My children, who had only ever eaten at Michelin-starred restaurants, devoured the greasy slices like they were the best thing they had ever tasted.
Maybe they were.
“Mama,” Lucas said, his serious face smudged with sauce. “Are we going to see them again?”
“Do you want to?” I asked.
He thought about it.
“No,” he said finally. “They seem mean.”
“They are,” I said. “But they are also your family. If you ever want to know them, I will not stop you.”
“We already have a family,” Sophia said firmly. “We have you.”
I felt my eyes sting, but I blinked the tears back.
“You are right,” I said. “We do.”
My phone rang again. This time I answered.
It was my lawyer.
“Nora, what the hell did you do?” he said. “I have had six calls from Sterling family lawyers in the last hour. They are threatening to sue for defamation, for emotional distress, for—”
“Let them sue,” I said calmly. “I have genetic evidence, birth certificates, and five years of documentation proving I raised these children alone while Julian never once tried to find me. If they want to make this a legal battle, I will bury them.”
There was a pause.
“You planned this,” he said.
“Of course I planned this,” I said. “I have been planning this for five years.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Prepare a statement,” I said. “Confirming that Julian Sterling is the biological father of my children. Confirming that I attempted to inform him of the pregnancy but was paid to leave before I could. And confirming that I have raised these children without a single dollar of child support or contact from their father.”
“That is going to destroy his reputation,” my lawyer said.
“Good,” I said. “He destroyed mine five years ago. Turnabout is fair play.”
I hung up and turned back to my children, who were arguing about whether mushrooms belonged on pizza.
This was my family.
Not the cold, silent dinners at the Sterling estate.
Not the perfect appearances and the hollow conversations.
This. Greasy pizza and loud arguments and unconditional love.
This was what I had built.
And no amount of Sterling money could ever buy it.
The next morning, my phone would not stop ringing.
The story had exploded overnight.
Every major news outlet wanted an interview.
The financial press was analyzing the optics of a trillion-dollar company being run by a woman with four secret children.
The gossip sites were dissecting every angle of the Sterling family drama.