Chapter 8 - The Lawyer's Office
The next morning at 9:00 a.m., I sat in the high-rise office of Victoria Vance—no relation to Julian, ironically, but renowned across the city as the most ruthless, thorough family law attorney in the state. Maya sat beside me, bouncing a sleeping Leo on her knee while Victoria systematically reviewed the contents of my manila folder.
Victoria was a woman in her late fifties with sharp silver hair, tailored Chanel suits, and eyes that had seen every conceivable shade of human cruelty. She watched the video of Julian and Evelyn in the kitchen three times in absolute silence. When she finally closed the iPad, she took off her reading glasses and folded her hands across her mahogany desk.
“In my thirty years of litigating family law, I have seen men hide bank accounts, I have seen men father secret families, and I have seen men abandon their children at the airport,” Victoria said, her voice dead steady. “But stealing a surgically recovering infant’s prescribed nourishment to feed a mother’s vanity anti-aging diet is a new level of sociopathic depravity.”
“Can he take my son, Victoria?” I asked, my voice trembling for the first time that day. “He threatened to fight for 50/50 custody. He said because he has a clean background and a steady job, no judge will deny him his rights as a father.”
Victoria let out a dry, humorless laugh that sent a chill through the room. “He can try whatever he wants, my dear. But courts do not look kindly on parents who actively impede a child’s medical recovery. Between Dr. Aris’s sworn affidavit, the physical weight-loss charts, and this crystal-clear video footage of him admitting his intent to deprive the boy of nutrition, he has effectively handed us his parental rights on a silver platter.”
She pulled a stack of legal documents from her drawer and slid them toward me along with a gold fountain pen. “We are filing an emergency ex-parte motion for sole legal and physical custody today, citing imminent medical risk to the child. We are also filing for an immediate temporary restraining order to prevent him or his mother from coming within five hundred feet of your home, your son’s hospital, or you.”
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“What about divorce?” I asked, signing my name across the dotted lines without a second of hesitation.
“We file for divorce on grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment,” Victoria replied, a dangerous smirk touching her lips. “And we will subpoena his personal bank accounts and his mother’s financial records. If he has been spending marital funds to support her luxury holistic fads while your son was suffering, we will claw every single dollar back during asset division.”
