My Boss, My Babydaddy

Chapter 37

Zayden’s POV

The coffee shop Natasha chooses sits three blocks from Mount Sinai. Neutral territory. Public enough to prevent violence, private enough for the kind of conversation that ends careers.

She's already seated when I arrive, hands wrapped around a cup she hasn't touched. The weight loss is more pronounced in daylight—bones pressing against skin, eyes sunken into hollows that makeup can't hide. Death is claiming her in installments, and she knows it.

"You look like hell," she says without preamble.

"Right back at you."

Her smile is sharp, humorless. "Honesty. How refreshing."

I sit across from her, bypassing pleasantries we both know are performance. "Why am I here, Natasha?"

"Because you need to understand what happens next." She pushes a folder across the scarred table. "Open it."

The first document is a medical report, Eli's name at the top, dense paragraphs of terminology I recognize from too many hospital visits with Mia. But these words are different, darker.

‘Fanconi anemia. Bone marrow failure. Immediate transplant required.’

My chest constricts. "When?"

"Diagnosed six months ago, same week I found out about the cancer." Her voice stays level, clinical. "Poetic, don't you think? We're both dying, just on different timelines."

I flip through the pages. Treatment protocols, failed donor matches, the desperate search through registries that turned up nothing compatible.

"He needs a transplant within three months or his organs start shutting down." Natasha's fingers tighten around her cup. "I've tested. His aunt tested. Every goddamn person in my family willing to donate. Nothing."

"What about…"

"Unrelated donors?" She cuts me off. "Eight million people in the registry—not one match. Fanconi anemia is rare, requires near-perfect compatibility. The odds are basically astronomical unless you have a sibling."

The word lands like a blade between us.

"No." I push the folder back. "Absolutely not."

"You haven't even heard what I'm asking."

"I know exactly what you're asking. The answer is no."

Natasha's laugh is brittle, breaking at the edges. "You don't get to refuse, not this time. Not when your son is dying."

"Mia isn't involved in this."

"Mia is the only person who can save him."

She leans forward, and I see the desperation bleeding through her calculated control.

"I had her tested: DNA from the school registration forms, hair sample from the meet-and-greet I arranged. The lab confirmed it—she's a ninety-eight percent match."

My hands flatten against the table, pressing hard enough to hurt. "You tested my daughter without permission."

"I did what I had to do, what any mother would do."

"You violated—"

"I'm dying!" The words explode between us. "I have six months, maybe less, to make sure my son doesn't follow me into the ground. You think I give a fuck about your permission?"

The coffee shop goes quiet. People turn, then quickly away. Public confrontations between the wealthy are entertainment until they threaten to spill into actual violence.

I lower my voice to something cold, controlled. "Even if what you're saying is true, you can't force medical procedures on a child who isn't yours."

"Watch me." Natasha pulls out another document. This one is tabloid-ready—photographs, transaction records, dates that align with precision designed to destroy. "Your family has a history. The Wolfe empire wasn't built on legal tender, was it?"

My spine goes rigid. "Careful."

"Your grandfather's ties to organized crime. Money laundering through real estate acquisitions in the eighties. The suspicious deaths of three business partners who threatened to talk."

She taps the papers like they're ammunition.

"It's all here. Documented, ready for every news outlet that's been dying to take you down since you married your secretary and played family man."

"That's ancient history. Harrison is…"

"Dead? I know, I read the obituary. But his sins don't die with him, Zayden. They pass down. Legacy works both ways."

Her smile could cut steel.

"Imagine the headlines. 'Criminal Dynasty Denies Dying Child Life-Saving Treatment.' The Wolfe name won't survive it, your company won't survive it. And Mia will grow up knowing her father chose reputation over her brother's life."

"That's extortion."

"That's survival."

She pushes all the documents toward me—medical reports, blackmail material, custody petitions stacked like cards in a game I'm losing.

"You have three days to agree. Three days to convince Jocelyn to let Mia donate bone marrow. After that, I go public with everything—your family's criminal history, the payoffs, the child you abandoned. All of it."

"Jocelyn will never agree to this."

"Then make her." Natasha stands, movements careful like her bones might shatter. "You're good at manipulation, at making people do what you need. Prove it matters when your son's life is on the line."

I stare at the medical reports. Eli's face in the photo clipped to his chart—my features reflected in a child I've never held, never spoken to, never acknowledged as mine.

"Why Mia?" The question comes out rougher than intended. "Why not me? I'm his biological parent."

"You're not a close enough match. Neither am I." Natasha's expression softens, just slightly. "Siblings have the highest compatibility rate. Mia is his only chance."

"She's six years old."

"She's also healthy, strong. The procedure is low-risk for donors her age." Natasha moves toward the door, then stops. "I know you hate me. I've earned that. But Eli is innocent in all this, he didn't choose to be born from our mistake, he didn't choose to get sick. He just wants to live."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I burn everything down." No hesitation, no mercy. "Your marriage, your company, your reputation. Everything you've built on lies comes crashing down, and Eli dies knowing his father chose pride over saving him. You'll live with that. So will Mia, eventually, when she's old enough to understand what you denied her brother."

Just one deadly glance it took from her to me before she got up and left before I could respond.

I sit in the coffee shop for another hour, staring at papers that represent impossible choices. Save my son by asking Jocelyn to sacrifice our daughter's safety.

Or refuse and watch Eli die while Natasha destroys everything I've built.

The medical report lists Eli's blood type, his failing cell counts, the timeline of his deterioration. Each page is a countdown to a death I could prevent.

If I'm willing to risk Mia. If I'm willing to ask the woman I've already destroyed to trust me one more time.

The folder feels heavier than it should when I finally stand and walk out into daylight that seems too bright, too normal for the decision I'm about to make.