The Ultimate Chance-Chapter 48

"You would never." She hissed.

"Why not? I want to be with my son as much as you want to be with him." He ignored her sad expression. "You have been with him all his life. Shall I assume the first two days are mine?"

"You are using our son to prove a point, yet you think I’m the heartless one?" She laughed bitterly. "Fine. Take him away tomorrow. Do whatever you want. But if a single wisp of hair is missing on his head, I’ll get a restraining order against you." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Good luck with that." He was too happy to argue with her. This was his first real chance to bond with his son so a few displeased glares were not enough to dampen his mood.

Early the next morning, she was woken up by the lunatic’s loud knocks. She groggily opened the door. "Are you fucking insane?"

"Just excited to see my son." He held up all the toys and snacks he had brought. As if on cue, Angel ran out as soon as he heard his voice and hugged his legs. "Papa!"

"Hi buddy." He crouched to the boy’s level to show him the new toys. "Do you want to play? I brought fun toys and the best news is, we get to play on the beach!"

"After breakfast." Avery corrected him.

"Of course." He let Angel lead him into the cottage and tried not to gawk at Avery in her tiny nightdress. It barely covered her butt and when she walked away, he instinctively averted his gaze. An early-morning salute was not the way to meet her if he wanted to stay alive for a bit longer.

Breakfast seemed painful for her and she had barely had a few bites by the time Angel ran to his room to get ready for beach games.

"You don’t have to do this." Her words were a bare whisper.

Normally, he would give in to her, especially seeing how swollen her eyes looked after a sleepless night. She must have been up thinking of ways to stop him from taking Angel away, but that didn’t make him relent.

"It’s just a day. I’m not taking him away for five years or anything." He placed his hand on hers and she slid hers off the table.

"This is not about Angel’s happiness, is it? You are getting back at me." She swallowed a bitter gulp. "I’ll make you regret this."

"I will be waiting." He accepted her challenge and acted as if everything was normal when Angel returned.

The boy was as excited as he was, running out the door as soon as he was allowed to.

Despite her anger, Avery prepared a snack box. "This is for Angel. He will look for it when he is hungry—which you will not know because you were too busy fucking your way through Berlin to get to know your son."

He took the little basketball-themed snack box while pretending not to notice her jab.

"Bring him back in one piece." She ordered.

He raised his eyesbrows. "My dear Avery, you are quite forgetful. I will bring him back in two days. See you in Imperium." He walked a few steps and stopped. "Do you think you can help me pack a change of clothes for him? Make that two."

"That’s enough!" She’d had enough. "I want my son back before 4 pm. Either that, or I’ll file a suit for child abduction." She threatened.

If she did that, he could show up in court with DNA results, but there was no point telling her that.

"7pm. I’ll have dinner with my son this evening." He didn’t wait for her to negotiate before he put a gun in Angel’s hand.

The boy searched around and then turned to his mother curiously, wondering why she didn’t get a gun.

Understanding him, Damon patted his head. "Mommy stays out of this one."

She pursed her lips as she watched them leave, and barely a minute later, she made a call to Mina.

"Do you still have the contact details of Isla Reynolds?"

Mina gasped softly on the other end. "Why the hell do you need the contact details of a divorce attorney? You are not even married."

"I wish I had to be married to deal with this kind of crap." She was frustrated. "Damon is going to be the end of me."

"Please don’t tell me you are fighting over Angel again. The little boy has had enough drama from the two of you." Mina groaned, and she agreed.

"Unfortunately, DNA." She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. She would have faked a DNA report if Angel didn’t look like a splitting image of his father. Alas, she could only deal with it legally. "I want to sue him for abandonment."

Although Mina agreed with her for the most part, she was not certain anymore. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"So do I." She hummed. She knew who she was up against and it was the exact reason why she couldn’t tell him off before. But that didn’t give him the right to waltz into her cottage and grab her son away like some sort of property.

"I don’t mean the kind of influence he has. You can counter that. You still love him, Avery." Mina insisted.

"Love him? Are you even listening to yourself?" She barked out a laugh. Mina had no idea what she was talking about. She was no masochist to stay in love with the man who was the cause of her downfall.

____

A day had never felt so long. It had only been an hour but it felt like a lifetime. She waited for Damon to call and give her updates of how Angel was doing but she got none.

She fought the urge to call him and took a nap that barely lasted half an hour before she fidgeted and got out of bed. It was no use when she couldn’t get them out of her mind. What were the chances of Damon leaving with Angel on his own?

It wasn’t legally possible since he was not his guardian, but he could probably get away with anything. Besides, who in their right mind would think to ask questions when the boy was a miniature version of his father? They would probably forget to do so.

When she heard a knock on the door, she shuffled on her feet and hurried to open it. "You are back. Did you..." Her voice fell when she came face to face with Mabella instead of Damon. "It’s you."

"May I come in?" Mabella offered a smile, which wasn’t returned.

"You never have anything good to say." Avery said but let her in, preparing for battle in case Mabella said something insane.

Mabella welcomed herself onto the couch. "You deal with a lot every day."

"Stop right there. This vacation was your idea. Were you creating an opening for your brother to take my son away?" She asked accusingly.

"The hell, no. I didn’t expect him to do this, which is why I came here to explain everything to you." She tried to convince her. "Avery, Damon is not doing what you think he is doing. No one’s taking Angel away from you."

"No one except Damon D’Aboville." She rolled her eyes.

"He’s only trying to be close to his son." She gave the same excuse she had always given. "And he doesn’t mean to upset you. When he said all those mean things, he wanted you to know how he felt when you kept Angel away from him."

The D’Aboville siblings were audacious, she was puzzled how they managed to keep straight expressions. "In case you didn’t know, your brother bolted out the door as soon as he learnt he was going to be a father."

The women stared at each other for a tense moment before Mabella spoke. "He didn’t know you were pregnant."

"Excuse me?" She found this new excuse ridiculous. "I gave him that t-shirt."

"Did he confirm he had read the message?" Mabella challenged, and when Avery didn’t say a word, she shrugged. "I thought so. When I told him that I met his son, he thought I was out of my mind. Until he investigated and found out that Angel did exist. He was broken, Avery. He thought you deliberately hid his son from him. For months he wanted to demand an explanation, sue you, but then he found out what our parents did behind his back."

"Are you done?" Avery clenched her fists. "If your charade is finished, the door is to your left." She sauntered off to her room.

It was easy to believe Mabella’s words especially since they were exactly what Damon said when they met at the amusement park.

They probably didn’t know that she had heard Damon’s conversation with his father six years ago. To him, she was just an accidental fling that lingered on for much longer than he desired.

He could lie in her face as much as he wanted but how could she unhear his words?

...

When the father-son duo returned, she wanted to stab Damon from how furious she felt.

"What time is it?" She pointed at the clock. "And why in fucking hell does my son have a bruise on his elbow?" She hugged Angel and glared up at him.

"Boys will be boys," was his enraging response. "He was playing with another boy and fell. Isn’t that the most ordinary thing that has ever happened to a boy?"

She tried her best to not lose it in Angel’s presence. "Angel hates playing with other kids. He gets away from them as fast as he fucking can. What do you mean he was playing?"