Chapter 2: The Safehouse
We didn't go back to my listed residence in Fayetteville. The Prescotts were arrogant, but they weren't entirely stupid. They had money, which meant they had private investigators on retainer. By midnight, there would undoubtedly be a black SUV parked outside my house, monitoring my movements.
Instead, I drove three hours deep into the Appalachian Mountains, navigating winding dirt roads until we reached a secluded cabin wrapped in darkness. It belonged to Marcus, a former Delta Force operator whose life I had saved in Kandahar. He rarely used it, and more importantly, my name was nowhere on the deed.
I carried Emily inside. She was exhausted, practically asleep on her feet, clutching the oversized army fleece I had wrapped around her shoulders.
After I tucked her into the heavy quilt in the guest bedroom, I locked every deadbolt on the cabin doors and closed the steel shutters over the windows. I brewed a pot of black coffee, set up my encrypted laptop on the rustic wooden dining table, and began the work.
At 2:00 AM, my screen lit up with an incoming secure file transfer from Miller.
PRESCOTT_FAMILY_DOSSIER.ZIP
I opened the files, sipping the bitter coffee as the glow of the screen illuminated the dark room. Margaret Prescott was the matriarch of Prescott Enterprises, a massive real estate and logistics conglomerate. Ethan was the Vice President of Acquisitions. Brandon handled the legal and political lobbying.
They were worth roughly four hundred million dollars. They owned senators. They owned local law enforcement. They had a pristine public image, frequently donating to women’s shelters and children’s hospitals—a sick, ironic smokescreen for the monsters they truly were.
I clicked open a sub-folder labeled Ethan_Prescott_Private.
My blood ran cold. Ethan had a pattern. Before Emily, there had been two other women. Both had left him suddenly, quietly, and both had signed ironclad NDAs, disappearing from the state entirely after receiving substantial, undisclosed payouts.
He broke them, and his mother bought their silence.
A floorboard creaked behind me. I turned to see Emily standing in the doorway, a glass of water trembling in her hands.
"Are they looking for us?" she asked, her voice raspy.
"They won't find us here," I promised, pulling out a chair for her. "Em, I need to know everything. Every threat. Every bank account they forced you to sign. Every time he raised a hand to you. I need you to be a soldier tonight."
Emily sat down. She looked at the laptop screen, seeing the Prescott logo on a digitized document. She took a deep, shuddering breath, her posture straightening just a fraction. She was my daughter, after all. The steel was in her blood; it just needed to be forged.
"It started six months after the wedding," Emily began, staring blankly at the wooden table. "He wanted me to quit my job at the gallery. When I refused, he bought the building the gallery leased and evicted them. Then he took my credit cards. He said a Prescott wife shouldn't need her own money."
I typed furiously, logging every detail. "When did the physical abuse start?"
"Three months ago. Margaret found out I was secretly taking birth control. She... she cornered me in the kitchen. She said I was a broodmare for their legacy. When I tried to push past her, Ethan grabbed me by the hair and threw me against the marble counter."
A cold fury ignited in my chest, burning hotter than any I had ever felt in a combat zone.
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"Mom?" Emily looked at me, tears streaming down her face. "They told me they're untouchable."
I reached across the table and grasped her hand tightly. "No one is untouchable, Emily. They’ve only fought people who play by the rules of society. They have never fought someone who plays by the rules of war."
