Chapter 4 - The Safehouse Protocol
We stole a rusted SUV from a long-term parking lot and drove three hours north into the Wisconsin woods.
Nobody spoke. The silence in the car was thick with adrenaline and grief.
My empire was burning. My men were either dead or turned.
We pulled up to a heavily wooded cabin. An off-the-grid bunker I had built under a fake LLC five years ago.
"Get Ava inside. Couch, immediately," Claire ordered, taking charge as if it were her own house.
I carried my eldest daughter inside, laying her gently on the leather sofa.
Claire opened her duffel bag—a bag she had insisted on grabbing from the kitchen pantry before we fled.
It wasn't filled with clothes. It was a mobile trauma kit and two suppressed handguns.
"I need boiling water and fresh towels," she told me.
As I moved to the kitchen, I watched Emma sit beside her sister, gently stroking Ava's hair.
"Claire fixed it," Emma whispered again.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Hearing her voice twice in one night felt like a hallucination.
May you like
"Yes, sweetie," Claire smiled softly. "I fixed it. She's going to be okay."
I realized then that I didn't just hire a maid. I had brought a ghost into my home, and she was the only reason my family was still breathing.
