Click snap
The flame catches this time. Small and defiant in the morning light.
Matthew Ashford thought he could reach into our home. Thought he could poison our child and hide behind surveillance. Thought he could break us apart with fear.
He's wrong.
He just taught us exactly how far he's willing to go.
Now we know, too.
And when The Wolf and his wife come for him—when we burn down everything he's built and watch him choke on the ashes—he'll realize too late that the message he sent was received.
Just not the way he intended.
The flame flickers as Mila thunders down the stairs, backpack—the clean spare one, not the bugged one—bouncing on her shoulders.
"Papa made pancakes with chocolate chips, even though it's not Saturday!"
"Special occasion," Sergei calls from the kitchen. "Beach vacation breakfast."
I close the lighter, slipping it back into my pocket. The bug from her backpack sits beside it, dead weight and evidence.
We'll leave it here when we go. Let Matthew listen to empty rooms. Let him wonder where we've gone, what we're planning, when the strike will come.
Let him learn what it feels like to wait for violence he can't see coming.
In the kitchen, Mila's already at the table, drowning her pancakes in syrup while Sergei watches with that soft expression he reserves only for her. He catches my eye across the room.
Ready?his gaze asks.
Ready, mine answers.
We eat breakfast like a normal family. Chat about the beach house, about sandcastles and seashells, and whether the ocean will be too cold for swimming. Mila does most of the talking, oblivious to the currents running beneath the surface.
By noon, we're packed. Sergei loads the SUV while I do one final sweep of the house—making sure we've left nothing essential behind, except the things we want Matthew to find. The bugs stay where they are. Silent witnesses to empty rooms.
I pause at the door, looking back at the house that was supposed to be safe. The house where I learned to shoot, where I helped with homework, where I fell in love with a dangerous man and his dangerous daughter.
It's compromised now. Tainted by Matthew's reach.
But not destroyed.
We'll come back. When this is over. When Matthew's in the ground or behind bars, and our family can breathe without looking over our shoulders.
We'll come back and make it ours again.
"Izzy?" Mila's voice from the car. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah, sweetheart." I pull the door closed, locking it with deliberate finality. "I'm coming."
The drive to the Hamptons takes two hours. Mila falls asleep in the back seat, clutching her stuffed wolf, exhausted from yesterday's ordeal and this morning's excitement.
Sergei's hand finds mine on the center console.
"We're going to win," he says quietly. Too soft for sleeping ears—or electronic ones—to catch.
"I know."
