Chapter 6 - THE SAFE HOUSE
By midnight, we were forty miles outside Chicago, driving through a heavy downpour toward the western hills.
Declan drove his green pickup truck ahead of us, while I followed in my SUV with Iris sleeping peacefully in the backseat, wrapped in a warm wool blanket.
When Declan learned that Richard’s legal team had already filed an emergency petition for temporary custody of Iris, claiming I was keeping her in an unsafe environment, he didn't let us return to my downtown penthouse. Instead, he led us to an old stone farmhouse nestled at the end of a long gravel driveway surrounded by tall pine trees.
"It belonged to my grandfather," Declan explained as he unlocked the heavy oak front door, turning on the warm yellow interior lights. "No public records link it to my name. You're safe here."
The house smelled of dried lavender, old wood, and chimney smoke. It was simple, solid, and incredibly warm.
I carried Iris upstairs to a small bedroom with a handmade quilt on the bed. As I tucked her in, she stirred softly, opening her dark eyes.
"Mom?" she whispered.
"I'm right here, sweetie," I said, kissing her forehead.
"Is Declan staying?" she asked, her voice small.
I looked toward the hallway, where the warm light flickered from the living room fireplace below. "Yes, baby. He's staying."
"Good," Iris murmured, closing her eyes again. "His heart doesn't make a loud clicking noise like Dad's."
I sat beside her until her breathing turned slow and rhythmic. Her words echoed in my mind. Children feel intention long before they understand logic. Richard's mind was always calculating, clicking like a clock set to explode. Declan was silent because he had nothing to hide.
I walked downstairs to find Declan standing near the stone fireplace, stoking the burning logs with an iron poker. He had taken off his gray work shirt, wearing a simple black t-shirt that showed the powerful muscles of his back and arms.
"She's asleep," I said, walking over to stand near the hearth, warming my cold hands.
Declan set the poker down and handed me a steaming mug of black tea. "She spoken anything else?"
"She said your heart doesn't click like her father's," I replied softly, taking a sip.
Declan smiled—a rare, genuine smile that transformed his sharp face, making him look younger, softer. "High praise from a tough critic."
I set my mug on the mantelpiece and looked at him directly. "What do we do now, Declan? Richard has the city's top judges in his pocket. He's going to use every legal loophole to take Iris away from me to force me to give up my voting shares."
Declan stepped over to a heavy wooden table in the corner, spreading out a series of dark blueprints and financial ledgers he had pulled from his truck.
"Richard has money, but he’s sloppy," Declan said, tapping a pencil against a ledger page. "When he took over my firm, he used an offshore shell company registered in the Cayman Islands called Aegis Holdings. I spent the last six months tracing that account. He didn't just use it to steal my patents, Victoria. He’s been using it to hide tens of millions of dollars from Vance Capital's tax filings."
My jaw dropped. "Tax fraud?"
"Massive federal tax fraud," Declan corrected. "If we can access the master encryption key stored on his private server at his lake house in Geneva, we won't just defeat his custody suit. We'll send him to federal prison for twenty years."
I looked at the blueprints on the table. "That's his private residence. It has a state-of-the-art security system."
Declan looked up at me, a dangerous, confident spark in his hazel eyes. "I designed the perimeter security for that house five years ago, before he betrayed me. I know every wire, every camera, and every blind spot in that building."
I leaned over the table, looking at the layout. "Then we go tonight."
"Not 'we'," Declan said firmly. "You stay here with Iris."
"No," I replied, my tone leaving no room for argument. "Richard knows your face. If security spots you, they'll shoot you for trespassing. But I still have a key to the front door, and the security codes are tied to my biometrics until the divorce decree is finalized next month."
Declan stared at me, evaluating the sharp determination in my eyes. A slow grin spread across his face.
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"You really are something, Victoria Vance," he murmured softly.
"I'm a mother fighting for her child," I replied. "There's nothing more dangerous than that."
