Chapter 7 - Dominic Blackwood’s Last ToastSerena was not arrested in handcuffs.
Not at first.
People like Serena did not get dragged from rooms immediately. They were escorted, advised, protected by lawyers who appeared before police finished reading forms.
But humiliation arrived faster than handcuffs.
The rehearsal dinner guests watched her walk out between officers while Victor remained inside the Montigue estate, calm as a judge.
Charles Montigue shouted that the recording was illegal.
Grace informed him it was not.
Serena’s mother fainted beautifully into a chair.
No one believed it.
By midnight, every powerful phone in Chicago was ringing.
By morning, the story had changed forever.
The same newspapers that had called Lily unstable now printed careful phrases like “new evidence,” “ongoing investigation,” and “questions surrounding Montigue family involvement.”
Lily’s name was no longer in the headlines.
That should have relieved her.
Instead, it made her feel invisible in a different way.
The world cared now because Victor cared. Because Serena had embarrassed powerful people. Because a trust was involved. Because scandal had entered rooms with chandeliers.
But Ethan had been hurt before any headline.
And Lily had been telling the truth before anyone found it useful.
Victor noticed.
On the second morning after the rehearsal dinner, he found Lily in the west-wing garden, wrapped in a cardigan, watching Ethan sleep in a pram beside her. The baby’s color had improved. His little sling was still in place, but he had started smiling again when Lily sang.
Victor stood at the garden entrance.
“You didn’t come to breakfast,” he said.
“I wasn’t hungry.”
He walked closer but kept respectful distance.
“Reporters are gone from the gate.”
“For now.”
“Yes.”
Lily looked at the roses climbing the wall.
“Do you know what the worst part is?”
Victor waited.
“I thought when people believed me, I would feel better.”
“And you don’t.”
She shook her head.
“I feel angry.”
Victor sat on the opposite bench.
“Good.”
That surprised her.
“Good?”
“Anger tells you something was taken from you.”
Lily looked at him.
“And what do I do with it?”
“Don’t let anyone convince you to trade it for silence.”
Before she could answer, Marco appeared at the garden door.
“Dominic is here.”
Victor’s expression did not change, but Lily felt the shift.
Ethan stirred.
Victor stood.
“Take Ethan inside.”
Lily nodded.
Then she paused.
“Be careful.”
His eyes met hers.
“I will.”
Dominic Blackwood entered the mansion like a man who still believed blood outranked evidence.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, broad-shouldered, with the polished warmth of an uncle who hugged children and ordered other people’s suffering over lunch. He had helped raise Victor after Victor’s father died. He had advised him through business wars. He had sat beside Amelia’s hospital bed.
That was why betrayal from Dominic did not arrive like a knife.
It arrived like poison.
Slowly.
Victor received him in the formal dining room.
The same room where Dominic had first introduced Serena.
Dominic looked at the untouched place settings and smiled sadly.
“Your father would hate seeing this family divided.”
Victor poured coffee into one cup.
His own.
“My father hated traitors.”
Dominic’s smile thinned.
“I came to help you.”
“You came because Serena talked.”
Dominic sighed as if disappointed.
“She is frightened. Frightened women say foolish things.”
Victor looked at him.
“Did you give her the trust terms?”
Dominic sat without being invited.
“I explained reality. You were drowning in grief. The boy needed a proper mother. The house needed order.”
“The boy has a name.”
Dominic waved that away.
“He is a Blackwood heir. That matters more than a nursery name.”
Victor’s eyes went dead.
Dominic continued, not seeing the danger.
“Serena was imperfect, yes. But she came from the right blood, the right alliances. You think that nanny can protect him? She is temporary. Girls like that confuse affection with importance.”
Victor placed his cup down.
“Say her name.”
Dominic blinked.
“What?”
“Her name is Lily.”
Dominic chuckled.
“You sound like a guilty widower falling for the help.”
Victor stood so quickly the chair scraped back.
For a moment, even Dominic understood he had stepped into darkness.
But Victor did not touch him.
That was not the trap.
Grace entered carrying a folder.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Attorney theater?”
Grace smiled politely.
“My favorite kind.”
She opened the folder.
“Dominic Blackwood, we have emails between you and Serena Montigue discussing the Ethan Blackwood trust. We have financial transfers routed through a Montigue Foundation shell account. We have testimony from Nora Vale regarding Amelia Blackwood’s concerns. And we have Serena on recording confirming your involvement in correcting the household after marriage.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“That recording will never hold.”
Grace’s smile remained.
“It does not need to hold alone. It led us to banking records. Those are less dramatic but much more stubborn.”
Victor watched his uncle carefully.
Dominic leaned back.
“You would destroy me over a servant’s story?”
“No,” Victor said. “Over my son.”
Dominic’s mask finally fell.
“You were never fit to lead this family,” he snapped. “Your father understood sacrifice. You hide behind sentiment. That child will inherit everything and be raised by lullabies and hired girls while wolves wait outside the gate.”
Victor stepped closer.
“The wolf was inside the dining room.”
Dominic stood.
“You think removing me makes you safe?”
“No,” Victor said. “But it makes Ethan safer.”
Grace placed another document on the table.
“Effective immediately, the board has frozen your access to all Blackwood family accounts pending investigation. Your voting rights in the holding company are suspended under the morality clause you drafted yourself in 2009.”
For the first time, Dominic looked truly afraid.
“You can’t do that.”
Victor’s face revealed nothing.
“You taught me how.”
Dominic looked toward the door as if expecting old loyalty to save him.
No one came.
The staff who once lowered their eyes before him now stood straighter in the hallway. Mrs. Bell watched with her hands folded. The driver stared coldly. Even the cook, who had cried during her statement, did not look away.
Dominic saw it then.
He had not only lost Victor.
He had lost the house.
And houses like Blackwood remembered who frightened the children.
Victor walked to the dining room doors and opened them.
“Leave.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“This is not over.”
Victor looked at him one last time.
“For Ethan, it is.”
Dominic stepped into the hallway.
At the far end, Lily stood holding the baby.
She had not meant to be seen. Ethan had woken crying, and she had carried him toward the sound of Victor’s voice.
Dominic’s eyes landed on her with pure contempt.
Then on Ethan.
The baby turned his face into Lily’s shoulder.
That tiny movement destroyed Dominic more completely than any legal document.
The heir he claimed to protect recoiled from him.
Victor saw it.
So did everyone.
May you like
Dominic walked out alone.
And for the first time in decades, the Blackwood mansion closed its doors against one of its own.
