Chapter 5: Goldilocks Protocol
978 Words
POV: Julian
The house was quiet.
It was a rare, unsettling silence. Usually, my nights were filled with the hum of servers, the ring of burner phones, and the grinding of my own teeth. My brain never really shut off; it just switched from "Crisis Management" to "Existential Dread."
But tonight, the penthouse smelled like lavender and cooling muffins.
I walked down the hallway toward Leo’s room. It was 8:30 PM. Bedtime. Usually, this hour was a war zone. Leo would hide under the bed, scream silently, or throw things. The last nanny had quit because Leo bit her when she tried to put him in his dinosaur pajamas.
I stopped outside the door. It was cracked open.
A soft, melodic voice drifted out.
"Now, the issue here isn't the porridge," Ezra was saying. "The issue is the perimeter breach."
I frowned. I crept closer, peering through the crack.
The room was lit only by a star-shaped nightlight casting rotating galaxies on the ceiling. Leo was tucked into his bed, the weighted blanket pulled up to his chin. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't crying. He was staring at Ezra with wide, rapt attention.
Ezra was sitting in the rocking chair, wearing his yellow cardigan—the one I had grabbed him by earlier—and reading from a large, colorful picture book.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
"You see, Leo," Ezra continued, tapping a picture of the bears leaving their house. "Papa Bear made a critical tactical error. He left the front door unlocked. He assumed the forest was safe. But the forest is never safe."
Leo nodded solemnly.
"And Goldilocks?" Ezra turned the page. "She’s a proficient infiltrator. Look at her hair. Blonde. Innocent. It’s camouflage. She enters the target location, assesses the resources (the porridge), and tests the structural integrity of the furniture."
I stifled a laugh. He’s turning a fairy tale into a mission report.
"She breaks Baby Bear’s chair," Ezra read. "This is why we don't buy cheap furniture, Leo. We buy solid oak. Or reinforced steel. If the chair had been properly built, her presence would have gone undetected until the bears returned."
Ezra closed the book.
"So, what is the moral of the story?" Ezra asked the six-year-old.
I waited for the silence. Leo never answered. He hadn't spoken a word since his mother’s funeral two years ago. The therapists called it selective mutism caused by acute trauma. They said he needed "gentle coaxing."
Leo sat up. He looked at the book, then at Ezra.
He whispered.
It was faint—barely a breath—but in the quiet room, it sounded like a shout.
"Locks," Leo whispered.
My heart stopped. I gripped the doorframe, my knuckles turning white.
Ezra didn't gasp. He didn't clap or make a big deal out of it. He just nodded, as if Leo spoke all the time.
"Correct," Ezra said seriously. "Locks. And perimeter sensors. If the bears had installed a simple tripwire, Goldilocks would have been neutralized in the foyer."
Ezra stood up. He walked to the bed and tucked the blankets tighter around my son.
"You're safe here, Leo," Ezra said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Do you know why?"
Leo shook his head.
Ezra leaned down, removing his thick glasses. Without them, his grey eyes were sharp, predatory, and terrifyingly intense in the low light.
"Because the Wolf is guarding the door," Ezra promised. "And Goldilocks knows better than to break into the Wolf’s den."
Leo smiled. It was a real, sleepy smile. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillow.
Ezra put his glasses back on. He turned off the nightlight lamp, leaving only the stars on the ceiling glowing.
He turned and walked to the door.
I stepped back quickly, but not fast enough. Ezra opened the door and found me standing there, looking like I’d just seen a ghost.
"Mr. Vane," Ezra whispered, closing the door softly behind him. "Spying?"
"He spoke," I choked out. "He... he said 'locks'."
"He has a very logical mind," Ezra said, walking down the hall toward the kitchen. "He just needed the right motivation. Fear is a silencer, Julian. Control is the key. Giving him the mechanics of safety makes him feel powerful."
I followed him, my mind reeling. "You told him Goldilocks should have been neutralized."
"She was an intruder," Ezra shrugged, picking up the kettle to make tea. "Trespassing, theft, destruction of property. In some jurisdictions, the bears would have been within their rights to eat her."
I watched him. He was bustling around the kitchen again, looking like a pastel dream, but I couldn't unsee the killer I had met in the study. I couldn't unsee the man who kept a knife in his sleeve.
"You're good with him," I admitted quietly.
Ezra paused. He looked down at the mug in his hands.
"I wasn't always a... freelancer, Julian," he said, his voice unusually soft. "I had a little brother. Once."
The tense changed. Had.
I didn't ask. I knew the rules. Don't ask about the past.
"Ezra," I said.
He looked up.
"Thank you."
Ezra stared at me for a long moment. Then, the mask of the bubbly nanny slipped back into place.
"You're welcome, Mr. Vane. Now, drink this chamomile tea. You’re vibrating again, and I can't have you waking the asset—I mean, the child."
He handed me the mug. Our fingers brushed. A spark of static electricity jumped between us, recalling the heat of the study earlier that day.
"Go to bed, Julian," Ezra murmured, his eyes lingering on my mouth. "I have the watch."
I took the tea. I walked to my room.
For the first time in two years, I didn't check the locks on the front door three times.
I didn't have to. The Wolf was in the kitchen.
- Writer
