CHAPTER FIVE:THIS ISN’T YOUR HOUSE

The front door clicked shut at 2 AM.

Priska didn’t turn on the lights. She didn’t want to see how empty the house felt after everything.

“Mommy?”

Dary’s voice was small from the balcony. The girls were behind him, rubbing their eyes.

Priska dropped her bag and forced a smile. “Hey babies. You’re up.”

“Why are we home so late?” Dary asked. “And why were we in that big metal box? It was scary.”

Priska’s throat tightened. She knelt down and pulled all three of them into a hug.

“Bad people made a mistake,” she said. “But it’s over now. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

“But you were crying in the car,” one of the girls whispered.

Priska swallowed hard. “Mommy had a nightmare. It’s gone now.”

They didn’t believe her, kids always knew but they let it go, yawning and trailing back to bed.

Once the house was quiet again, Priska sank onto the couch in the living room.

This was the house she and Voy bought together. The house he never saw finished. The house Rachel said didn’t belong to her anymore.

“You’re living in a house that isn’t yours, Priska. When the truth comes out, they’ll take it all.”

Rachel was wrong. The mortgage was in Priska’s name. The kids’ school was two streets over. This was their home.

But the papers in her bag said otherwise.

Voy had signed the divorce. He’d given her a clean break. But the hearing tomorrow meant everything would go public. His name, his money, his death that wasn’t a death.

And the kids would find out.

That the man they thought died three years ago was alive.

That he was their father.

That their mom had been lying to protect them.

Priska pressed her hands over her face.

She’d spent three years building a life without him. Teaching the kids that their dad was a hero who died before they could remember him. Now she had to tell them he was alive, and that he’d staged their kidnapping to get her back.

How do you explain that to a 7-year-old?

Her phone lit up on the coffee table.

She received a mail from the boardroom

Tomorrow, Priska. Courtroom 4.10 AM. Bring the kids. The world needs to know who their father is.

Priska stared at it until her vision blurred.

If she brought them, Voy would win. He’d get his public reunion, his redemption arc.

If she didn’t, he’d use it against her in court.

Either way, her kids were about to lose the only version of the truth they’d ever known.

She set the phone down and whispered to the empty room:

“You don’t get to decide when they meet you, Voy.”

The house was very calm.

She looked at the passage where the kids slept.

They didn’t know he was their father. They didn’t know he’d staged their kidnapping.

If she told them now, she’d ruin what little peace they had left. If she didn’t, they’d find out in a courtroom full of strangers.

Her phone lit up once more. A text from an unknown number: "You can block me, Priska but you can’t block the truth."

Priska deleted it without reading twice.

She stood up, gathered the kids’ blankets from the floor, and walked to their rooms. She checked on each of them, made sure they were breathing, safe, warm. Then she went back to the couch and sat in the dark.

Tomorrow she’d go to court. But she wouldn’t go alone. And she wouldn’t go without a plan.

Priska closed her eyes. Whatever Voy thought he was about to do in Courtroom 4, he wasn’t the only one who could play the game. She just needed one night to figure out how to win it and she was running out of time to get it right.

Priska sat on the edge of the couch, the glow of her phone the only light in the room. The email from Voy’s lawyers was still open. Case #4782-R. Courtroom 4. 10 AM.

She could feel the walls closing in.

If she didn’t show, they’d call her unstable. If she did show, Voy would use the kids as leverage in front of a judge and a courtroom full of strangers. Either way, she was losing control of the story.

Her chest tightened.

She thought about Dary’s face when he asked why they were in the metal box. The way the girls had clung to her in the car, too quiet for kids their age. She’d promised herself they’d never know this version of the world. That they’d only know safety, and school runs, and bedtime stories about a dad who died a hero.

That lie was about to collapse.

Her phone vibrated again. A new message. No name.

You can keep running, Priska. But you can’t hide them forever.Courtroom 4.10 AM. Bring them, or I’ll bring the truth to them myself.

Her hands shook.

This wasn’t about her anymore. It never had been. Voy had made sure of that the moment he let Rachel take the kids. He wanted her back, and he’d burn everything down to get it.

She stood up abruptly, pacing the living room in the dark.

What did she even have left? The divorce papers were gone. The evidence she had against Rachel was shaky. And Voy had money, lawyers, and a public image she couldn’t fight alone.

If she walked into that courtroom unprepared, she’d walk out with nothing. No custody. No say. Just a court order that handed her children back to a man who faked his death and used them as bait.

Priska stopped pacing.

Her eyes landed on the passage where the kids slept.

She couldn’t let that happen.

Her breath came faster, panic clawing at her throat. She needed something, it could be anything maybe a witness or a recording just proof that Rachel was acting on Voy’s orders. Proof that she wasn’t crazy for keeping the kids away from him.

But she had nothing.

And tomorrow at 10 AM, it wouldn’t matter.

Priska sank back onto the couch, her face in her hands.

For the first time since she found out Voy was alive, she felt completely outmatched.

Tomorrow, she’d walk into Courtroom 4 with no plan, no proof, and no way to protect her kids from the truth.

And Voy knew it.

That was why he wasn’t worried.

That was why she had to be.