CHAP 3 — Freeze Everything
Christian answered on the first ring.
He always did when I used the emergency line.
“Audrey?”
His voice was calm.
Mine was not.
“I’m outside the Mercer estate with the twins.”
Silence.
Then the kind of quiet that made men in boardrooms sweat.
“Outside?”
“In the snow.”
I heard a chair scrape back.
“Are the babies safe?”
“No.”
That one word ended the Mercer family.
Christian did not ask whether Julian was angry.
He did not ask whether I had misunderstood.
He did not ask if I wanted to wait until morning.
He said, “Put me on video.”
I turned the camera.
Christian saw the snow.
The marble steps.
Julian pointing.
Eleanor watching from the door.
The twins bundled in my arms.
His face did not change, but his voice did.
“Go to the west guesthouse garage. The old code still works. I’m sending security and a doctor.”
Julian laughed.
“Who is that? Your brother? Tell him to send a car if he cares so much.”
Christian heard him.
“Audrey,” he said, “do you authorize full enforcement?”
I looked at my sons.
Ethan’s little mouth trembled. Oliver’s blanket had snow melting into the knit.
“Yes.”
“Say it clearly.”
I lifted my eyes to Julian.
“Christian, freeze every single thing they own.”
Julian’s sneer lasted three seconds.
Then his phone vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
Again and again.
Behind him, the chandelier flickered.
Eleanor turned sharply.
The warm golden light inside the mansion pulsed, dimmed, then went out completely.
The grand doorway fell into blackness.
Only the cold blue snow and the glow from Julian’s phone lit his face.
Eleanor screamed.
“Julian! Why did the lights go out?!”
Julian looked down.
His expression shifted.
Confusion.
Annoyance.
Then fear.
His screen flashed alerts faster than he could read them.
Corporate Cards Declined.
Asset Access Suspended.
Mercer Holdings Credit Facility Frozen.
Estate Occupancy Permission Under Review.
Julian staggered back one step.
“No,” he whispered. “No. My corporate cards are all declined.”
Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“What did you do?”
I almost smiled.
That was the wrong question.
I had done what I should have done months earlier.
Protected myself.
Protected my sons.
The driveway filled with headlights.
Three black SUVs rolled through the iron gate. Behind them came a private ambulance and two county sheriff’s vehicles Christian had arranged through legal emergency channels after telling them two newborns had been locked outside in freezing weather.
Julian’s face turned toward the lights.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked small.
A guard stepped out first.
Then another.
Then Christian.
He wore a dark overcoat over a suit, no scarf, no gloves, snow collecting on his shoulders like weather had no permission to touch him.
He walked straight past Julian and Eleanor.
Straight to me.
When he saw the babies, something broke in his eyes.
“Audrey.”
I tried to answer.
Instead, my knees buckled.
Christian caught me before I hit the snow.
Julian shouted behind him, “You can’t enter my property!”
May you like
Christian looked back once.
“It was never your property.”
