Page 45 of If You Go
“True.” He nods with a shit eating grin on his own.
I’m about to stand when my phone vibrates. No buzz pattern. No name. Just a number that carries weight like an anvil. I answer.
“Slater.” Stefan’s voice is iron and peat, no preamble. “He knows you’re in Oregon.”
Cold licks up my spine. “Understood. Orders?”
“Tell Bridget da word.” His accent thickens on it. “Lockdown.”
The line clicks dead. That’s all. That’s enough.
Surry’s already watching me. She doesn’t need the words to know. Still, I give them to her.
“Lockdown,” I say.
She’s on her feet before the syllables finish. No panic. No tremor. She moves the way a conductor lifts a baton—clean, decisive, absolute.
“Joshua,” she says, voice carrying down the corridor like a bell, “east wing shutters first, then the galleries. Get Richie and Hazel to gather the staff inside, account for everyone, no exceptions. Alisha will go to the safe room with Bridget and ensure medical kits are staged at the foyer and the back terrace.Juniper can kill the exterior lights as soon as the last person’s through the doors, then check cams for a sweep.”
“On it,” Joshua answers, already racing up the stairs to collect the others to give orders.
Bridget appears in the dining room doorway as if conjured—apron off, hair braided, a small laminated key card already in her hand. She doesn’t ask questions; she has run this play before. “Go,” she says simply, and tosses the card to Surry, who catches it without looking.
The house begins to change. Hidden panels hum. Steel sighs behind old wood. The glass that made afternoons glow honey-warm now reveals its real job, sliding into armored channels with a steady, expensive purr. Air pressure shifts. Somewhere above us, a metallic clank confirms the roof hatches have sealed.
I move with Surry—room to room, hall to hall—our steps in sync. I don’t touch her unless she needs a passcode or a second set of hands. She doesn’t need rescuing. She needs room to lead.
We reach the last set of shutters in the rear gallery—a long throat of windows that look down into the trees. She swipes the card, keys in the code, and I watch the final panel glide into place. The night outside becomes a reflection of ourselves.
Silence settles. Not empty. Primed.
Surry exhales once, slow and steady. She looks at me then, and all the steel in her eases just enough for the woman to step forward again. She steps into my space, presses her forehead to my chest, breathes me in like a reset.
“I’m okay,” she says, mostly to herself. Then, more firmly, to me: “We’re okay.”
“We are,” I answer. My hand finds the small of her back, holding there, steady as bedrock. “He doesn’t get to touch what’s ours.”
Footsteps approach—Joshua, fast. “Outer perimeter’s clean. No vehicles within a mile on our cams. If he knows we’re here, he’s not knocking tonight.”
“He’s watching,” I say.
“Then let him watch us be ready,” Surry replies.
There it is—that forged thing again. She turns, shoulders squared, eyes bright and clear, and starts walking toward the foyer where everyone will gather for headcount and a debrief. I fall in at her side.
I’m not naïve. This isn’t over. It’s barely begun. But tonight, the house is sealed, the people we love are inside, and the woman I walked into a room and chose is choosing this fight with me.
If he thinks that’s a weakness, he’s never seen what it looks like when a siren stops singing and starts steering the ship.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BRENDEN MEETS MYeyes—steady, grounding—and then I turn down the hall following Bridget’s lead. My legs move before my brain catches up, automatic, trained. The floor under my bare feet is cold, the hallway lit in the faint amber wash of emergency lights. I register the tiny details the way Papa taught us as kids: count cameras, count corners, count exits. My pulse stutters, then locks to a rhythm—inhale four, hold two, exhale six. Don’t feed the fear.
The control room feels bigger than I remember. I haven’t been inside since I was here recovering all those years ago. I used to lock myself in here when I would have panic attacks or nightmares; it was the only place I felt safe. It looks like the heartof something meant to outlive the people who built it—rows of metal consoles, cables running like veins into the walls, and the huge wall of monitors flickering with grainy night vision. Every angle of the house is here: the gates, the terrace, the pool, the forest. A schematic of the main manor hums along the bottom row—green where systems are live, steady amber where the manual backups own the line.
The air hums faintly with electricity and fear.
Bridget always said this room could survive a bomb. I used to laugh at that. Now, with my palms sweating and my heart in my throat, it doesn’t sound like an exaggeration. The door is pure steel, thick as a vault, disguised on the outside to look like a wall. You’d never know it existed unless you’d built it.
