54

Sierra’s POV

The text from Derek messed me up. I tried to forget it, but I couldn’t. It was like a song you hate that gets stuck in your head.

*He talked about you a lot. More than you know.*

Why would he say that? We paid him to lie. Was he lying about the lying? My brain hurt.

Louis made some calls. He told Irina to “handle” Derek. I don’t know what that means, and I didn’t ask. Sometimes now, I don’t want to know.

Everything else looked normal. Katie was fine. She had a playdate with a girl from school. The girl’s mom was nice. She didn’t ask about the kidnapping. She just talked about how good Katie was at sharing.

Louis worked a lot. I started planning a new thing for the foundation—giving money to schools for art stuff. It kept me busy.

But at night, when the house was quiet, I’d think about the text. I’d look at Louis sleeping next to me. He looked calmer now. But I wasn’t calm.

One night, I had a bad dream. I was in the grocery store, but all the boxes had my picture on them. And Victor was the cashier. He was scanning apples and saying, “He talked about you a lot,” over and over.

I woke up sweating. Louis was awake too. He was looking at me in the dark.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He didn’t push. He just pulled me closer. I put my head on his chest. I could hear his heart. It was beating steady. It helped.

The next day was Saturday. Family day. That was the new rule. No work. Just us.

We took Katie to the zoo. It was crowded. Our security guys came too, but they hung back. They wore normal clothes, but they looked like security guys anyway. Too stiff.

Katie wanted to see the penguins. We stood and watched them swim. They were funny and fast.

Louis bought us all ice cream. Mine dripped on my shirt. Katie laughed. “Mom, you’re messy!”

Louis smiled. A real one. It made him look younger.

For a minute, it was perfect. Just a normal family at the zoo. No bad guys. No police. No creepy texts.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.

“You should get that,” Louis said. His smile was gone.

I wiped my hands and looked. It was a news alert. Then another.

The headlines made my ice cream feel heavy in my stomach.

**SOURCES: KIDNAP VICTIM KATIE CROWE SEEN WITH THERAPIST**

**INSIDE THE CROWES’ POST-TRAUMA RECOVERY: A CHILD’S STRUGGLE**

There were pictures. Blurry, but clear enough. Pictures of Katie and me walking into the therapist’s office building last week. Pictures of her holding my hand, her head down.

“No,” I whispered. I showed Louis.

His face went hard like a rock. He took Katie’s hand. “Time to go, sweetie.”

“But we didn’t see the monkeys!” Katie whined.

“Now, Katie.”

He didn’t yell, but his voice meant business. Katie knew that voice. She pouted but didn’t argue.

We walked fast to the exit. The security guys closed in around us. People were staring. Did they recognize us? Did they just read the news on their own phones?

The car ride home was silent. Katie fell asleep. I stared out the window.

“How?” I asked Louis. My voice sounded small. “The therapist’s office is private. They promised.”

“Someone sold the pictures,” Louis said. He was typing fast on his phone. “The nanny? The driver? The therapist’s secretary? Someone got paid.”

“This is about Katie,” I said, feeling sick. “They’re using her. Again.”

“It’s about us,” he corrected, but he put his hand over mine. “They’re trying to shake us. To see if we break.”

When we got home, Louis went straight to his office to make calls. I put Katie to bed for a nap. She was tired from the zoo.

I went to the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry. I was just mad.

Louis came in later. He looked tired.

“The story is planted in two gossip sites,” he said. “My team is pushing back. Threatening lawsuits. But the pictures are out there.”

“Who did it?” I asked.

“We’re tracing the money. It’ll take time.” He sighed. “Sierra… the text from Derek. And now this. It feels like a one-two punch.”

He was right. First the text to scare me personally. Now this, to hurt us through Katie. It was an attack.

“What do we do?” I asked. I felt like a little kid asking for the answer.

“We do what we said,” he said. He came and stood in front of me. “We don’t break. We act normal. We show them it didn’t work.”

“How?”

“We go out tonight.”

“What?”

“The hospital fundraiser dinner. It’s tonight. We RSVP’d weeks ago. We go. We smile. We act like a happy family that doesn’t care about stupid pictures.”

It sounded crazy. And hard. But I looked at him, and I knew he was right. Hiding would look guilty. Hiding would look scared.

“Okay,” I said. “We go.”

So that night, we got dressed up. Katie wore a pretty blue dress. We went to the big hotel ballroom. Cameras were everywhere.

I held Louis’s arm tight. Katie held my other hand. We smiled. We walked slow. People clapped for us. Some of the looks were mean. Most were just curious.

A lady reporter shoved a microphone at me. “Mrs. Crowe, how is Katie handling the trauma? The pictures today seem to show a struggling little girl.”

I made myself look at her. I gave her my best calm-mom smile. “Katie is a brave, happy girl who loves the zoo and penguins. She’s healing beautifully, thanks to wonderful professionals and her family’s love. We’re focused on the future.”

I didn’t stop walking. We kept going inside.

My heart was pounding, but my face was calm. Louis squeezed my hand. “Perfect,” he whispered.

We sat through dinner. We laughed at the right times. We were a perfect picture.

But inside, I was making a list. Someone took those pictures. Someone sold them. Someone wanted to hurt my kid.

And partners protect each other. They protect their own.

I looked at Louis across the table. He was watching me. He nodded, just a little.

The message was clear. We knew. We were together. And we were going to find out who did this.

The dinner was boring. The speeches were long. But I sat straight and tall. Let them take pictures now. Let them see.

They thought they could scare us. They were wrong. All they did was make us mad. And when we’re mad, we’re together. And when we’re together, we’re strong.

Game on.