Chapter 14
Five years passed.
Lulu was twelve.
Her adult teeth had come in.
She joked once that the evidence tooth had done more work than most grown-ups.
Dominic did not laugh immediately.
Then Lulu did, so he allowed himself to.
Marcella was still incarcerated.
The Natalia trust was stable under independent management.
The children’s initiative had been dissolved and replaced by a smaller legal-aid fund run by people who did not use Lulu’s face.
Dominic completed his custodial sentence and returned under supervised release.
No weapons.
No criminal associates.
Financial monitoring.
Travel restrictions.
No role in Lulu’s trust.
No private security around her without court approval.
He lived smaller.
He spoke less.
He asked permission more.
At twelve, Lulu finally read part of Natalia’s letter to Grace.
Not the sealed letter for her.
A court-approved excerpt explaining why Grace had been nominated.
If Dominic becomes the father I believe he can become, you may never need this. If he remains the man everyone obeys because they fear him, Lulu will need someone who can say no.
Lulu read it twice.
“Mom thought he could change?”
Grace said:
“Yes.”
“But she planned in case he didn’t?”
“Yes.”
Lulu folded the paper.
“That sounds like Mom.”
Grace smiled sadly.
“It does.”
Dominic later asked if Lulu wanted to talk about it.
She said:
“Not yet.”
May you like
He accepted that.
That acceptance was one of the few gifts he could still give without wrapping it in control.
