Chapter 13 - Not a Weakness
Victor locked down the estate.
Ethan hated it.
Armed security appeared outside physical therapy.
Two guards followed him through the house.
Victor disabled staff access.
Maya found Ethan in his bedroom furious enough to deliberately lose a chess game just to end it.
“You moved your queen into danger.”
“I know.”
“You hate losing.”
“Not today.”
Maya leaned back.
“You want to talk?”
“No.”
“Excellent. I didn’t.”
He looked at her.
She opened the textbook.
“Page eighty-four.”
Ethan frowned.
“You’re actually making me study?”
“Yes.”
“My family is being threatened.”
“Your fractions remain unmoved.”
“That is cold.”
“I’m paid double now. Expectations rise.”
He stared.
Then laughed despite himself.
Victor watched through the monitor.
This time, shame accompanied the habit.
He switched the feed off.
A minute later, he entered Ethan’s room in person.
Ethan looked surprised.
“No camera?”
Victor glanced toward the dark monitor indicator.
“No.”
“Who are you?”
Victor sat.
“Security intercepted a photograph of you outside therapy.”
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“Theodore?”
“We assume.”
“That’s why there are guards in the bathroom hallway?”
“There are not guards in the bathroom hallway.”
“There are two.”
Victor paused.
“I’ll move them.”
“Thank you.”
Maya quietly gathered her books.
Ethan said, “Stay.”
Victor looked at him.
Ethan shrugged.
“She’s already involved.”
Maya sat again.
Victor explained the threat.
Ethan listened.
Then said, “I still want therapy tomorrow.”
“No.”
Ethan’s face changed.
Victor held up a hand.
“That came out wrong.”
“It came out exactly how you meant it.”
Victor exhaled.
“I am afraid.”
Ethan paused.
Victor continued.
“I know fear doesn’t give me unlimited authority over you.”
Maya looked impressed.
Victor ignored her.
“But you’re twelve. I am responsible for keeping you safe.”
“That doesn’t mean locking me in my bedroom.”
“No.”
“So?”
Victor thought.
“We relocate therapy temporarily to the estate.”
Ethan considered.
“And I still go outside.”
“With security.”
“One guard.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Two farther away.”
Ethan sighed.
“Fine.”
Victor nodded.
Maya said, “Look at that. Negotiation.”
Victor stood.
Ethan asked, “Dad?”
He stopped.
“Am I the reason Theodore thinks he can control you?”
Victor turned.
“What?”
“He keeps mentioning me.”
Victor returned to the chair.
“He knows I love you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Victor understood.
Ethan looked down at the wheelchair.
“People do this thing where they act like I’m automatically more vulnerable.”
Victor’s chest tightened.
“You are not weak.”
“I know.”
Ethan’s eyes lifted.
“Do you?”
Victor said nothing.
Ethan continued.
“Sometimes you treat me like everything around me needs padding.”
Victor thought of hospital months.
Rails.
Transfer belts.
Specialists.
Fear.
“I almost lost you.”
“I know.”
“I watched you unconscious for six days.”
Maya lowered her eyes.
Victor’s voice cracked.
“I couldn’t do anything.”
Ethan listened.
“That changed me.”
Victor looked at his hands.
“I think I decided if I controlled enough things afterward, nothing could surprise me again.”
Ethan’s voice softened.
“How’s that working?”
Victor laughed quietly.
“Poorly.”
“Good.”
Victor looked up.
Ethan was smiling.
Then Ethan said, “You don’t have to stop being scared.”
Victor waited.
“Just don’t make your fear my whole life.”
The words settled into the room.
Victor nodded.
“I’ll try.”
Ethan held out his fist.
Victor stared.
“What?”
“Seriously?”
Victor bumped it.
Maya smiled.
Later that night, Ethan asked Maya to help him search old photographs.
“For what?”
“Theodore.”
They arranged family albums across the floor.
Ethan remembered seeing Theodore at the estate the afternoon of the crash.
They wanted proof.
Victor objected until Ethan reminded him they were only looking at pictures.
Three albums in, Maya stopped.
“Ethan.”
A photograph showed Simone’s birthday dinner one month before the crash.
Theodore stood near the terrace.
Behind him, Raymond Pike spoke to a man in a gray suit.
Ethan leaned closer.
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
“The man I told about being followed.”
Victor, standing behind them, froze.
“The one who said trauma affected your memory?”
“Yes.”
Victor took the photograph.
He knew the man.
Calvin Ross.
Theodore Blackwell’s personal attorney.
Not a Hale employee.
Victor’s face hardened.
“Raymond said Theodore’s attorney contacted him.”
Maya nodded slowly.
“But Ethan says Calvin was physically inside the estate.”
Victor looked at the date.
One month before the crash.
Why had Theodore’s attorney been meeting privately with the Hale security chief before Simone died?
Victor called Raymond.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Security checked Raymond’s apartment.
Empty.
His company vehicle sat in the garage.
His phone lay on the kitchen counter.
Victor looked at Ethan.
“Raymond is gone.”
Maya’s face tightened.
Ethan stared at the photograph.
Then he noticed something.
“Zoom in.”
Victor photographed it with his phone.
Ethan pointed toward Calvin’s hand.
The lawyer was giving Raymond a small envelope.
Cash?
No.
A key card.
Victor recognized the stripe.
Executive archive access.
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Raymond had not merely obeyed Theodore after the crash.
He had been helping him before it.
