The fallout came fast.
Geraldine had barely cleaned the blood from her marble floors when agents from the Bureau arrived at the Donovan estate—not to protect, but to probe. The media storm had made Bekett Donovan a national scandal, and now, his wife—his lovely, silent wife—was under a microscope.
They asked polite, poisonous questions:
"Did you know about your husband's offshore accounts?"
"Have you ever seen Mr. Donovan with any of the men on the list?"
"Why now, Mrs. Donovan?"
Geraldine answered with calm precision.
"I'm not the criminal. I'm the witness."
She didn't blink. Not even once.
But deep down, she knew: this wasn't protection. It was pressure.
And somewhere in the shadows, Bekett was watching it all burn.
At St. Joan's Academy, Reena kept her head down. But kids were cruel. One boy held up a news clipping and called her a "cartel princess." Lovia, too young to understand, cried when a teacher whispered too loudly about "those poor Donovan girls."
That afternoon, Geraldine waited in the car pickup line with Tracy beside her. The security detail Lachlan had planted stood nearby, civilian-dressed but armed. Reena climbed in with her hoodie pulled low. Lovia handed her a drawing—one of their house with red stick figures outside.
"Those are the bad men," she said cheerfully. "But you have a knight now."
Geraldine choked on her breath. "A knight?"
Lovia grinned. "Lach-lan."
Tracy snorted, trying to hide it. Reena just leaned her head against the window, lips trembling.
Back at the estate, Geraldine found an envelope on her bed.
No postmark. No signature. Just her name in slanted, rushed ink.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Lachlan Valez, standing outside a bookstore, kissing the forehead of a woman she didn't recognize.
On the back, in blood-red ink:
"Don't trust a man who trades bullets for secrets."
—B.D.
Geraldine poured herself a drink—dark rum, no ice.
She didn't panic. She planned.
Lachlan came at dusk, as usual, dressed in shadows and muscle. She met him at the garden.
"You got sloppy," she said.
He raised a brow. "How so?"
She held up the photo.
Lachlan didn't flinch. "That's my sister."
Geraldine narrowed her eyes. "You don't have a sister."
"I do. Half-sister. I don't speak of her because Bekett tried to have her kidnapped five years ago." He stepped closer. "Which is why I never told you. She's my weakness. You were becoming another."
Geraldine's chest tightened. "That's dangerous."
"So are you."
That night, she couldn't sleep.
She sat in her daughters' shared room, watching them breathe.
For the first time, she saw the war they were born into—one built on names and bloodlines and buried sins.
The door creaked. Lachlan leaned in. "Can we talk?"
She nodded, slipping out quietly.
In the hallway, he held out a tablet. It glowed with surveillance footage—taken just hours ago.
Bekett Donovan had been spotted at a private airfield in Panama. Not fleeing. Recruiting.
"He's building an army," Lachlan said. "Buying mercenaries. Contractors. Ghosts."
Geraldine stared at the screen. "To come after me?"
"To come after everything," he replied. "The leak hurt him. You took his empire and put a bullet in its chest. Now he wants your heart."
In the morning, the estate's outer walls exploded.
Not metaphorically—literally.
A planted bomb reduced the west gate to rubble, sending debris into the rose garden.
The guards responded instantly. Tracy shielded the girls. Geraldine ran barefoot through the hall, shouting for them to head to the safe room.
On the east side of the estate, a drone hovered. It blinked red—recording.
Geraldine grabbed a shotgun from the weapons vault and aimed at the drone.
Click. Boom.
It dropped like a dead bird.
When the smoke cleared, no one had breached the house.
But the message was clear.
Bekett Donovan wasn't running anymore.
He was coming.