CHAPTER 2 – THE SOUND OF SIRENS AT THE GATES
The silence after the phone shattered was not empty.
It was waiting.
Preston stood over me, breathing slowly, as if he had just corrected something in the universe. The broken phone pieces lay scattered like dead insects across the marble floor. One shard still blinked faintly before dying completely.
Then Lily cried again upstairs.
A small, broken sound.
Preston didn’t even look up. “Go to your room,” he said loudly, as if speaking to a servant.
I tried to move. My body refused. Pain came in waves—sharp, hot, disorienting. Every breath scraped my ribs like broken glass.
“Preston,” I whispered. “Please. Not in front of her.”
That made him smile.
“Then teach her not to watch.”
He walked toward the stairs.
That was the moment something inside me changed.
Not fear.
Not shock.
Something colder.
Final.
I forced myself up, using the edge of the shattered cabinet. Blood ran down my arm, but I didn’t feel it properly anymore. My hands shook as I crawled toward the kitchen island where a landline still existed—decorative, unused, but connected to the estate’s emergency system.
Preston heard me moving.
He turned.
“Oh?” he said. “You’re still trying things?”
I reached the phone.
Dialed.
Three numbers.
9…1…1.
Preston crossed the room faster than I expected.
His hand slammed down on mine before the call connected.
Pain exploded through my fingers.
“Didn’t I just fix that?” he said softly.
He ripped the receiver off the base and crushed it under his heel.
This time, he leaned close.
“You don’t call people into my house,” he whispered. “Do you understand me?”
I stared at him.
And for the first time, I didn’t answer.
Because I heard something outside.
Not inside the house.
Outside the gates.
A deep engine sound.
Then another.
Then more.
Preston straightened slightly.
“What is that?” he muttered.
Headlights cut through the glass walls of the mansion.
Bright.
White.
Controlled.
Not random.
Organized.
Then—
SIRENS.
Not loud chaos.
Official.
Measured.
The sound of authority arriving exactly on time.
Preston’s expression shifted.
Just slightly.
Confusion first.
Then irritation.
Then something he didn’t want to name.
I looked toward the windows.
At the iron gates of our estate.
And saw them open.
May you like
Not by us.
By command.
