protection, your father's stability—exists because of alignment."
I swallowed the lump down my throat. "If you continue to misalign," he continued, "I will correct it."
A warning. My heart pounded, but I didn't step back.
His gaze dropped briefly to my hand—the same hand that had held the pen.
"You were close to signing," he murmured.
"You hesitated," he continued. "That hesitation is something I can work with."
Before I could respond, footsteps sounded behind him.
Lucien. His eyes landed on me first and I saw something like anger passed in them before he shifted it back to his father with all seriousness. "Father," Lucien said smoothly. "The compliance attorneys are requesting a meeting tomorrow morning. We need to address the exposure."
Ambrose didn't look away from me immediately. Then, slowly, he stepped back.
"We will discuss this later," he said.
To me. Not to Lucien. Then he walked away.
I stood there for several seconds after he disappeared. My knees felt weak. Lucien approached slowly.
"He suspects something," I whispered trying my best not to show how my heart was thumping inside.
"He always does," Lucien replied.
"And the girls?"
"They're being relocated out of state tonight. Within seventy-two hours, they'll be back with their families."
Relief flooded me again.
"He won't find them?"
"No. Not without exposing himself."
I looked toward the staircase where Ambrose had vanished.
"He said he'd correct me."
Lucien's jaw tightened.
"He won't touch you."
"You don't know that."
"No," he admitted. "But if he tries... it changes everything."
I looked at him. "What does that mean?"
"It means, he stops being just my father."
Ambrose was hunting a leak. He didn't realize the leak was sitting at his own dinner table.
And I had just become more than decoration in his empire. I had become a threat.
Later that evening, I stood under the spray of the shower far longer.
The water was hot enough to sting, but I welcomed it. I needed something stronger than fear to numb the tremor still living inside my chest.
Ambrose's voice replayed in my head.
If you continue to misalign, I will correct it.
Even alone in the bathroom, the words made my spine stiffen. I pressed my palms against the tiled wall and lowered my head.
Please... don't let him find out. What Lucien did was right. It saved innocent girls. It exposed rot. It proved he wasn't like his father.
But Ambrose didn't care about right or wrong.
He cared about control. And if he discovered his own son had dismantled part of his operation...
I didn't know what he would do. That terrified me more than anything.
I stepped out of the shower, wrapping myself in a robe, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes looked tired. Smaller somehow.
I stood up in the boardroom because Lucien was there. Because he had given me a plan. Because I wasn't alone.
But alone? Alone, I still felt small in Ambrose's shadow.
Still intimidated. Because he almost made me sign the agreement by threatening my family. He has that power over me. He has something strong that will chain me down.
I dressed into a simple blouse, trousers. Grabbed my purse and my phone. If I was going to be brave anywhere tonight, it would be with the one man who had placed me in this position to begin with.
My father.
⸻
His office building felt the same as always. The receptionist blinked when she saw me but said nothing as I walked past.
When I reached his office floor, I knocked softly and pushed the door open without waiting for him to usher me in.
He was seated behind his massive desk, reviewing documents with his secretary standing beside him, tablet in hand.
They both looked up. Confusion crossed his face. Then irritation.
Anger rose in my chest like fire. How could he look so calm? So untouched?
Discussing quarterly projections while I was living inside a cage he built for me.
His secretary glanced between us awkwardly. My father closed the folder in front of him.
"Excuse us," he told him coolly. "Email the client projection to my address and reschedule the 4 p.m. call."
"Yes, sir."
He gathered his things, bowed slightly to him and then, respectfully, to me before leaving the office.
The door shut. Silence.
My father leaned back in his chair.
"You do know, that you cannot simply barge into my office without an appointment."
Something inside me snapped.
"An appointment?" I repeated.
"Yes. I am working."
I let out a breath that was half laugh, half disbelief.
"Working," I echoed.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "If you've come to complain about your marriage—"
"Did you love us?" I cut in suddenly.
He paused.
"What?"
"Did you love your daughters?" My voice trembled despite my effort to steady it. "Or were we just... strategic alignments too?"
His posture stiffened.
"Careful," he warned.
"No," I shot back, stepping closer to his desk. "You be careful."
The words surprised even me.
"You gave me to him," I continued, my voice shaking now with anger and hurt. "Do you know what kind of man Ambrose is? Do you know what he does?"
His expression didn't change. That terrified me.
"I know he is powerful," he said calmly.
"That's not what I asked."
Silence. My heart pounded.
"Did you know?" I pressed. "About his operations? About his actual business?"
His jaw tightened. "Business at that level," he said slowly, "requires discretion."
My stomach dropped.
"That's not an answer."
"It is the only one you need."
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
"So you knew," I whispered.
"I knew," he corrected smoothly, "that aligning with Ambrose would secure this family's future."
"At what cost?"
"At the cost of sentiment," he replied coldly. "Which you have always had too much of."
The words hit like a slap.
"You think I sold you?" he continued. "You think this was easy?"
"Was it?" I demanded.
"You were protected Valentina," he said. "Elevated. Placed beside a man who commands governments."
"A man who threatens his wife."
"That is between you and your husband."
I stared at him.
"You don't care," I realized softly.
"I care about survival. You should too."
Anger, betrayal, heartbreak they twisted together inside me. I can't believe this was coming out from someone I call my father.
"You would let him ruin us," I whispered.
He looked at me sharply.
"Ruin?" he said quietly. "Valentina, if Ambrose chooses to ruin this family, it will not be because of him."
My breath caught.
"It will be because of you."
The room felt suddenly too small.
"So this is my fault?" I asked.
"If you provoke him," he replied evenly, "yes."
Something inside me broke. I didn't know whether I should cry or shout. The level of his ignorance to Ambrose dirty dealings was beyond shocking.
"You really did sell me," I said softly.
His face hardened.
"I positioned you."
"You sacrificed me."
"I secured you."
We stared at each other.
And in that moment, I understood something painful.
My father didn't see himself as cruel. He saw himself as practical. Strategic.
Necessary. And I was simply... a piece.
"I won't let you hurt my sisters," I said quietly.
His eyes sharpened. "Well if you are talking about choosing the best for my daughters then you should rethink. I have right on all of you."
The words didn't register immediately. Rights. Over all of us. So he is planning something on Violeta and Viviana?
My stomach dropped so fast it felt like the floor had vanished beneath me.
"I raised you. I provided. I protected. Everything you are your education, your security, your standing—came through me."
Through him. As if we were assets on a balance sheet.
Something cold spread through my chest. All this time, I had hoped somewhere deep down that maybe he didn't know the full truth. That maybe he had been blind. Misled. Manipulated.
But this? This wasn't blindness. This was ownership.
"You don't own us," I whispered, though my voice trembled.
His gaze hardened.
"I am your father."
"And that gives you the right to sell me?" My throat tightened around the words. "To trade my life for leverage?"
"Watch your tone."
The command hit me like I was sixteen again. Small. Powerless.
But I wasn't sixteen. My heart was racing so loudly I could hear it in my ears. My hands shook at my sides. I pressed them into fists so he wouldn't see.
"I am not a merger. I am not an agreement to be signed."
"You speak like a child," he replied coolly. "One day you will understand the weight of responsibility."
Tears burned now, blurring my vision.
Responsibility. That was what he called it. Sacrificing me. Threatening my sisters.
Aligning us with a man who trafficked human beings. A slow, painful truth unfolded inside me.
He didn't see us as daughters first. He saw us as extensions of himself. Pieces to position.
"Do my sisters know?" I asked quietly.
His expression shifted just slightly.
"They know what they need to know."
Fear lanced through me.
"Are you planning to... position them too?"
His silence was answer enough. My heart cracked open.
"You would do it again," I breathed. "You would marry them off the same way."
"If it secures this family," he said without hesitation, "yes."
The finality of it hollowed me out. I took a step back, as if physical distance could protect me from the weight of him.
For years, I thought my father was stern. Demanding. Ambitious. But standing here now, I saw something colder.
He believed love and control were the same thing. He believed providing gave him ownership.
"I used to think you were strict because you cared," I said softly. "Now I think you're strict because you're afraid."
"Afraid of losing power. Afraid of losing status. Afraid of being irrelevant."
"You are dangerously emotional right now."
"And you are dangerously heartless."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Silence crashed between us. I expected him to shout. To slam his fist against the desk. To threaten me too like Ambrose did.
Instead, his voice went quiet. "You will regret challenging forces you don't understand,"
A chill slid down my spine. For a second, fear tried to swallow me again. But something else was growing too.
If I wanted to protect my sisters...to protect myself, I would eventually have to become someone who no longer asked for permission.
Even if right now... I was still shaking.