Chapter 6 - The House Was No Longer Safe
The attack lasted less than three minutes.
But it felt like an hour.
Security moved Sophie and Lena into the safe room.
I followed.
Richard stayed behind.
Gunfire shook the walls.
Then silence.
We waited.
Finally my security chief called.
“They're gone.”
“Any injuries?”
“Two guards.”
“Richard?”
Silence.
I rushed downstairs.
He was bleeding.
Alive.
Barely.
An ambulance arrived.
Before they took him away, he grabbed my wrist.
“Find your father.”
“Why?”
“He knows the last name.”
“What last name?”
Richard struggled for breath.
“Who owns Orchard now.”
Then he passed out.
We relocated to a secure property outside the city.
For the first time, I allowed myself to sit without a phone.
Sophie and Lena were together in the kitchen.
They were making pancakes.
I watched them through the doorway.
Lena noticed.
“You're doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching.”
“I want to make sure you're okay.”
She smiled.
“We're okay.”
Sophie turned.
“Dad, they're burning!”
I ran to the stove.
The pancakes were black.
Lena laughed.
Sophie laughed.
I laughed too.
The sound surprised me.
It had been too long since I'd laughed.
Maybe grief had taught me something.
I had spent two years trying to protect Sophie from pain by controlling her entire world.
But what she needed wasn't control.
She needed connection.
Lena had given her that.
I wanted to give it too.
That evening, my investigator returned.
“We found records on your father.”
I looked up.
“Where?”
“Private military archives.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your father wasn't simply an investor.”
“What was he?”
“Intelligence contractor.”
I stared.
“He worked overseas.”
“For whom?”
“Multiple agencies.”
“And Harrison Academy?”
“His family's foundation was a front for intelligence operations.”
“What kind?”
“Child observation.”
I felt sick.
“Why children?”
“Because children notice patterns without understanding their significance.”
I thought of Sophie.
The answer had been in front of me.
“What is Project Orchard?”
The investigator slid a folder toward me.
“Orchard was a training initiative.”
“For children?”
“Yes.”
“To turn them into what?”
“Analysts.”
The word sounded harmless.
It wasn't.
Children trained to memorize financial structures.
Political patterns.
Security weaknesses.
People.
They were taught through games.
School projects.
Puzzles.
Scholarships.
No one called it espionage.
They called it enrichment.
Some children became consultants.
Others were recruited into government programs.
But some disappeared.
Because someone realized information was more valuable than money.
I stared at the file.
“Who ran it?”
“Your grandfather started it.”
“And my father?”
“He expanded it.”
“And Richard?”
“A financier.”
“Margaret Vale?”
“Administrator.”
“Claire?”
“Whistleblower.”
“And Lena?”
The investigator hesitated.
“Her mother found the evidence.”
“And Lena?”
“She was a witness.”
“What about Sophie?”
He looked at me.
“That is the problem.”
“What?”
“She was the first child in your family to display the same cognitive profile as your grandfather.”
I closed the file.
“No.”
“Daniel—”
“No.”
“Sophie isn't a weapon.”
“I know.”
The investigator lowered his voice.
“They may not care.”
That night, Sophie came into my room.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Can I sleep here?”
“Of course.”
She climbed into bed.
I held her.
After a while she whispered,
“Is Mommy coming back?”
The question crushed me.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Why not?”
“Because sometimes people leave before we're ready.”
She was silent.
Then,
“Did she know Lena?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mommy like her?”
“Yes.”
Sophie smiled.
“Then I like her too.”
I kissed her forehead.
“What happened to Mommy's friend Richard?”
I froze.
“How do you know Richard?”
“He came to school once.”
“When?”
“I don't remember.”
“You said you remember everything.”
She smiled.
“I remember the important things.”
That sentence stayed with me.
The next morning, our investigator found another clue.
A recording.
Claire had secretly recorded one conversation before her death.
Her voice was shaking.
“You can't keep doing this.”
A man's voice answered.
“We have done it for generations.”
“What about the children?”
“They are not children. They are resources.”
Claire whispered,
“Daniel will stop you.”
The man laughed.
“Daniel doesn't even know what his family built.”
Then the recording ended.
I knew the voice.
My father's.
But he had died fifteen years earlier.
Or so I believed.
I played it again.
No doubt.
It was him.
I looked at Lena.
She was pale.
“What does this mean?”
“It means,” she whispered,
“your father may still be alive.”
And that was when we received the photograph.
A recent photograph.
Taken three weeks earlier.
My father.
Older.
Gray-haired.
May you like
Standing outside a train station in Montreal.
Alive.
