Page 91 of Sven

What he did find almost made his heart drop.

There, at the door, was the PI his lawyer had hired, Stacie, Winnie’s mom... and his father.

30

Sven

All the breath left his body. “What’s going on?”

“Natalie,” he called, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, but it was thick with it.

“Son, we need to talk,” he said, brushing aside Sven and Winnie.

Anger rose.

“Sven,” Natalie said carefully behind her.

“Take Winnie,” he said, turning to hand her the baby.

“No. It’s going back with its mother,” his father said with a cold edge.

“The fuck she is,” Sven warned as Natalie took the baby out of his hands before he pushed both Natalie and Winnie behind him.

“Hi, baby,” Stacie said, reaching for Winnie.

But Winnie hadn’t seen her in almost two months. And from the look of the circles under her eyes and the weight loss, it looked like those months had been hard on her. Winnie clung toNatalie. It fortified Sven in what needed to be done because no one was taking his daughter anywhere.

“What the fuck is going on?” Sven growled out.

“You think the PI our family uses wouldn’t tell me about my personalized memorabilia being sold on the internet? Especially one I noticed was missing from your house last time I was here. First, I thought maybe you sold it because you got in trouble, but now I see you’re in even more trouble than I thought. Knocking up a bunny. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” he said to his dad before he pushed past Sven, only for a delivery driver to approach, looking cautios.

“Ummm . . . did someone order donuts?”

Stacie took them from the driver before handing them to Sven.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your little morning,” he said, sneering at Natalie, “But I think we have a situation to sort out.”

“Natalie. Take Winnie to the pool house.”

“No, the baby is going with its mother.”

“If you call my baby ‘it’ one more time, I will make you stop,” Sven said, chest-to-chest with his father.

“What are you going to do? Hit me?” His dad bit back in an angry growl.

While Sven had never thought he would hit his father, if he attempted to let that woman anywhere near Winnie, he would have no choice.

“What do you want?”

“I came to fix your mess. I gave Ms. Marinsky a check, and she is going to take the baby, and you can go back to focusing on your game. It’s what you should have done.”

“No.”

But Sven did need to talk to Stacie, and he needed to do it now before she was in the wind again.

“Stacie. I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you about Winnie.”

---