Chapter 18 - Raising the Fortress
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For agonizing months, we hunted shadows. The security detail was doubled. The household staff was ruthlessly re-vetted. Delivery trucks changed their routes daily. Leo’s schedule was deliberately varied to avoid any predictable patterns. We learned that Rowan Pike, the convicted mechanic, had a younger brother who had recently disappeared from his last known address, but the trail was completely cold.
The physical threat did not materialize immediately, and in many ways, the waiting was almost worse than an attack.
There is a specific kind of adrenaline-fueled fear that burns incredibly hot and then finally passes. Then, there is the slow, creeping fear that becomes the very architecture of your life. I began to automatically measure the distance to windows. I counted the exits in every room I entered. I constantly checked the rearview mirror to see if cars were following me. Motherhood already makes the world feel sharp and dangerous; an active threat makes it feel serrated.
For a while, I worried deeply that Leo would inherit my constant vigilance as a normal atmosphere. I terrified myself with the thought that he would grow up in a house where love always meant checking the deadbolts twice before daring to laugh.
So, I made a conscious, difficult decision.
The heavy security would remain, but the fear would not raise my son.
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We played loud, joyful music in the kitchen while making pancakes. We filled the nursery with bright, chaotic colors. I brought Leo to the Helixion corporate headquarters in a baby carrier and let serious, highly-paid engineers make ridiculous faces at him during quarterly product briefings. I took the stolen money Marcus recovered from Victoria’s accounts and created the Lucian Ashcroft Education Trust, building libraries and funding reading programs across the country.
Every single dollar Victoria had stolen to destroy us went directly back into the world to help children, with compound interest. It was the cleanest, most absolute revenge I could fathom.
