She doesn’t get cornered in our house.I underlined it in the notes.
Security layered itself over the floorplan on instinct. Lockdown zones disguised as design.
Reinforced doors. Glass that refused to shatter. Safe rooms that opened fromherside. An armory, contained and coded, where she’d never accidentally see it.
My wife wouldn’t open a drawer and see a gun sitting there.
I kept building past the wedding.
Six heirs, minimum. Legacy. Blood. I’d never wanted it. Never wanted to hand any child my last name and watch the world mark them as leverage.
Then Madeline walked into my life.
She’d be a good mother. That was the part that scared me. That I knew it. And I wanted to see it. Yet none of it happened unlessshewanted it.
We’d have children if she chose that life. Not because ink written by dead men insisted. If she said no, that was the law.
If she said yes, I’d turn the world inside out to keep her safe while she did it.
Babies, a nursery with, blackout curtains, a couch big enough for me to sleep on when she was too tired to argue. Floors that forgave clumsy falls. A playroom with glass doors so she could see them and still breathe.
School years, quiet study spaces. A music room so “culture” belonged to them, not as a punishment.
Snack kitchen because the idea of anyone in my house wanting food made my jaw clench.
Teenagers, rooms with privacy without exposing them. Soundproofed walls. Exits that didn’t require walking past a hundred eyes. A gym for rage. A garage wing, because I wasn’tstupid enough to pretend my kids wouldn’t want engines and speed.
Accommodation at the estate for nannies to teachers. All staff that lived at our estate would not be given the best. Jealousy led to resentment. Resentment led to security breaches.
Holidays, a ridiculous tree in the receiving hall. Garlands threaded through subtle crest work. Kids sprawled on the rug like they owned the world.
They would. I’d make sure of it.
If she gave me children, I knew exactly what would happen to me.
I’d be wrecked. Completely. A man who used to saynoand already be planning how to sayyesthe second he heard,Dad, please.
I’d done some version of this before, seventeen, covered in blood, six kids relying on me and Nik to get them through the night. That had been parenting by survival.
This would be the opposite.
I flipped back to the front gate.
Long drive equalled time. Cameras lost clarity across that distance. Engines had to slow. Anyone trying to rush the house would run out of road before they ran out of arrogance.
I added a checkpoint disguised as stone, archway with integrated cameras, bollards under the surface.
Guardhouse dressed as a guest pavilion. Guests came to see my wife, they didn’t need to feel like they were entering a prison wing.
The house split where it needed to, Public Wing. Private Wing. Family Wing.
Public wore the Codex. Private wore my guilt.
The Codex chamber replayed behind my eyes the second I traced the central atrium.
Crow men were meant to be fluent in power and restraint. I’d used one and thrown the other away. Every line I drew after that felt like a confession carved in stone.
In the public wing, the dining hall, the library, I buried exits into the walls. Private doors. Hidden corridors. Routes she could use when the scrutiny turned vicious. Spaces she could slip into and close the door, back to wood, breathing like a human being, not a performance piece.
