Mag-log inMargaret didn’t come at night. Margaret came at 7:03 a.m., when the sky was gray and honest and most people were still pretending the day hadn’t started. She didn’t knock. The locks turned with a key Alicia didn’t know she still had. Alicia was in the kitchen. Alex was by the front door, already awake, already waiting. He’d slept in shifts, gun legally registered and locked in a safe, but within reach. Neither of them had discussed it. They hadn’t needed to. Margaret stepped inside wearing cream silk and pearls, like she was late for a charity board. Her eyes swept the apartment—Alex by the door, Alicia by the counter, no Aiden—and landed on the flash drive still sitting on the dining table from two nights ago. “Darling,” she said to Alicia. “You look tired.” “You need to leave,” Alex said. No heat. Just a fact. Margaret smiled at him. “I own half of this building, Mr. George. Through three different LLCs. I don’t leave places I own.” “You don’t own her,” Alex replie
Margaret Dickson didn’t raise her voice when she was angry. She raised her standards. By 8 a.m. Monday, three things happened. First, Alicia’s studio landlord hand-delivered a notice. _Lease under review due to “zoning compliance audit.” Vacate in 30 days if violations are found. There were no violations. There never were. Second, Aiden’s pediatrician called. We're so sorry, Ms. Dickson, but we’re over capacity and have to refer you to another provider. Effective immediately. They’d been his doctor since birth. Third, Ms. Hendricks from CPS requested a second home visit. Just procedural. Given recent media attention and new information received._ New information. Alicia read the email three times, then set her phone face-down and went to throw up. Alex found her on the bathroom floor twenty minutes later. “Tell me,” he said. No preamble. She told him. He didn’t curse. Didn’t punch a wall. He just went very, very still. The way he used to look before he destroyed
The invitation wasn’t accepted. It was acknowledged. Chris replied at 2:17 a.m. _Your place. Cute. Bringing the bodyguard. I’ll bring an appetite..Alicia read it once. Deleted it. Then deleted it from her trash. Alex didn’t sleep after that. He sat at her kitchen table with his laptop open, legal docs on one screen, security camera feeds on the other. By 6 a.m. he had three former Marines rotating outside her building and a restraining order draft that would never hold against Chris but looked good in court. “You need to rest,” Alicia said, setting coffee beside him. “So do you,” he countered, not looking up. “I’m not the one about to walk into a boardroom that wants his head.” Alex finally met her eyes. “Let them want it. I’m not giving it to them.” Keith had texted him four times. He hadn’t opened any of them. The fifth text came at 7:31 a.m. Board votes at 10. They’re pushing for temporary removal as CEO. Citing ‘erratic personal conduct affecting company stabili
The home visit was scheduled for Thursday. Two days away. Alicia wrote it on her calendar in black ink, underlined it twice, then stared at it until the letters blurred. Forty-eight hours to prove she was a fit mother to the child she’d raised alone for four years. Forty-eight hours to sanitize a life that had never been dirty to begin with.Alex found her scrubbing the baseboards at 11 p.m. “Alicia.”“I know.” She didn’t look up. “It’s late.”“It’s already clean.”“It can be cleaner.” He crouched beside her, took the rag from her hand. Her fingers were red, raw. She didn’t fight him. “They want to see normal,” he said quietly. “Not perfect. You don’t have to bleed for them.”She let out a breath that sounded too much like a sob and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. Just for a second. Then she pulled back. “Aiden can’t see me like this,” she whispered. “He won’t.”But he did. The next morning, Aiden stood in the kitchen doorway watching Alicia repack his backpack for the
Alex slept on Alicia’s couch that night.Not because anything dramatic happened.Not because either of them said it out loud.It just felt wrong for him to leave.He lay there staring at the ceiling long after the apartment had gone quiet, listening to the refrigerator hum, the distant siren somewhere downtown, the soft rhythm of a city that didn’t care who was falling apart inside it.Alicia hadn’t cried.That worried him more than if she had.She’d moved through the apartment slowly, methodically—locking doors, checking windows, smoothing Aiden’s hair as he slept. Like if she kept her hands busy, her thoughts wouldn’t catch up.Alex wanted to say something useful.He didn’t.He watched instead. Memorized the way she pressed her lips together when she was thinking too hard. The way her shoulders stayed tense even when she sat down.At some point, she paused in the doorway between the hallway and the living room.“Are you still awake?” she asked quietly.“Yeah.”She nodded. “Good.”T
The pressure didn’t arrive all at once.It came in pieces.Alex noticed it first in the way doors stopped opening easily.A meeting with the energy board was “rescheduled indefinitely.” A funding partner asked for additional compliance reviews that hadn’t been necessary before. An old ally suddenly wanted everything in writing.Keith didn’t say anything.That worried him more than if she had.By noon, his legal team was in his office, faces tight.“This isn’t random,” one of them said. “Someone’s pushing quietly.”“Who?” Alex asked.They exchanged a look.“Hard to say. But whoever it is has leverage. And patience.”Alex already knew the answer.Alicia felt it differently.More personally.She was leaving Aiden’s school when a woman she didn’t recognize approached her.“Well,” the woman said lightly, adjusting her sunglasses. “You must be Alicia.”Alicia stopped. “Do I know you?”“No,” the woman replied. “But I know your mother.”Something inside Alicia went cold.“She wanted me to pas
Alex woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. He sat up, looking around , expecting to see the usual headboard of his bed. But he was shocked upon seeing a different headboard. What?He fell up to the bed and to the floor with a thud. “Ow!” He had not noticed he was at the edge of the
Alicia got Alex inside and shut the door.He fell onto the couch hard. Like his legs just gave out.She stood there looking at him.“Can’t believe you showed up like this.”“Sorry.”“You’re completely drunk.”“Little bit.”“Alex, it’s three in the morning.”He just nodded.She went to the kitchen.
“I still can’t believe you are pregnant,” Zara said.They were sitting by the verandah watching the city lights below.“I can’t believe it either,” Alicia said, her hands rubbing her belly.“Have you told Alex?”“No.”“Why?”“Because…Hmgh!” Alicia felt a sharp pain in her bellyZara noticed her dis
Leah gasped for breath as Mr George rushed to her."Are you alright?""What else do you expect?! Your son almost killed me, you stood there, watching and now, you ask me that?. Get your hands off me, you stupid old man!" She yelled and walked out.Mr George walked up to him." If anything happens to







