Chapter 2 - the vehicles were not military
They looked like military vehicles from a distance, and that was exactly what Chloe thought they were in her panic. In reality, they belonged to North Shore Response, the veteran-owned private security firm Ethan had retained months earlier after a series of gate breaches and vandalism at the estate. The men who stepped out wore tactical black, not uniforms. They moved fast, controlled the scene in seconds, and took the rod from the lawn before Chloe could even think about picking it back up again.
I was taken to the hospital first.
By the time the doctor finished examining me, my leg was badly bruised but not fractured, and more importantly, my baby was fine. I cried so hard from relief that the nurse had to hand me tissues twice. Margaret had a bruised rib and a scraped palm from the fall, but she insisted on staying until Ethan got there. Chloe, meanwhile, had been escorted off the property and held for sheriff’s deputies after the security team documented the assault.
Ethan arrived forty minutes later, white-faced and breathless, still in the same shirt he had left in that morning. He came straight into the exam room, dropped to his knees in front of me, and put both hands around mine like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go.
“Are you and the baby okay?”
I nodded, and only then did he let himself breathe.
Margaret stood in the doorway with one arm wrapped around her ribs. Ethan turned to her, still trying to piece together how a lunch hour at home had become an emergency callout. “Mom,” he said, “what the hell happened?”
Margaret looked at me first, then at him.
“What happened,” she said, voice flat with anger, “is that your wife almost got hit a second time because your sister-in-law is far more dangerous than any of us were willing to admit.”
Ethan frowned. “Olivia doesn’t have a sister-in-law.”
May you like
Margaret didn’t blink. “I know. I meant her sister. And if you want the truth, you should start by asking why I already had a flare launcher in my pocket when she attacked.”
That question followed us all the way home.
