Chapter 476 Aiden’s Gate
Katia’s POV
Julian was already at the house when we arrived. He opened Aiden’s door himself, crouched, and looked at our son as if counting every part of him.
“You all right?”
Aiden nodded.
“Mum took me out of school.”
“Good.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I know.” Julian kissed the top of his head. “Go inside. Grandma is coming later. You can show her that dinosaur book you won’t shut up about.”
Aiden looked between us, knew something was wrong, and went anyway because he trusted the sound of Julian’s voice more than the look on our faces.
The second the door closed, Julian took the envelope from me.
He read it once.
Then he crushed it in his fist.
“He went to the school.”
“Yes.”
“He asked for my son.”
“Yes.”
Julian walked the length of the hall and back.
“Aiden does not go back this week. Marcus changes every route again. The school gets a new list tonight. No one who is not us stands at that gate.”
“That is not enough.”
He stopped.
“Say it.”
“I am done treating this as a warning war.” My voice came out low. “He put a man at our child’s school. He wrote a sentence about my son, like Aiden is a lever. If Elliot can reach the gate, the house is not the only target anymore.”
Julian looked at me for a long time.
“I know.”
“Do you?” I stepped closer. “Because I have been patient. I have let you handle the ugly part. I have sat in this house with extra men outside and told myself it was protection. Today a teacher handed me my son’s name on an envelope. That is not protection. That is a man showing us he can touch what we love.”
“I will bury him for this.”
“Then do it before he writes the next line.”
He pulled me in. I let him. My forehead hit his chest, and for a second I hated how much I needed the solid fact of him.
“I should have kept Aiden home after the accident,” I said.
“We cannot lock him in a room for the rest of his life.”
“We can lock him in this house for a week.”
“Yes. We can do that.”
Marcus arrived twenty minutes later. Julian gave him the note. I told him about the man, the question at the office, and the way he had watched Aiden before he disappeared. Marcus did not waste words. He wanted the school cameras. He wanted the teacher’s description. He wanted the second car’s footage from the gate.
Aiden came downstairs once, saw the three of us, and stopped.
“Is this about the man at school?”
Julian and I looked at each other. “What man?” Julian asked.
“The one by the hedge. He looked at me. Then he looked at Mum like he already knew her.”
My mouth went dry.
“Did he speak to you?”
“No. I didn’t like his face.”
“Good,” Julian said. “You tell me if you see that face again. You do not walk toward it. You do not answer it. You find me or your mother.”
Aiden nodded, smaller than he had been that morning.
“Can I still have a snack?”
“Yes,” I said. “Come.”
I made him toast he barely ate. I sat with him at the counter and let him talk about a boy in his class who cheated at football. I laughed in the right places. I kept my hands busy so he would not see them shake.
When Grandma came, I let her take him to the sitting room. She looked at my face and understood enough not to ask in front of him.
At night, after Aiden was asleep, I stood in the doorway of his room and watched his chest rise. The dinosaur book was on the floor. One sock had made it onto the chair. He looked like a child who had only missed break time.
Julian came up behind me.
“He stays home,” I said.
“He stays home.”
“And if Elliot sends another man to another gate, I want to know before the teacher does.”
“You will.”
I turned.
“I meant what I said downstairs. The house is not the only target now. He showed us the boy. Next time he will not send a note.”
Julian’s jaw worked.
“Then there will not be a next time he walks away from.”
I believed the anger. I needed more than anger. I needed the next move to be ours.
I went back to Aiden’s bed, pulled the blanket higher, and stayed there until my pulse slowed. In the quiet I kept seeing the man by the hedge. I kept seeing the envelope. I kept hearing Aiden ask why there were always men now.
Because a man who could not touch Julian’s work had decided to touch Julian’s son.
And I was done pretending that was only a warning.