At my father’s funeral, the gravedigger pulled me aside: “Sir, your dad paid me to bury an empty coffin.” I said, “Stop joking.” He slipped me a key and hissed, “Don’t go home. Go to unit 17—NOW.” My phone buzzed. Mom texted, “Come home alone.”…

Me walking into my office.

Every picture taken from a distance.

Every picture framed like a hunter choosing where to place the shot.

“He’s been watching us,” I said.

“For three months,” Patricia said.

My father pointed to another photo.

Victor Crane, leaving a prison gate.

“That was ninety-two days ago,” he said. “Good behavior. Medical reductions. Administrative nonsense. The sentence meant thirty years on paper. In reality, he served twenty-eight.”

“And the moment he got out,” Patricia said, “he started reaching out to the pieces of what remained of his old network.”

“He wants revenge,” I said.

My father’s laugh was empty. “No, son. He wants art.”

I turned to him.

He held my gaze.

“Victor Crane isn’t satisfied by simple murder. He wants balance, as he sees it. I took away his empire. He wants to take away my family. He wants me to watch.”

A deep, ugly nausea rose in my throat.

I thought of Celeste.

Emma.

Oliver.

My mother.

I pulled out my phone.

“I need to call my wife.”

“Do it,” Patricia said.

Celeste answered on the second ring.

“Julian? How was the funeral?”

Her voice sounded normal. Domestic. Untouched by any of this.

It almost broke me.

“Where are you?”

“At your parents’ house. Why?”

I stood so fast the chair scraped behind me.

“What?”

“Your mom invited us for dinner after the service,” Celeste said. “She texted me earlier and told us to come by before you got there. We let ourselves in. She said she had to run an errand after the cemetery.”

My father shut his eyes.

“Celeste,” I said, every word coming out too fast, “listen to me very carefully. Take Emma and Oliver and leave the house right now.”

There was a pause.

“What? Why?”

“I can’t explain yet.”

“Julian, what’s going on?”

“Please. Just trust me. Take the kids and go somewhere public. A restaurant. A crowded store. Anywhere with people. Do not go to our house. Do not go back to my parents’ house. Do not tell anyone where you’re going until I call you.”

She went silent long enough that I thought the line had dropped.

Then, in a smaller voice, “Are we in danger?”

I looked at my father.

He looked suddenly older than I had ever seen him.

“Yes,” I said.

Her breath caught.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I’m getting the kids now.”

“Call me the moment you’re somewhere safe.”

“I will.”

“And Celeste?”