Residence, Third Floor12:07 PM
Elias shut the door with his heel and let the silence hit him like a fist.
For one heartbeat he just stood there, back against the wood, eyes closed, trying to remember what breathing felt like when the entire country wasn't sitting on his lap.
Then he heard it: the small, wet sound of Emma, their thirteen years old daughter, trying not to cry out loud.
She was barely teen and trying to disappear.
Lucas remained at the window. He stared at the Rose Garden, palms on the glass, as if searching for blood. Jesus watched the shooting on live TV.
"Daddy?"
Elias crossed the room so fast he nearly tripped. He hit his knees in front of her and she crashed into him, small fists clutching his shirt like she could anchor him to the planet.
He wrapped her up and felt her shake so hard he thought her bones might break.
"I'm here," he whispered against her hair. "I'm right here, baby."
She made a sound that wasn't a word, just pure animal grief, and buried her face in his neck. Her tears soaked his collar in seconds.
Over the top of her head he saw Lucas turn.
His son's eyes were dry. He was so similar with his mother.
".300 Norma or .338 Lapua," Lucas said, voice flat, almost bored. "Eight hundred metres. Subsonic. The wind was three knots left-to-right. He compensated perfectly."
Elias's arms tightened around Emma involuntarily.
"Lucas, stop—"
"He was really good, Dad." Lucas finally looked at him, and Elias wished he hadn't. The boy's pupils were blown wide. "When they come for you, they'll be that good again."
Emma's whole body jerked at the word you.
Nadia moved.
One second she was in the doorway; the next she was between her children and every possible threat in the universe.
Her voice came out low, lethal, and soft enough to cut straight to the bone.
"Emma. Lucas. Look at me."
Emma lifted her head just enough. Lucas obeyed instantly.
"From this second forward you do not leave this room unless I am holding your hand. You do not open that door for God himself unless he is standing next to me. Do you understand?"
Emma tried to nod and couldn't. Fresh tears spilled over.
Nadia tilted her head toward the hallway. Park and Delgado stepped inside without a sound.
"These two men are the only exceptions. Park. Delgado. If anyone else, anyone tries to come through that door, you scream until your throat bleeds and then you run to the safe room and you lock it. Then you stay there until your father or I come get you. Say it back."
Emma whispered. "Scream. Safe room. Lock it."
Lucas's came out steady. "Until you or Dad come."
Nadia held their eyes a second longer, letting them see the promise written there: I will burn the world down before I let them touch you.
"I love you," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word, the only crack she'd allowed all day. "More than my own life. That's why we're doing this."
Nadia knelt, gathered her up without hesitation, and for ten full seconds the most dangerous woman on the continent simply held her terrified daughter and rocked.
Elias watched, throat raw, and realised he was crying too.
When Nadia pulled back, her eyes were dry again. She pressed a kiss to Emma's forehead, then Lucas's, and she stood.
***
Elias followed her into the hallway and shut the door on the sound of his children breathing too fast.
He caught her wrist before she could take another step.
"Nadia—"
She turned. "I retired," she whispered. "I never disbanded."
She stepped so close her forehead almost touched his. "Twelve people, Elias. Twelve. And every single one of them would walk into fire for me because I once walked into worse for them."
Her fingers brushed the lapel of his jacket, the one still flecked with Gregory's blood. "Today I called in two."
"If the other ten are needed," she whispered, the words scraping raw, "I will burn this entire continent to ash before I let anyone lay a finger on our babies…"
She rose onto the balls of her feet, closing the last inch between them until her lips hovered a heartbeat away from his.
"…and you."
The last syllable broke against his mouth.
Her forehead stayed against his, eyes closed, breath ragged. "Stay alive, Elias," she said, voice cracked wide open. "I'm not done with you. Not even close."
"You're never done with me." Elias tried to smile, failed, and let the truth sit plain between them. "But… Nadia, you're terrified. And it's okay to say it."
The hallway went still.
For a long beat she didn't breathe or blink. She stared at him.
"You're allowed to be shaking, Nad. You have been strong out there, holding me, and be force of nature there." He knew he never worried about her self-defense skill but still, she just watched someone died out there, someone she considered her family.
"I don't know how," she said finally.
The words were soft, stripped, and unarmored.
She looked away, jaw tight. "Not after what you just went through. Not after what we've survived before. I'm supposed to be the one who doesn't break."
Elias reached for her hand. She didn't pull back.
"You don't have to be steel every second," he murmured. "Not with me."Something in her eyes flickered, grief folding into guilt, guilt folding into the memory of Hoyt falling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Gregory believed in you," she whispered. "He believed in what you could build. And now he's gone because he stood next to you."
"Nadia—"
She shook her head. "I'm not afraid for me. I'm afraid of what happens to this family if I lose you next."