Chapter 8
The next month was the hardest of my life.
Victoria didn't go away.
She doubled down.
Her lawyers filed appeal after appeal. Motion after motion. Trying to overturn the custody decision. Trying to get the restraining order lifted. Trying to get the evidence thrown out.
She gave more interviews.
Hired more "experts."
Dug into every corner of my past. Looking for anything. Any mistake. Any flaw.
They found my college DUI. A bar fight I was in when I was twenty-two. A deposition where I had admitted to working one hundred hours a week.
They twisted it all.
Painted me as an alcoholic. A violent man. A workaholic who didn't care about his children.
The press ate it up.
Every day there was a new headline.
HARRINGTON'S DARK PAST.
WHY IS NATHAN SO AFRAID OF A TRIAL?
THE CHILDREN ARE PAWNS IN A BILLIONAIRE'S GAME.
Business suffered.
Clients pulled out.
The stock dropped.
My board of directors called an emergency meeting. Asked me to step down as CEO "for the good of the company."
I did.
Without a fight.
None of it mattered.
Not the money. Not the company. Not the reputation I had spent my whole life building.
Only three things mattered.
Leo. Emma. Aiden.
And they were thriving.
For the first time in years...
they were actually children.
They ate three meals a day. And snacks. So many snacks. I let them eat ice cream for breakfast twice. Just because I could. Just because no one was going to lock them in a basement for it.
They slept through the night. In real beds. With doors that didn't lock from the outside.
They laughed. Loud. Big. Real laughs that echoed through the penthouse.
They started therapy. Three times a week. With the best child trauma specialist in the country.
It was hard. There were nightmares. There were days when Leo would shut down. Days when Emma would flinch if I moved too fast. Days when Aiden would wet the bed and cry because he thought he would be punished.
But we got through it.
Together.
I was there for all of it.
Every bedtime story. Every scraped knee. Every bad dream. Every school play. Every soccer practice.
I didn't miss a single thing.
And slowly...
the fear in their eyes started to fade.
Replaced by something else.
Trust.
Love.
Safety.
The trial date was set.
Three months away.
Marcus worked nonstop. We built our case brick by brick.
We had the staff. All of them. Ready to testify.
We had the medical records. Twenty pages of documented injuries.
We had James's photographs. Over two hundred of them. Time-stamped. Dated. Irrefutable.
We had Victoria's own journals. Found in a safe in her closet. Pages and pages of her own handwriting. Complaining about the children. Calling them brats. Burdens. Detailing punishments. Writing about how much she hated being a mother. How she had never wanted them. How they had ruined her life.
It was damning.
But Victoria didn't flinch.
She kept fighting. Kept lying. Kept performing.
Two weeks before the trial...
her brother's network released a "documentary."
An hour-long hit piece on me.
Full of edited clips. Out-of-context quotes. Paid witnesses. Lies upon lies.
It ended with Victoria sitting alone in the big empty mansion. Looking into the camera.
"I just want my babies back," she whispered. "Whatever Nathan has done... I forgive him. I just want my family to be whole again."
Ten million people watched it that night.
Twenty million the next day.
The court of public opinion had already reached its verdict.
I was the villain.
Victoria was the hero.
Marcus called me that night. He sounded worried.
"The judge will have seen it," he said. "Everyone has. We need to do something. We need to get our side out there."
"No," I said. "I won't use my children for ratings. I won't put them in front of cameras. Not ever. Not for anything. The truth will come out in court. That's enough."
"Nathan..."
"It's enough, Marcus. Let them say what they want. The only opinions that matter are the ones in that courtroom."
I hung up.
Walked to the kids' rooms.
They were asleep. All three. Peaceful.
I stood in the doorway for a long time.
Watching them.
Whatever happened.
Whatever they said about me.
May you like
Whatever I lost.
I had already won.
