You guys I am so so soooo sorry for not updating for so long! I tried my best to write this chapter and I am working on another one, but I'm so busy with work, I barely have time anymore.

But I missed you! Hope you enjoy this little chapter, don't forget to vote and tell me what you think!

Thank you for being patient, I really appreciate it ❤️

~ShoamEmily

~

9th of September, 2007
Michael is 49, Angela is 43

Michael: "Come in." Debbie said hoarsely when I knocked.

She bit her lip as I walked into the hospital room, "Michael... Hi."

Mark cleared his throat before saying he'll give us a few minutes alone. He kissed Debbie and their baby's head, then left.

"Does this little guy have a name?" I asked while looking at the baby she held.

"No, not yet... Do you think the kids will like him?"

They probably would, but they won't even get see him.

I sighed and sat down. "Debbie, I gotta talk to you."

"Yeah, of course. I'm listening."

Debbie smiled down at her son and stroked his little head.

Just tell her, it shouldn't be that hard. She didn't have a problem with almost ruining my life.

"So um... This weekend away from the kids got me thinking. I know you want to see them, but I just... I can't let them be away from me, knowing they're only a few hours away but I can't see them."

She gazed at me, "What are you trying to say?"

I looked inside the inner pocket of my jacket and took out an envelope. It included custody papers I had my lawyer print out today after I found out Angela went to take Prince and Paris.

"I'm sorry, but Prince and Paris are staying with Angela and I. I'll see you in court." I placed the envelope on the bed and stood up.

I didn't even look back, but I knew how much I hurt her. All she wanted was to spend some time with her children, and I was taking that away from her.

She hurt you way more, Michael.

"You're seriously doing this?" Debbie scoffed. "After begging me not to take this to court, you do this? This is a real stab in the back, you know."

I turned around, "Well, maybe you deserve it after what you did."

And with that, I left her hospital room to see Angela and the kids waiting for me, all of them with a smile on their faces. Everyone except for Prince.

"Dad, can I go in?" he asked.

"Sorry, son, Debbie is tired." I answered.

He frowned, and I felt my heart pinch a little.

Angela cleared her throat, "Okay, I think it's time we head home... It's a long way back."

"Yeah, let's go home."

"No!" Prince protested while taking a step back from us. "I want to see my mom and my baby brother! I know she wants to see me, too! You're lying to me!"

"Honey..." my wife sighed, taking his hand.

He snatched it away like he's never known her. I could see Angela's eyes turn sad in an instant, and it broke my heart.

This has gone too far. First Debbie lies to me, and now she turned my son against his step mother.

"Prince, we're going home," I declared. He was about to say something, but I didn't let him. "There's no arguing about this. Let's go."

Angela took the rest of the children while I handled Prince who was not acting like himself, and we headed towards the car.

~

"He hates me," Angela sniffled into my chest. "I didn't want to believe it, but he does. I should've seen it coming, of course he'd prefer his birth mother over me."

"Prince doesn't hate you. He's just upset about Debbie, that's all." I assured her.

"You should've seen him today. He was all over her, and barely payed any attention to me."

"He wanted to spend time with her."

"Why are you encouraging this?" my wife raised her eyebrows. "Debbie did everything to make Prince hate me, and she succeeded."

Hearing her say that only made me realize how wrong she was about Debbie, but I knew she didn't need to know what I thought.

"Maybe we should try to sleep, babe." I offered, hoping to change the subject.

She rolled her eyes. "I can't sleep while thinking about how much my step son hates me."

Angela pulled away from me and sat up.

"I'm gonna go see if any of the kids are still awake. I need to know that at least the rest of them love me."

I sighed as she opened the bedroom doors and disappeared.

Great, not only will I have a custody battle over my head, but I'll also have a battle between my son and wife.

~

10th of September, 2007
Michael is 49, Angela is 43

Angela: I skipped down to the already made breakfast and wasn't surprised to see that Prince was missing.

"Good morning, mommy!" Blanket chirped. "Can you sit next to me?"

I nodded. "Where's Prince?"

I felt stupid for asking, because I already knew the answer.

"He said he's not hungry, Angie," Michael sighed. "Come on, sit down."

"Maybe I should talk to him..."

He looked at me as if to say: 'you know that's a bad idea'.

I closed my eyes and decided to sat down, knowing there's no use in talking to Prince right now.

I played with the food in my plate as I thought about how much he probably hates me.

Blanket was saying something but I was too concentrated in my thoughts to listen.

"Mommy!"

I blinked and saw his angry expression.

"I'm sorry, baby, mommy's just a little distracted today. What were you saying?"

"Nothing. I'm not hungry anymore." Blanket murmured and left the table.

I groaned when he disappeared upstairs.

"This is just great," I rubbed my face. "Now two of them hate me."

Paris smiled at me. "We don't hate you, mom."

I leaned back in my seat, trying to give her a small smile, but even failed at that.

"Thank you, honey... But, um, I still think I should go talk to Prince." I said and stood up.

"Angela, don't. You'll just make him more upset." Michael pulled on my arm.

"I have to, Mike..."

"You have to eat, talking to him will only make it worse. Let him calm down for a few hours and I'm sure he'll come around soon enough."

"Fine, then I'll go talk to Blanket." I said, pulling my arm away and going upstairs.

~

Luckily, Blanket forgave me. I explained to him what was happening, and he understood.

"I can talk to Prince, mommy," he offered with a huge smile on his face. "Maybe he'll stop being mad."

"It's okay, baby. Prince will talk to me when he wants to." I said and removed a strand of hair from his face.

He shook his head, "I want to help. He has to listen to me, I'm his brother."

Excitedly, Blanket hopped down from his bed and ran towards Prince's room.

I sighed, following him.

"Prince!" he knocked on his brother's bedroom door. "Open up! Mommy wants to talk to you!"

"Honey, let it go... I told you, he'll talk to me when he wants to." I told him.

Blanket ignored me and kept knocking. I don't need Prince to be more mad than he already is.

Suddenly the door was yanked open. Prince came out of his room with an irritated look on his face. "Blanket, leave me alone! I don't want to talk to Angela, okay? And you should really stop calling her 'mommy', because she's not our real mom."

Although I was hurt, I decided to ignore his comment, and instead of saying anything, I just folded my arms over my chest.

"She's just pretending, Blanket. We have real moms, but dad decided to take them away from us."

Hold up.

"Blanket, sweetheart, do you mind going back downstairs? I think Prince and I need to have a little alone time." I said.

My step son nodded and hugged me before going down the stairs.

I turned to Prince who rolled his eyes at me.

"Honey-"

He scoffed, "Don't call me nicknames."

"Fine. Prince, listen to me. Your dad is not the bad guy here, and neither am I. I know you're upset for not meeting your baby brother, but you can't go on like this," I took a step closer to him. "Debbie did bad things and that's the reason both your dad and I decided that it's better if you and Paris are away from her."

"What things?" Prince asked.

"Things you shouldn't worry about, but just know she's the only one to blame. We just want to protect you and if Debbie is around, you'll just get hurt."

"What if you're lying?"

"I'd never lie to you about something so serious, Prince. You're like a son to me, I'd never do that."

He looked down, probably wondering why he even asked such a stupid question.

"I still want to see Debbie." Prince whispered.

"Oh, I know you do," I hugged him and he didn't pull away. "But that's just not possible right now. I'll try to convince your dad to arrange something, okay?"

"Thanks, Angie." he smiled.

"Of course."

I felt bad for lying to him, because I knew there's no way Michael would ever let Debbie see the kids again. But I needed Prince to stop being so mad with me. It literally broke my heart to hear him say I'm not his real mom.

"Can we go eat? I'm starving."

I nodded, "Come on."

When we walked to table, Michael raised his eyebrows.

"I told you all I needed to do was talk to him." I smirked.

"You did," he wrapped an arm around me. "What did you say?"

I gulped and didn't answer.

"Angela, what did you tell my son?"

"I promised to convince you to let him see Debbie one last time before court starts."

"So you lied to him?" Michael said, removing his arm from my shoulders.

"Kinda..." I bit my bottom lip. "I just didn't want him to hate me anymore."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, "But you still lied to him. You know how I feel about lying to the kids."

I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest. He's the one to talk.

"You have no right to speak, mister. May I remind you about something you did while I was pregnant with your daughter? You were lying all over the place. To me, to the children... even to yourself."

He looked down in shame.

"I hope you're not planning on using that against me in the future. You know how sorry I am for what I did."

"I do," I kissed his cheek. "But a little white lie won't hurt him. It's for his own good."

Michael looked at his son, "I just hope he won't be disappointed."

"He will, but at least he's safe with us."

My husband smiled slightly and kissed me.

"Yeah, at least he's safe with us."

~

19th of September, 2007
Michael is 49, Angela is 43

Michael: Angela closed the last few buttons of my suit with a smile.

"You look great," she complimented. "Very handsome."

"Handsome won't impress the judge." I sighed.

"But it impresses me..."

She kissed me slowly, but pulled away as soon as my phone started ringing.

"Ignore it," my wife ordered. "I know you're anxious out about this, and I think I have a very good idea of how to relieve your stress..."

Angela sucked on my neck and I hurried to stop her. "I can't show up to court with a hickey on my neck. Everything has to be perfect, these are my kids we're talking about."

"Our kids," she corrected me. "And you need to be a little more confident, they are staying with us. No judge will take them away just because you had a little fun with your wife."

"But it might make him think we're irresponsible parents-"

She cut me off with a kiss, "Would you relax? It's all going to be perfect. Now can I please strip you out of this sexy ass suit?"

Before I could respond, Angela unbuckled my belt and opened my zipper. She pulled my pants down then got down on her knees.

I closed my eyes. This woman...

But just as my wife was about to take me in her mouth, Blanket called for her.

"Stay here, I'll be right back. Don't put your pants back on."

Once she was up the stairs I hurried to get dressed, because I knew whatever started happening won't continue.

I fixed myself before going to see if the kids are ready.

Paris was holding AJ with the supervision of Grace, and was wearing a cute little dress.

"Hey, girls," I cooed, sitting down next to my daughters. "I see you're all ready to go, Parry."

She nodded and focused on AJ. I let my baby girl take my finger in her little fist and looked up at me.

Her green eyes sparkled and a smile spread on her face.

"Daddy, am I going to speak today in court?" Paris suddenly asked.

Grace cleared her throat and said she'll be back in few.

"Um," I sighed. "Maybe. And if you will, I want you to tell the truth, okay?"

"Okay, daddy. I just hope Prince tells the truth, too."

I scrunched my eyebrows. "Why wouldn't he tell the truth?"

"I don't know, he seemed pretty mad this morning..."

"About?"

Paris looked at AJ again, "He said something about you and mom lying to him."

I rubbed my face. I knew telling him lies would only backfire at us.

"Then I guess I should go see how he's doin'," I said and took AJ from her hold. "Why don't you go see where your mom is so we could leave?"

"Sure, daddy."

Once Paris was gone, I went into Prince's room.

He was just being done with dressing up, but was struggling with the last button of his suit.

"Need help?" I questioned.

He shook his head.

I took a seat on his bed while he kept trying to close that button.

"Come here, son, I'll do it." I said.

"It's okay, dad, I don't need your help." he snapped.

"Well, you want to tell me why you're upset?"

"No."

"Prince, come on." I encouraged him.

"It's not fair, dad. I want to see my mom."

"I know you do, but you can't."

"Why not?" my son crossed his arms.

"Because... You're my son. Debbie isn't your mother, she only gave birth to you as a favor to me. If Angela wouldn't have come into my life, I would still be raising you, Paris and Blanket on my own, but things changed."

Prince rolled his eyes, "Yeah, dad, things changed. I'm not a kid anymore, I can make my own decisions. And I decide that I want to see my mom."

"You can't, Prince..."

"Yes, I can! I'm tired of being lied to, dad! If the judge says so today, I can see her, right? I'll tell him I want to see Debbie and he'll let me."

I felt my eyes burn with tears. This is so not like him... I can't believe he's saying all these things. It's like he wants to be taken away from me.

When I didn't respond, Prince snickered and made his way to the door.

"I just... I just hate you, dad!"

I swallowed the lump in my throat as he left angrily. My heart wouldn't slow down and I felt so hurt by my son's words.

I was also angry. Angry with Debbie and how she turned my son not just against Angela, but now against me, too.

She's going down today... And I'll make sure she never sees my children ever again.