Chapter 1

The house felt like a tomb, for Jacob, the familiar hum of his marriage he once thought was built on something permanent, immovable, stone. Was nothing more than sand beneath his feet, which had finally rolled in by the tide. The silence in the hallway is thick and suffocating, which is pressed against him from all sides, broken only by the low, sorrowful murmur of the news playing downstairs. A somber voice. A hostage crisis. A Pop star the world adored.

Jacob stood outside the door of his daughter Emily’s bedroom, his hand frozen midair, he didn’t want to knock, but he had to. Marcy’s words from the night before still rang in his ears, cold, calculated, and cruel, like a threat dressed up as a promise.

“I’ll turn her against you, Jacob. I’ll make her believe you’re the monster.”

He knocked, two soft taps against the wood, too loud in the quiet that surrounded him.

“Baby?” Jacob called softly, his voice barely more than a breath, not a question, but a quiet plea. “Can I come in?”

Silence answered him, it felt heavier, weighted down by the quiet heartbreak of a twelve-year-old. Jacob felt the weight of every one of his thirty-seven years settle on his shoulders as he gently pushed the door open. It creaked slowly on its hinges.

Emily’s room was a sanctuary. A living, breathing map of her brilliant, strange, and beautiful mind. The far wall was lined with perfectly arranged posters of Victoria Earnhart, that radiant, unreachable starlet with the honey-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. She smiled down from the posters with a promise of a world where nothing hurt, where everything was music, light, and joy. But beneath that glossy dream, the room told a different story.

A powerful telescope pointed out the bay window toward the sliver of night sky. Her desk was a mess of brilliant tangled wires, tiny servo motors, and a half-built robot mid-construction, all lit by the faint glow of a soldering iron still plugged in. It was the room of a girl caught between two worlds, the one she was told to want, and the one she was quietly building for herself.

Jacob’s gaze moved towards his daughter who sat curled in the bay window, knees hugged to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them. Her silhouette was small, fragile against the glass. She stared out at the stars, cold, indifferent, eternal. They had been there long before her pain, and they’d be there long after. He sat beside her on the window seat, close enough to feel her warmth but not close enough to crowd her. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He simply sat with her, offering his presence in silence, a quiet act of love that said: I’m here.

Finally, Emily turned her head, her eyes, usually so bright and full of questions, were dull now, dimmed by a grief far too deep for someone her age to carry.

“Dad,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from holding back tears. “Do you think she’ll be safe?”

Jacob didn’t need to ask who she meant. It was not about Marcy, her mother who left earlier, but Victoria, The pop star, her idol.

“Will they ... are they hurting her?” Her voice cracked, just slightly, but enough. The smallest fracture in her carefully held shell. “Those men ... they’re monsters, aren’t they?”

Seeing her pain Jacob wrapped her in his arms, and her wiry frame folded into him like she’d been waiting for it. He could feel her shaking, faint tremors running through her body. He held her tighter, as if he could draw her fear into himself and carry it for her.

“No, baby,” he murmured into her hair, forcing the lie through his throat. It came too easily, and he hated how practiced it felt. “She’s going to be okay. They’re doing everything they can. She’ll be home soon.”

He felt her hands fist into his shirt, gripping him like she was afraid to let go. Her hug wasn’t just need, it was desperation. A silent plea for someone to make the world right again. He ran a hand down her back, slow and steady. The same way he used to when she was just a baby, fussing in her crib, fighting sleep. He rocked her gently, side to side. It soothed her, but it calmed him, too. Just enough to keep the panic away.

“Baby,” he said after a long moment, his voice low and heavy with what he knew he had to say, “I need to talk to you about something important.” Emily leaned back just enough to meet his eyes. When she looked at him, it wasn’t like a child looking to a parent for answers. It was something else.

“Is it about Mom?” she asked quietly. The words hit him like a punch to the chest.

His mouth went dry. How? How could she know?

And then, like the snap of a reel in his mind, last night came flooding back, vivid and cruel, every moment etched into memory with perfect, agonizing detail.

FLASHBACK – The Kitchen

Marcy stood across the island, her charcoal gray suit was cut razor sharp, her stiletto heels giving her the height and posture of a woman who no longer softened herself for anyone. Since her promotion to Vice President of Acquisitions, she’d become a creature of precision, every gesture economical, every word weaponized. Once, she had radiated warmth. Once, she’d worn his hoodie over faded jeans and danced barefoot in their kitchen with a pint of rocky road and no plan beyond tomorrow. That Marcy was gone, this version, the upgrade, was something else entirely. Sleek. Controlled. Corporate to the bone. A woman with edges one Jacob didn’t recognize.

“I need to talk to you, Jacob,” she said. Her voice had that conference call coolness, the same tone that closed multi-million-dollar deals and dismantled people without raising its volume. Jacob knew. He’d known for weeks. The distance had grown like rot between them, silences that stretched through dinner, through bedtime, through entire weekends.

“I’m listening,” he said, though even to his own ears, he sounded like a man halfway out of the room.

She didn’t flinch. “Henry and I are going away for a week. To the Caymans. The firm’s treating the senior team to a retreat after the Henderson merger.”

Henry, her boss, Jacob knew that name like a warning siren. The man with Rolexes is more expensive than cars. The man whose eyes undressed Marcy at the last company dinner while shaking Jacob’s hand with that smug, predatory grip. The man who looked at Jacob like he was the help.

“A vacation,” Jacob repeated. The word sat weird in his mouth. “That’s nice.”

Marcy exhaled. It wasn’t a sigh. It was a transition. “It’s more than a vacation,” she said. “It’s a ... recalibration.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Henry and I ... we have a connection,” she said, like it was obvious. “A real one. We see each other clearly. We operate on the same level.”

And there it was. A knife so smooth, he barely felt it go in, Jacob felt something cold rise in his chest, slow and steady. “What level is that, Marcy? The one where I don’t qualify anymore?”

Something flickered in her expression. Guilt? Irritation? Maybe both. But it passed. Her mask came back down, corporate and pristine. “Don’t be dramatic. This isn’t about you not measuring up. It’s about me evolving. I’ve worked for this. You know that. I have ambitions. And Henry, he champions those. He energizes me.”

“I supported you,” Jacob said, the words dark and quiet. “I worked double shifts so you could get your MBA. I stayed up testing flashcards with you until two a.m. I picked up Emily every day so you could make your late meetings. Don’t rewrite the past like I wasn’t there.”

Marcy gave a nod, tight and mechanical. “And I appreciate that.” But there was no appreciation in her voice. Just closure.

“You were a wonderful support system, Jacob. But a support system isn’t a partner. Not for the life I’m building now.” she said it flat, factual, like reading from a press release:

“I’m going to sleep with him, Jacob. On this trip. I’m telling you now, so there are no misunderstandings.”

Jacob staggered back a step, not physically, but inside. He felt it like an internal rupture. His throat tightened. His vision blurred for half a second. Not from tears but from the shock of just how deliberate it was.

“Why?” he asked. “Why are you telling me this? Do you want my blessing?”

Marcy laughed. Short. Dry. A sound with no humor at all. “Of course not,” she said. “I’m telling you so we’re clear. On the terms.”

“The terms,” he repeated, bitterly.

“You will not make a scene,” she said. “You won’t file for divorce. You will play your role as the loving, slightly overwhelmed husband giving his ambitious wife her freedom.”

“And if I don’t?” His voice was different now. He didn’t recognize it. It was steel.

She stepped forward slightly, her heels clicking once on the tile. She lowered her voice, but the words were a blade: “Then I will destroy you.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “I will divorce you, and I will take everything. The house. The accounts which, let’s be honest, my salary has filled these last two years. I will hire the best lawyers money can buy, and you’ll be left with crumbs. And then, Jacob...”

She leaned in. Her tone dipped to something intimate and venomous. “I’ll take Emily. I’ll turn her against you so completely, she won’t even look at you during your court-appointed weekends. I’ll make sure she believes you were the monster. And when I’m done, you’ll be nothing but a sad footnote in both our lives.” Silence. Cold and absolute.

Jacob didn’t move. Couldn’t. The world narrowed to the space between them, the ruin of fifteen years collapsing in real time. He stood there, his hands hanging useless at his sides, as everything he’d built disintegrated. Marcy didn’t blink. She had delivered her terms, and now she waited for compliance. And the worst part? The worst part wasn’t the betrayal. It was how prepared she’d been for it.

PRESENT – EMILY’S ROOM

“Dad? ... Dad!” Emily’s voice, with urgency, sliced cleanly through his memory.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, blinking rapidly. “I ... what did you say?”

“I said it’s about Mom,” she repeated, her voice patient, steady. “You’re getting a divorce.” The words struck with quiet force, he opened his mouth, reaching instinctively for the parental script, the gentle half-truths and soft cushions meant to make ugly things less sharp.

“Baby, it’s complicated. Sometimes, when a mom and a dad—”

“Stop,” Emily said, the word was soft, but firm. Her hand lifted small, calm, commanding. The exact same gesture Marcy used in boardrooms. And it broke his heart all over again.

“You don’t have to lie to me dad.” Hearing this Jacob’s carefully rehearsed speech died on his tongue.

“I know everything,” Emily said. Her voice didn’t tremble. “I saw everything. Yesterday.”

Jacob felt like the floor dropped out beneath him, he imagined her alone in the dark, hidden in the hallway listening as her parents’ marriage shattered under the fluorescent lights. Watching as her mother became a stranger. Hearing her father get cornered like a man with no air left in his lungs.

“Oh, Emily,” he choked, the words rasping out. “Baby ... I am so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to see that. You shouldn’t have heard any of it.”

“It’s okay,” she said, with a grace he couldn’t comprehend. She picked up her phone from the window seat, swiped, tapped. Then she turned the screen to face him. A video played. Shot from the shadows of the dining room, angled perfectly into the bright kitchen, the footage was clear. The audio? Crystal.

Jacob watched all of it. Marcy’s voice: cool, brutal, unflinching, his own: cracked with disbelief, Marcy’s threats, the power play, the finality. Jacob stared at the screen in horror, his face a ghost staring back at him.

“You can use this,” Emily said. “For the divorce.” Her voice was calm. “She threatened you. She admitted the affair. It’s all there. No judge will let her take me away after watching that.”

Jacob without a word, he pulled her into his arms, holding her close, as if shielding them both from a storm that had already hit.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered, his voice thick. “I’m so sorry you had to do that. That you had to be the strong one.”

“I don’t hate her, Daddy,” Emily murmured into his chest. “I just ... I feel sorry for her.”

She pulled back slightly to look up at him. Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but truth. “She’s being so stupid, throwing away the only person who ever really loved her, for who she is. And one day, she’ll realize ... but it will be then too late”

Jacob stared at his daughter. How had she gotten so wise? How had she seen so much and still had that fierce light in her?

“But by then,” she added, her voice steady now, “we’ll be gone. And you’ll be happy again. I’ll make sure of it.” He hugged her tighter, tears finally spilling over silent, warm, relentless.

“I promise you, baby” he said, the words cracking as they left him. “No matter what happens ... I’ll always be there for you. Always.” They stayed like that for a long time, father and daughter, wrapped in the only thing left, eachother, something that is stronger and unbreakable.

It was well past midnight, and Jacob couldn’t sleep. His thoughts kept spinning, replaying everything that had happened earlier that night. Emily’s quiet strength. The video she had shown him. And underneath it all, the deep, throbbing pain of Marcy’s betrayal. He kept asking himself when it had all started to fall apart. Was it after her promotion? Or had the signs been there much earlier, buried in her relentless ambition? He had supported her, cheered her on. He loved that fire in her sharp mind and drive. He never imagined that same fire would one day turn on him, used like a weapon to tear apart the life they’d built. To her, he had just been the safe choice. An accountant, ordinary, predictable, and in the end, replaceable.

Emily walked in quietly, with A look he knew well.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked softly. “Can’t sleep?”

She shook her head and moved closer to his desk. She didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she stared past him at the TV on the cabinet behind him. The sound was off, but the screen showed a live image of a warehouse under siege flashing red and blue lights from police cars and SWAT vans lit up the scene. The news ticker at the bottom read:

DAY 3: POP STAR HOSTAGE CRISIS – ULTIMATUM EXPIRES AT DAWN

“Dad,” Emily said, finally lifting her eyes to meet him. There was a pleading look in them, and an unwavering determination. “You have to save Victoria.”

Jacob felt a new wave of helplessness crash over him. His daughter was already heavy with her mother’s betrayal, and yet, her heart was still aching for someone else, a stranger, her idol.

“Sweetheart, we talked about this,” he said gently, trying to stay calm. “The government has their best people on it. They’ll get her out. She’s going to be okay.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Emily snapped, her voice cutting through. “The terrorists are ex-special forces. Their leader ‘Charon’ he’s not there to negotiate. He’s a fanatic. The ultimatum is real. They’re going to kill a hostage at dawn to make their point. And it’s going to be her. You know I’m right. You know she’s going to die.”

Jacob stared at her, speechless, his mouth hung open, before he could ask, Emily stepped forward. Her voice dropped low, raw, desperate. “I’m begging you, Dad. Please. Save her. For me.”

“Emily darling..., what can I do?” His voice cracked. “I’m just an accountant.”

Emily took a deep breath, her small chest rising and falling as she steadied herself. She looked down at the floor for a moment, like she was gathering courage. When she looked back up, the desperation in her eyes was gone, replaced by that same unnerving, steady calm he’d seen earlier in her bedroom. “You forced me to do this,” she said quietly. Her voice wasn’t angry. It wasn’t a threat. It was just ... sad. Like she wished it hadn’t come to this. She met his gaze head-on, and in that stare was something that felt like a direct challenge. Then she said the two words that ripped his world apart.

“Agent Macoy.”

The name, his call sign from a life he had buried long ago. It hit him like a shockwave. The room seemed to shrink around him. The carefully built walls in his mind Jacob the dad, Jacob the husband, Macoy the agent collapsed in one instant, like a building brought down by explosives. For nearly ten seconds, Jacob couldn’t move., couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, he just stared at his 12-year-old daughter, the only person in the world who had just spoken the one name that could destroy everything.