Forced to Be Festive

Prologue

Josephine

Months earlier

“Fear is your opponent’s greatest weapon. Give in to it, and you’ll lose before the fight begins.” My father’s voice steadied me.

Glass cracked under my boot. I froze, listening.

The apartment hadn’t been robbed; it had been hunted through.

The damage felt personal: the couch gutted, the television webbed with fractures, cushions slashed as if someone had taken their time.

Nothing was missing because what they wanted hadn’t been here.

I moved carefully, a chef’s knife from the kitchen clenched in my hand. Each room read the same: overturned, violated, empty. Silence pressed in on me, broken only by my breath. Whoever had been here was long gone, but their anger still clung to the walls.

Back in the living room, I set the blade on the chair and lifted the frame lying face-down on the carpet. My father’s grin looked back through jagged glass. The ache hit sharp, even two weeks after his arrest. I unlatched the back of the frame, folded the photo, and slid it into my pocket.

Media had already chosen their version of the story: Roy Ashby tried to steal Raymean Industries’ proprietary technology, and when he failed, he’d destroyed the proof.

Raymean called the StealthOff motorcycle a cover story and his work a sham.

They labeled him a national risk. Lies. My father wasn’t a thief, and he hadn’t betrayed them.

Yes, the bike was always a decoy, but my father’s research would have powered it as well.

Raymean would have gotten their product, and my father would have gotten a Nobel Prize in Physics for creating a new clean energy source.

My father was the one who’d been robbed. Someone had stolen his chance to finish what he started.

I stuffed the things that mattered into my bag: his old pocket watch (the brass rim dented in the same place he always absentmindedly tapped), the thin notebook of designs he’d kept under lock and key, and the small silver locket he’d given me.

The one with a code only I could read. I’d promised him I’d keep it safe.

Promises are heavier than they sound, and I was determined to do more than hold on to his work for him.

I’d finish it. And somehow, I’d leverage that knowledge to free him and clear his name.

My phone buzzed. I thumbed it open.

“Josephine Ashby, you’re no longer safe where you are.”

“No kidding,” my brain supplied sarcastically, even as I tensed. “Who is this?”

“A friend. Your father told me to remind you to never trust anyone who eats grapefruit without sugar on it.”

I froze. That was our family safety code. Could someone have gotten it out of him? I didn’t believe so. We hadn’t used it in over a decade, so the chance anyone could have overheard it was minimal. “Grapefruit is supposed to be healthy.”

“Yes, but life should also have some sweetness to it.”

Tears pricked. That was the exchange we’d practiced. There was no way to be a hundred percent sure I could trust this person, but I didn’t have many options. “I’m ready to go now.”

The voice was quiet and steady. “Good. I’ll send you coordinates. Pack light. I can get you whatever you need once you’re here.”

“Understood.”

“Tell no one.”

“Okay.”

I ended the call, pulled my hood up, and slung the bag across my shoulder.

My phone pinged with a location. I went to the storage unit I’d rented under a fake name, the one my father had asked me to secure just before his arrest. I gathered what few things I had from his research, stuffed them into bags on a motorcycle I’d remodeled to pass for a Harley, and drove off into the night.

I paused for a heartbeat, tasted the city’s damp air, and let a memory rise: Dad and I leaving another place in another city in the dead of night because someone had started asking too many questions about his projects. My hands tightened on the handlebars.

My father was a private man.

Eccentric.

Impulsive.

Brilliant.

Impassioned.

A good man fighting for the future of humanity.

Was he also a criminal? I swallowed hard, afraid my journey to save him might prove what I was starting to fear—that I’d never really known him at all.