Chapter 5
Gareth’s reward was simpler.
Security command.
Leonard promised him control of all yacht, estate, and Grayhaven protection after the marriage.
My head of security would remain nominally above him.
For a while.
Then gradually moved aside.
Gareth called it modernization.
I called it ambition.
“What part did you handle?”
He looked at the phone.
“The files.”
Not creating my voice itself.
A private media contractor did that using recordings of me from old speeches, voice notes, family announcements.
Gareth provided the words.
I stared.
“So they were yours.”
He shook his head.
“Not all.”
There.
“My voice. Someone else’s words. Whose?”
He smiled bitterly.
“You’re obsessed with that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever wrote them understood exactly where to cut.”
The recordings did not simply say I rejected Milo.
They attacked specific fears.
You cry too much.
You make me tired.
Your mother left.
Grandma can’t protect you forever.
Those were not random.
Someone knew my son.
His habits.
His questions after nightmares.
The way he asked whether people left when angry.
Celina knew some.
Ruth knew more.
I knew all.
Leonard had barely seen Milo in two years.
So who wrote them?
Gareth finally looked uncomfortable.
“Leonard had notes.”
“From who?”
No answer.
I grabbed the phone and opened the deleted-message recovery folder Gareth had missed.
One text fragment remained.
RUTH SAYS HE STILL ASKS ABOUT OLIVIA AFTER THUNDERSTORMS.
My heart stopped.
My mother?
No.
I looked toward the corridor.
Ruth had just spent the last hour protecting Milo.
Could she have fed Leonard information unknowingly?
Or knowingly?
I hated the question.
Then another fragment appeared.
SHE THINKS SHE’S HELPING US PREPARE HIM.
I stared.
Not Ruth.
Someone had been using conversations with Ruth.
Listening.
Reporting.
Inside my own household.
Gareth looked at the screen.
His face changed.
That told me the leak mattered.
“Who?”
He said nothing.
Then I noticed the message signature.
M.A.
My father’s widow.
My stepmother.
May you like
Margaret Ashford.
The woman currently hosting the Harbor Council at Grayhaven.
