Chapter 4
1242 Words
Chapter 4
Alex didn’t want to wear the blue sweater.
That was the first argument of the morning. He stood in the hallway with his backpack half on, face set in pure stubbornness, insisting the dragon on his drawing only protected him if he wore the grey one. Ava negotiated for a full five minutes before she finally gave up and just handed him the grey sweater.
“You’re going to be late,” she said.
“Dragons don’t care about late.”
“Your teacher does.”
Nathan watched the whole thing from the kitchen doorway with his coffee, trying not to smile. Ordinary nonsense. It still felt like a privilege.
He drove them.
Security followed at a distance, two cars, nothing obvious enough for Alex to notice. Nathan had already talked to the school the week before about tightened pickup rules, but he still walked Alex all the way to the entrance like he always did. The boy talked the entire time about how his dragon had “upgraded defenses” overnight.
At the door, Alex turned and looked up at him.
“You’re picking me up, right? Not just security?”
“I’m picking you up.”
“Okay. Good.” He adjusted his backpack. “Don’t let the baby mess with my pencils while I’m gone.”
“I’ll guard them with my life.”
Alex nodded, satisfied, and ran inside.
Nathan stood there a second longer than necessary before walking back to the car.
---
Ava’s appointment was at ten-thirty.
The clinic was one they’d been using since the beginning, private, discreet, and already used to the extra security presence without making a fuss. Nathan went in with her. He always did. The first time she’d told him he didn’t have to sit through every scan, he’d just looked at her until she dropped it.
They waited in the small side room with the dim lighting and the framed photos of smiling babies on the walls. Ava kept bouncing her knee. She always got quietly nervous before these, even when things were fine.
“You think everything’s okay?” she asked.
“I think you’re overthinking.”
“That’s my job right now.”
Nathan reached over and put his hand on her knee to still it. “We’ll know in a minute.”
The technician was the same woman as last time — calm, professional, used to Nathan’s silence. She got Ava settled, gel on her stomach, screen angled so both of them could see. The familiar black-and-white blur came up, then the technician adjusted and the shape became clearer.
A steady little flicker.
“There’s the heartbeat,” she said. “Nice and strong.”
Ava let out a breath she’d been holding. Nathan didn’t say anything, but his hand tightened slightly around hers.
They watched for a while as the technician took measurements and checked everything. All normal. Growth looked good. No concerns. Ava asked a couple of quiet questions. Nathan mostly just watched the screen like he was committing it to memory.
When it was over and Ava was wiping the gel off, she glanced at him.
“You’re very quiet.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re staring at my stomach like it just did a miracle.”
“It kind of did.”
She huffed a soft laugh, then reached for his hand again. “We’re okay.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We are.”
For now.
---
They stopped for food on the way back because Ava suddenly wanted a very specific kind of soup and wouldn’t stop talking about it. Nathan didn’t argue. He just drove and listened to her complain about how the baby was already ruining her ability to make normal decisions.
It was almost easy to forget about the photo and the note for a little while.
Almost.
His phone stayed quiet the whole time, which somehow made him more suspicious than if it had been buzzing nonstop.
---
After they got home, Ava went to lie down for a bit. The appointments always wiped her out. Nathan checked in with security, went through a few messages from Marco, and then just stood in the kitchen, staring at nothing for a while.
The checkup had been fine.
Alex was at school.
The house was quiet.
And someone out there still had a photo of his wife locking up the gallery with that note sitting in a bag downtown.
He hated the waiting more than anything.
---
Marco called just after two.
“We got a partial lead on the prepaid phone,” he said. “Bought with cash at a*****e in Jersey two weeks ago. Camera coverage is garbage, but we’re working what we have. Also… someone asked about the gallery’s delivery schedule last week. Indirectly. Through a supplier.”
Nathan’s attention sharpened. “Who?”
“Still tracking it. Could be nothing. Could be connected.”
“Treat it as connected.”
“I am.”
After the call, Nathan walked down the hall and quietly opened the bedroom door. Ava was asleep on her side, one hand under her cheek, the other resting on her stomach. She looked younger when she slept. Less guarded.
He stood there longer than he meant to.
Two years of relative peace. A kid who worried about dragons and pencils. A baby with a strong heartbeat. And now this slow, careful pressure starting at the edges again.
He closed the door softly and went back to the study.
There was still work to do before school pickup.
---
Alex came out of school talking at full speed about a science project and how one kid had tried to copy his dragon design. Nathan listened, asked the right questions, and let the noise of it fill the car. Security followed them home the same way as that morning, distant, professional, invisible enough that Alex didn’t glance back once.
When they walked into the house, Ava was up again, hair in a messy knot, making tea.
Alex immediately launched into the story for her benefit.
Nathan watched them for a moment from the doorway.
This was the life he’d burned half his world to keep.
He wasn’t going to let someone chip away at it with photos and quiet threats.
Not without answering.
Later, after Alex was busy with homework and Ava was on the couch with her tea, Nathan sat down beside her and rested his hand on her thigh.
“Appointment was good,” he said, like they hadn’t both been there.
She gave him a look. “I know. I was there.”
“I’m saying it anyway.”
Ava leaned into him a little. “You’re worried.”
“Yeah.”
“But we’re still going to have a normal day.”
“That’s the plan.”
She was quiet for a second, then said, “Good. Because I already told Alex you’d help with the dragon update after dinner. You’re not allowed to disappear into the study all night.”
Nathan exhaled through his nose. “Understood.”
He meant it.
Even with everything starting to shift again, he was going to sit on the floor after dinner and help his son redesign a dragon that protected the house.
Because that was part of the life too.
And he wasn’t giving up the small things just because someone out there wanted them scared.
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