As he carried Anya upstairs, Victoria’s voice sharpened behind him. “You’ll regret this. That child will only hold you back.”
Behind the closed bedroom door, Anya’s whisper brushed his collar. “Papa… does she not like me because I’m different?”
He smoothed a curl from her face. “No, my love. You are exactly who you are meant to be.”
That night, firelight filled his study with amber shadows. On his desk sat a photograph of Sofia holding Anya as a newborn, her smile caught forever in glass. Mark made one call. “I want everything,” he told his head of security. “Accounts. Messages. Travel. From the day she entered my life.” When he hung up, he understood something he hadn’t before: power was not for conquest. It was for protection.
The next morning, sunlight spilled across Anya’s bed as she sat cross-legged with crayons scattered around her. She showed him a drawing—a house beneath a bright yellow sun, two stick figures holding hands. “It’s us,” she said softly. “Only us.”
“Are we safe now?” she asked.
“We are,” Mark said. “And we will be.”