Chapter 33 #2
I sat back in the chair. A dull ache moved under the gauze. I had forgotten about it. That seemed optimistic and medically stupid.
ME: I’m in town through Sunday.
ME: Tell her thank you.
The reply came fast.
SOFIA: wow no dramatic pause? growth dad
ME: I can still create one if needed.
SOFIA: please do not. also can we do something just us? mom and eric are being normal and supportive and gross
ME: Yes.
SOFIA: u don’t know what i’m asking yet
ME: Still yes.
The dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared again.
SOFIA: i got nominated for homecoming court
The office went still around that line. Outside, a vehicle started and rolled across gravel. Someone laughed once in the yard, tired and low. The air smelled of printer heat and coffee gone sour in the mug beside my hand.
Sofia had been eight the first time I missed a school parade because a flood took out the southern road and guests needed evacuation.
Ten when I watched a piano recital on a video her mother sent two hours after it ended.
Twelve when she told me over a patchy call that it was okay I missed the science fair because her volcano “wasn’t even that explosive. ”
Fourteen now. Nominated for homecoming court.
I typed carefully.
ME: That’s good news.
SOFIA: it’s weird news
ME: Both can be true.
SOFIA: r u going to be embarrassing
ME: Yes.
SOFIA: disturbing but useful
ME: Do you want me there for the assembly too?
A longer pause.
SOFIA: yeah if u can
If you can. Not accusation. Not forgiveness. A door left open by a girl smart enough to stop leaning against it. My hand closed around the phone until the edge pressed into my palm.
ME: I can.
The reply took almost a minute.
SOFIA: cool. no boots no knife pants. please be normal
ME: That limits my wardrobe.
SOFIA: grow as a person dad
A sound came out of me. Small. Rough. The office didn't collapse.
ME: I’ll try.
SOFIA: sus but accepted
The thread settled. I kept the phone in my hand longer than necessary.
Sunday. Assembly. Homecoming. Just us. Concrete things. Dates with edges. A child asking for presence, not proof.
My laptop chimed again. This time the sender was not Mara Khaya.
Summer Wilder.
Subject: Consulting Inquiry: Wilder Horizons Security Architecture Assessment
My hand went still. The office fan clicked overhead. A slow turn. A minor defect in the bearing I had been meaning to report for six months and never had, because a fan making noise did not bleed or get lost or open a gate. Priorities. Always heroic. Often absurd.
I opened the email.
Mr. Mercer,
Wilder Horizons is conducting a security architecture review across our destination operations...
Your name was recommended as a potential external consultant due to your experience with guest containment, route planning, staff coordination, field-based crisis response, and active incident management...
No Juliette. Of course.
I stared at the absence of her name in the header until the muscles at the back of my neck tightened. Then I opened the attachment.
Wilder Horizons Security Architecture Assessment
Professional. Clean. Useful.
Polished presentation. Practical structure.
Objective. Scope.
Phase 1: Transfer and Manifest Protocol Audit
Phase 2: Vendor Credential and Access Review
Phase 3: Destination-Specific Risk Framework
Phase 4: Staff Escalation and Training Recommendations
Internal Lead: Gabriel Vaughn, Interim Security Director
Executive Sponsor: Juliette Wilder, Chief Executive Officer
Review: Summer Wilder, Chief Operations Officer
There she was. Exactly where she belonged. Not in the email. Not in the ask. Not anywhere a man could pretend this was personal pressure dressed in corporate clothes. Inside the structure. The place where decisions lived.
I read the document once for the work. Then again because her name was in it.
The proposal stayed narrow. No overreach.
No vague threat language. No making the breach larger than the evidence allowed.
It treated Wilder Horizons as its own system with its own exposure: clients moving through luxury properties where money softened edges, vendors touched too much information, and staff made impossible things look easy because wealthy people paid for the illusion that easy meant safe.
Juliette understood the difference. She had sat in my world long enough to see the gap, then returned to hers and named it without dramatizing it.
Annoying woman.
The first phase could be remote. Phase two would require controlled review of vendor credentials and staff escalation points. Phase three would become the real work: building risk frameworks destination by destination, not from fear, but from terrain.
The scope was tight. It treated their business as its own system with its own exposure. They didn't need a bodyguard. They needed architecture. Worse, Juliette already knew that.
I scrolled back to the contact line.
Summer Wilder. Review and procurement.
Gabriel Vaughn. Internal lead.
Juliette Wilder. Executive sponsor.
She had built the cleanest possible bridge, put her sister between the work and whatever the hell we were, protected her security director from being replaced, and left me with no useful excuse. It was sound. No loose edge to use against it.
The fan clicked again overhead. I pushed back from the desk and stood. The room shifted half a degree to the left. Lack of sleep. Blood loss. Coffee as a food group. All the finest choices. I braced one hand on the chair until the floor settled.
A man could survive hard ground. Flooded roads. Bad fences. Men with rifles who thought darkness made them clever. Guests who believed money made them immune to consequence.
Wanting was the problem. It asked for routes no map had approved.
I looked through the window toward the yard.
Daniel stood by the eastern vehicle, one boot on the running board, speaking to Elias with his head bent over the clipboard.
Sarah crossed behind them, already arguing with someone on the phone.
Mbeki loaded cones into the back of a truck.
Armand walked toward reception with his shoulders squared and a guest-facing smile sharpened into place.
The reserve needed me.
Still.
That was the problem.
My inbox showed Mara Khaya’s renewal email beneath Summer’s proposal. Better authority. Wider reach. More resources. A clean professional future in a place built for the kind of danger I understood.
And on my phone, Sofia’s message thread sat open. I can.
Two words.
No distance in them.
I sat again and opened a blank reply to Summer. The cursor blinked. I typed the first sentence, deleted it, and leaned back.
Too fast. Too eager. Christ.
I could face a man at a breached fence with steadier hands than I could answer a professional inquiry from a woman who was not even the woman I wanted.
The door opened without a knock. Daniel stepped in and stopped. His gaze moved from my face to the laptop.
“That face says I should leave.”
“Consulting inquiry.”
“From?”
“Wilder Horizons.”
Daniel paused. “Juliette Wilder’s company?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.”
I gave him a look. He ignored it with the confidence of a man already promoted into inconvenience.
“We’ll stay on modified alert for six weeks,” he said. “I’ll run eastern patrol and contractor review with Sarah.”
“You have enough work.”
“I had enough work yesterday. Still here.”
I looked back at the screen. “The reserve isn't stable.”
“The reserve is never stable.” He crossed his arms. “That's why we have jobs.”
A radio crackled outside. Three clipped words. A vehicle door shut. The day kept moving without permission. Daniel nodded toward the laptop. “You going?”
“I’m reading.”
“No one reads like that over nothing.”
I closed the proposal halfway. “You finished?”
“No.” He stepped back toward the door. “But I’m leaving before you assign me to something worse.”
“Too late.”
“I assumed.” His hand settled on the doorframe. “You built us better than this, Nick. Let us prove it.”
He left. The door clicked shut behind him.
I sat in the heat and the low mechanical hum of a lodge learning how to restart. The coffee in my mug had gone undrinkable. The bandage on my arm needed changing. My inbox held two futures, both reasonable enough to be dangerous.
No clean exit. Juliette would’ve hated the phrase. Then she would’ve cross-examined it until it confessed.
I opened Summer’s email and typed.
Ms. Wilder,
Thank you for sending the scope. I have reviewed the preliminary materials and agree the proposed phased approach is sound.
I will be in Washington, D.C. next month for a family commitment. If useful, I can schedule a separate business stop in Maris Key afterward to meet with you and Mr. Vaughn regarding scope, access, timeline, and conflict boundaries.
I am not confirming availability or acceptance at this stage. A meeting would allow both sides to determine fit.
Regards, Nicholas Mercer
I read it once. Removed nothing. Added nothing. Sent it before I could make restraint sound responsible.
The email disappeared from the screen. For three seconds, nothing happened. No alarm. No animal call. No immediate punishment from the universe for a man arranging travel toward something he wanted.
Disappointing lack of drama, really.
I opened Sofia’s thread.
ME: Confirming. I’ll be there for the assembly and stay through Sunday.
Her reply came while my thumb still hovered.
SOFIA: good. remember cool clothes dad
ME: Define cool.
SOFIA: ask literally any woman
That startled another rough sound out of me. Then a second message appeared.
SOFIA: also if u have to do work after thats ok. just don’t leave before sunday breakfast
My chest tightened around the clean simplicity of it. Sunday breakfast. Not redemption. Not ceremony. Eggs, coffee, and a girl asking her father to stay through a meal.
ME: Promise.
Sofia first. Then Florida. Not certainty. A route.
My phone buzzed before I could set it down. Not Sofia. Not Summer.
Juliette Wilder filled the screen. Incoming call.