Updated Apr 16, 2026 • ~16 min read
Chapter 10: The Lawyer Threat
Luna
Luna is making Sofia lunch—grilled cheese cut into triangles because her daughter will only eat sandwiches if they’re the “right shape”—when someone knocks on her apartment door at two o’clock on Friday afternoon, and her first thought is that it’s Carmen stopping by to check on them since Luna texted this morning that she was taking the day off to stay home with Sofia after yesterday’s fever scare.
Sofia is feeling much better today, her temperature back to normal and her energy returning in the way that three-year-olds bounce back from illness with alarming speed, currently sitting at their small kitchen table coloring a picture of what she insists is an elephant but looks more like a purple blob with legs—and Luna calls out “coming!” while wiping her hands on a dish towel and crossing to the door, expecting to find her best friend with coffee and sympathy.
Instead, she opens the door to find a professional courier in a uniform holding a large envelope and a clipboard, his expression bored in the way of someone who delivers documents all day and has stopped caring about their contents.
“Luna Vega?” he asks, glancing down at his clipboard to confirm the name.
“Yes?” Luna says, confusion starting to morph into unease because who sends courier deliveries to her apartment, what kind of documents require hand-delivery with signature confirmation.
“Sign here,” the courier says, offering her the clipboard and a pen, and Luna signs automatically, her anxiety ratcheting higher as she takes the envelope he hands her—thick and official-looking, the return address showing a law firm she doesn’t recognize: Morrison & Associates, Attorneys at Law.
Her stomach drops.
Attorneys.
Matthias sent her something through attorneys.
The courier is already walking away, his job complete, and Luna closes her door with shaking hands and stares at the envelope like it might explode, her mind racing through possibilities—none of them good, all of them involving courts and custody and exactly the nightmare scenario she feared when she finally told Matthias about Sofia last night.
“Mama, is lunch ready?” Sofia asks from the kitchen, completely oblivious to the bomb that just arrived in her mother’s hands.
“One minute, baby,” Luna manages to call back, her voice sounding almost normal despite the panic clawing at her throat, and she forces herself to open the envelope because not knowing is somehow worse than knowing, even if what’s inside confirms her worst fears.
The letter is printed on expensive letterhead, formal legal language that Luna has to read three times before her shocked brain can fully process the content:
*Dear Ms. Vega,*
*This office represents Matthias Wolfe regarding his recently discovered biological child, Sofia Vega. Mr. Wolfe has requested our assistance in establishing his parental rights and developing a custody arrangement that serves the best interests of the child.*
*To that end, we request the following:*
*1. Cooperation with a court-admissible paternity test to be administered by an accredited laboratory, scheduled at your earliest convenience.*
*2. Negotiation of a formal custody agreement, beginning with supervised visitation and progressing toward joint legal and physical custody as appropriate.*
*3. Determination of child support obligations, with Mr. Wolfe committed to providing retroactive support for the past three years as well as ongoing financial contribution.*
*We believe these matters can be resolved through good-faith mediation without court intervention. However, should you decline to cooperate, Mr. Wolfe is prepared to petition the family court to establish his parental rights through legal channels.*
*Please contact this office within seven business days to schedule the paternity test and begin custody negotiations. Failure to respond will be interpreted as unwillingness to cooperate and will necessitate formal legal action.*
*Sincerely,*
*Richard Morrison, Esq.*
*Morrison & Associates*
Luna reads the letter four times, each pass making her hands shake harder and her breathing come faster because this is it, this is exactly what she feared—Matthias is using his money and his lawyers and his power to take Sofia away from her, to punish Luna for keeping secrets, to claim his daughter regardless of what Luna wants or what’s best for Sofia.
He lied to her.
Last night, he held her while she cried and promised they would work this out together, promised to take it slow and let Sofia get to know him gradually, promised he understood Luna’s fears and would respect her role as Sofia’s mother—and then he went straight to his attorney and drafted this letter threatening legal action if Luna doesn’t comply with his demands within a week.
The betrayal is devastating, cutting deeper than when he ghosted her four years ago because at least back then Luna could tell herself it was a misunderstanding, a technical failure, not a deliberate choice to hurt her—but this letter is intentional, calculated, exactly the kind of ruthless business tactic that billionaire CEOs use to get what they want without caring who they destroy in the process.
“Mama?” Sofia’s voice from the kitchen sounds worried now, probably sensing something wrong in the way that children pick up on parental stress even when you try to hide it. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, baby,” Luna lies, shoving the letter back into its envelope with shaking hands and forcing herself to breathe normally, to not panic in front of her daughter, to be the calm, capable mother Sofia needs even when Luna’s entire world is falling apart. “Lunch is coming right now.”
She finishes making Sofia’s grilled cheese on autopilot, cuts it into the requisite triangles, adds apple slices and carrot sticks because vegetables are important even during crises, and sets the plate in front of her daughter with a smile that feels like it might crack her face.
“Eat slowly, okay?” Luna says, kissing the top of Sofia’s head and breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo, trying to ground herself in this moment, this reality where Sofia is still hers, still sitting at their kitchen table eating lunch without any idea that her entire life is about to be destroyed by lawyers and custody agreements and a father who’s decided he wants to claim her now that he knows she exists.
Luna waits until Sofia is absorbed in her lunch before retreating to her bedroom and calling Carmen, her hands still shaking so badly that it takes three tries to hit the right contact, and the instant her best friend answers Luna is talking, words tumbling out in a panicked rush.
“He sent lawyers, Carmen, he sent me a letter from his attorney demanding a paternity test and custody arrangement and threatening to take me to court if I don’t cooperate within a week, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t have money for lawyers, he’s going to take her away from me—”
“Slow down,” Carmen interrupts, her voice forcibly calm in the way that suggests she’s deliberately trying to counterbalance Luna’s panic. “Breathe. Tell me exactly what the letter says.”
Luna reads the entire thing aloud, her voice shaking on phrases like “court intervention” and “legal action” and “joint custody,” and when she finishes there’s a long pause during which Carmen processes the information.
“Okay,” Carmen says finally. “First thing—he can’t just take Sofia from you. You’re her mother. You’ve raised her alone for three years. No court is going to remove a child from a fit parent.”
“But he has money,” Luna argues, the fear that’s been living in her chest since she found out she was pregnant roaring back to life with vicious intensity. “Lawyers. Power. He’s Matthias Wolfe, billionaire CEO, and I’m nobody. I have nothing. If he wants to take her—”
“Then you fight,” Carmen says firmly. “You get a lawyer too. You document everything you’ve done for Sofia—all the care, all the love, all the sacrifices. You show the court that you’re an excellent mother and that Sofia is happy and healthy and thriving in your care.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer,” Luna says, and the words taste like failure because this is why rich people always win, because they can afford legal representation while working-class people like Luna have to navigate the system alone and hope for justice that rarely comes.
“Legal aid,” Carmen counters. “Family court has resources for parents who can’t afford private attorneys. Call them. Today. Right now. Don’t let him intimidate you with his fancy law firm.”
Luna knows Carmen is right, knows she can’t just collapse in fear and let Matthias steamroll over her without putting up a fight—but the terror of potentially losing Sofia is paralyzing, making it hard to think clearly, hard to plan strategy, hard to do anything except imagine increasingly awful scenarios where Sofia is taken from her apartment in tears while Luna watches helplessly.
“What if I lose her?” Luna whispers, voicing the fear she can barely stand to acknowledge. “What if the court decides he’d be a better parent because he has money and resources and can give her things I can’t? What if they decide Sofia would be better off living with him?”
“That’s not how custody works,” Carmen says gently. “Courts look at the best interest of the child. Stability. Attachment. Which parent has been the primary caregiver. Money matters, sure, but it’s not the only thing that matters. You’ve been her world for three years, Luna. That counts for something.”
“But I kept her from him,” Luna says, the guilt that’s been growing since last night now expanding into something that feels like it might consume her. “I hid his daughter from him for three years. Won’t the court see that as bad? Won’t they think I’m unfit because I kept secrets?”
“You didn’t know how to find him,” Carmen reminds her. “You thought he abandoned you. You made the best decision you could with the information you had. That’s not being unfit, that’s being a protective mother.”
Luna wants to believe that, wants to trust that the court system will see her choices as reasonable instead of malicious—but she also knows that family court is unpredictable, that judges make decisions based on incomplete information and personal biases, that even with the best intentions she could lose primary custody and end up with every-other-weekend visitation while Sofia lives with Matthias in his penthouse, surrounded by nannies and private schools and everything money can buy except for the mother who loves her most.
“Call legal aid,” Carmen says again. “Right now. While I’m on the phone. I’ll wait.”
Luna Googles “New York family law legal aid” with shaking fingers and finds a hotline number, calls it while Carmen stays on hold, and is connected to an intake specialist who listens to her situation with professional sympathy before offering advice that’s both reassuring and terrifying.
“Cooperate with the paternity test,” the specialist says. “You have nothing to gain by refusing and it makes you look obstructionist. Once paternity is established, you negotiate custody through a mediator if possible, court if necessary. New York favors joint custody arrangements, but given that you’ve been sole caregiver for three years, you’ll likely remain primary custodial parent with him getting gradually increasing visitation.”
“What if he fights for full custody?” Luna asks, voicing the nightmare scenario.
“Then you demonstrate that you’re a fit parent and he has no grounds to remove the child from your care,” the specialist says. “Document everything—your home environment, Sofia’s routine, daycare records, medical records, anything that shows she’s thriving under your care. Get character references from people who know you as a mother. Be prepared to show the court that you’re cooperative and focused on Sofia’s best interests.”
The advice is practical but overwhelming, a to-do list that feels impossible when Luna is barely holding herself together, when the thought of documenting her entire parenting history while also working full-time and actually raising Sofia feels like more than she can manage.
“Can you represent me?” Luna asks, hoping the answer is yes even though she knows legal aid resources are stretched thin.
“We can help you with paperwork and advice, possibly mediation support,” the specialist says. “For full court representation, you’d need to apply and be approved based on income qualifications. I can email you the application.”
“Please,” Luna says, because even partial help is better than facing this alone, better than trying to navigate family law without any support while Matthias has Richard Morrison and probably a whole team of expensive attorneys working to take her daughter away.
The specialist emails the application while they’re still on the phone, promises that someone will call her back within two business days to discuss next steps, and wishes her luck with the kind of sympathy that suggests Luna is going to need it.
Carmen is still patiently waiting when Luna switches back to their call, and Luna fills her in on what legal aid said—cooperate, document, prepare for the possibility of court.
“So you do the paternity test,” Carmen summarizes. “Because he’s obviously Sofia’s father and refusing just makes you look bad. You respond to his attorney saying you’re willing to negotiate custody but you want mediation, not court. And you start pulling together everything that proves you’re a good mother.”
“And then what?” Luna asks, because even if she does all of that, even if she cooperates and documents and mediates, Matthias still has more money and more power and more ability to drag this out until Luna is emotionally and financially destroyed.
“Then you trust that the system works,” Carmen says, though her voice suggests even she doesn’t fully believe that. “And you remember that Sofia loves you, needs you, and that bond matters more than anything Matthias’s lawyers can argue.”
Luna wants to believe that love is enough, that three years of devoted motherhood will outweigh Matthias’s money and legal team—but she’s also lived in the real world long enough to know that justice doesn’t always prevail, that systems favor the powerful, that good intentions don’t protect you when someone with resources decides to destroy you.
She spends the rest of the afternoon in a haze of anxiety and anger, going through motions of caring for Sofia while her mind spins through worst-case scenarios, and by the time she puts her daughter to bed that night Luna has worked herself into a state of fury that momentarily overwhelms the fear.
Matthias lied to her.
That’s the core of it, the betrayal that hurts most—he held her last night and made promises about taking it slow and respecting her role as Sofia’s mother, and then he immediately went to his lawyer and started legal proceedings designed to force Luna’s compliance through threat of court action.
She texts him at nine o’clock, after Sofia is asleep, her fingers shaking with anger as she types:
Luna: Received your attorney’s letter. So much for taking it slow and working together. I guess billionaires don’t negotiate, they just threaten legal action and hope working-class mothers are too scared to fight back.
The response comes back within minutes:
Matthias: Luna, let me explain—
But Luna is done listening to his explanations, done trusting his promises, done believing that Matthias Wolfe is anything other than what he’s always been—a rich man who gets what he wants regardless of who he hurts in the process.
Luna: Your lawyer can contact my lawyer. This is clearly a legal matter now, not a personal one.
Except Luna doesn’t have a lawyer, not really, just legal aid’s promise to help with paperwork and the hope that she can navigate this disaster without being completely destroyed—but Matthias doesn’t need to know that, doesn’t need to know how terrified she is, doesn’t get the satisfaction of seeing her crumble.
Her phone rings immediately, Matthias’s name on the screen, but Luna declines the call and then blocks his number because she can’t talk to him right now, can’t hear his voice without either screaming or crying, can’t handle whatever justification he’s prepared for why he had to betray her trust less than twenty-four hours after she finally gave it to him.
Three more calls come through before the blocking takes effect, and then blessed silence, and Luna sits on her couch in her quiet apartment and lets herself cry—for the trust she gave and lost, for the future she briefly imagined where maybe they could co-parent peacefully, for Sofia who’s about to be caught in the middle of a custody battle she didn’t ask for and doesn’t deserve.
Carmen texts around ten:
Carmen: How are you holding up?
Luna: Blocked his number. He sent lawyers, I’m sending lawyers back. This is war now.
Carmen: Be careful. Wars have casualties. Make sure Sofia isn’t one of them.
The words hit harder than Carmen probably intended, because Luna knows her daughter will be a casualty of this conflict—not physically, hopefully, but emotionally, watching her mother and the man who might be introduced as her father fighting over custody and visitation and all the ugly machinery of broken families.
But what choice does Luna have?
Matthias threw the first punch by sending that letter, by choosing legal intimidation over the cooperation he promised, and Luna has to defend herself and Sofia even if it means fighting dirty, even if it means custody mediation turns into custody battle, even if it means Sofia grows up knowing her parents couldn’t be in the same room without lawyers present.
Luna falls asleep that night with her phone next to her pillow, legal aid’s application half-completed on her laptop, and nightmares about judges taking Sofia away while Luna screams explanations that nobody listens to—and when she wakes up Saturday morning to Sofia climbing into bed with her asking about pancakes, Luna holds her daughter tight and makes a silent promise.
Nobody is taking you from me.
Not Matthias.
Not his lawyers.
Not the court system.
Nobody.
You’re mine, and I will fight with everything I have to keep you safe.
Even if it destroys me in the process.
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