Chapter 5 - The Trap is Set
By Friday afternoon, the legal battle had escalated from a private family dispute into a full-scale corporate and social war. Beatriz’s lawyers had filed an emergency motion claiming I had kidnapped Isabella, but Judge Ramirez—a magistrate in Madrid known for his unyielding integrity—had summarily dismissed it after reviewing Dr. Santos’s report and the security footage.
Marcus walked into my study, tossing a thick dossier onto the coffee table. "The court has officially granted you temporary sole custody pending the final divorce proceedings. Beatriz has visitation rights supervised by a court-appointed social worker, provided she passes a psychological evaluation."
"And Victorio?" I asked.
"Victorio tried to pressure the municipal board in Valencia regarding our upcoming resort development there," Marcus smiled grimly. "Fortunately, I leaked a few preliminary audits of his own construction projects to the financial press. He’s currently too busy putting out fires of his own to bother us."
Just as Marcus finished speaking, my phone buzzed. It was an internal alert from the penthouse lobby security downstairs.
“Mr. Volkov, you have a visitor. A Mrs. Beatriz de la Vega. She is demanding entry to the private elevator.”
I exchanged a glance with Marcus.
"She must have realized her family's legal pressure failed," Marcus noted. "She’s coming alone to try emotional manipulation."
"Let her up," I instructed the intercom. "Bring her straight to the living room."
Ten minutes later, the private elevator chimed. The glass double doors opened, and Beatriz stepped into the penthouse.
Gone was the polished, immaculate socialite of the Marbella villa. Her hair was slightly disheveled, her designer coat looked like it had been thrown on in a hurry, and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like a woman whose entire illusion of control had just been ripped away.
"Julian," she choked out, her voice cracking as she walked toward me. "Please. What are you doing? You can't just keep her from me. We can fix this."
I remained seated behind the desk, watching her approach. "There is nothing to fix, Beatriz. The courts have granted temporary custody to me."
She stopped dead in her tracks, her face twisting from manufactured sorrow into sudden, venomous rage. "You manipulated her! You poisoned her against me! She’s my daughter too!"
"Your daughter?" I stood up, my height and cold glare instantly halting her advance. "Isabella is a human being, Beatriz. Not a piece of property for you to punish when you’re bored, and not a maid for you to exploit while you sit on a terrace drinking cocktails."
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Beatriz breathed heavily, her chest heaving. She looked around the expansive penthouse as if realizing for the first time that her gilded cage had vanished. "You think you’ve won, don't you? You think because you have money, because you built some hotels, you can just throw me away like trash?"
"No, Beatriz," I said quietly, stepping around the desk until I was standing right in front of her. "I’m not throwing you away like trash. I’m simply leaving you in the garbage heap you built for everyone else."
