Free Web NovelChapter 26: Chapter 25 Under My Protection
The next day, the reality of my new life truly set in.
I expected Laziel to be gone before sunrise. A man running an international empire doesn’t just sit around, but when I walked out of my room at six in the morning, he was drinking a cup of coffee in plain tee shirt.
Even more shocking—Mrs. Greco informed me that he had cleared his entire schedule for the day.
The ruthless CEO of Monroe Holdings had taken a day off. And since I was technically his assistant now, I was stuck on his schedule too. He took a day off for a four-year-old.
I spent most of the morning trailing behind Anastelle as Mrs. Greco showed her around the house. I wanted to grab Anastelle and run to the nearest bus station.
But I couldn’t.
When I secretly checked my phone to look for cheap apartment listings in the city, the screen wouldn’t even load the real estate apps. The network signal inside the estate was perfectly fine, but every single site for rentals or employment agencies gave me a blank, white screen.
"Mommy! Look at the fish!"
Anastelle was currently pressed against an indoor aquarium built right into the wall of the corridor.
"They’re beautiful, aren’t they, Princess?" Mrs. Greco, the housekeeper smiled.
I rolled my eyes. "Mrs. Greco, please don’t call her that. Her name is Anastelle."
The older woman paused, looking at me with a polite but firm expression. "Mr. Monroe was very specific with his instructions, Miss Brenner. We follow his vocabulary in this house."
Before I could even process that, footsteps sounded at the end of the hall.
He was dressed in a black Armani suit.
"We’re leaving," he said.
I blinked. "Leaving? Where?"
"Uniform fitting."
"I told you she isn’t going to that school," I said, stepping directly between him and Anastelle. "We haven’t agreed to anything."
Laziel didn’t argue. He simply reached down, lifted Anastelle effortlessly onto his hip, and kept walking toward the front doors.
"Snack Man, we’re going in the big car?" Anastelle asked, immediately wrapping her small arms around his neck, completely unbothered by his icy demeanor.
"Yes," Laziel said.
"Hey! Put her down!" I yelled, scrambling to grab my purse from the nearest chair and running after them.
The black Mercedes-Benz pulled up to the gates of St. Vittoria International Academy thirty minutes later. The school looked less like an educational institution and more like a castle with security guards stationed every ten yards.
The moment the car stopped, the headmistress was already waiting on the front steps.
Laziel stepped out first, then reached back into the car to pull Anastelle out. I scrambled out behind them, fixing my clothes and trying to maintain some shred of dignity.
"Mr. Monroe," the headmistress said, practically bowing as we approached. "An absolute honor. We have the private fitting room prepared for you."
"Good," Laziel said.
Anastelle looked up at the massive arched ceilings of the entrance hall, her eyes wide. "Snack Man, is this school bigger than Disneyland?"
The headmistress stiffened slightly at the nickname, her eyes darting between Anastelle’s diamond tiara, my faded jeans, and Laziel’s blank face. She cleared her throat, trying to maintain her smile.
"Is this your daughter, Mr. Monroe?" she asked carefully.
I looked at Laziel, my heart hammering against my ribs, waiting for him to correct her, to call us his debtors, or to explain the twisted truth.
Laziel looked down at Anastelle, then looked up at the headmistress.
"No," he said calmly.
The headmistress blinked, confused.
"But she is under my protection," Laziel added. His voice left no room for further questions. "Ensure her security detail reflects that."
"Of course," the woman replied instantly, "Right this way."
Meanwhile, in NYC.
Helix Monroe sat in the back of his own car, scrolling through his tablet. He was supposed to be reviewing the quarterly marketing budget for the cosmetics line, but an email from his assistant caught his attention.
It was an alert regarding a leak within the company’s internal server.
He clicked the attached link. It led to a private forum post that had been taken down within minutes, but the screenshot remained. It was a grainy, long-distance photo taken from the upper levels of the Monroe estate yesterday afternoon.
The headline read: Monroe CEO brings mysterious child to family estate.
Helix scoffed under his breath. "Laziel? A child? Ridiculous."
He went to swipe the image away, but his thumb paused. He pinched the screen, zooming into the center of the photo where a small girl was sitting on the edge of the fountain.
The image was blurry, but the details were sharp enough.
Thick, dark curls.
A stubborn tilt of the chin.
Helix frowned, a strange, uncomfortable sensation tightening in his chest. He didn’t recognize the girl, but something felt wrong.
Before he could analyze it further, his phone rang. The caller ID showed his medical clinic.
He picked it up. "Speak."
"Mr. Monroe," his fertility specialist’s voice came through the line, sounding unusually tense. "We’ve completed the advanced analysis on your latest samples."
Helix leaned back against the seat, smiling slightly. He had been waiting weeks for these results to confirm his next steps. "And? Give me the timeline."
There was a long pause on the other end.
"Mr. Monroe... we need you to come into the clinic immediately," the doctor said, "Do not wait for your scheduled appointment. Come now."
Author’s note
Thank you so much for reading Chapter 24! I wanted to slow things down just a bit to focus on the character chemistry and the absolute shift in the mansion’s dynamic. Laziel declaring Anastelle is under his protection to the headmistress of St. Vittoria is such a huge statement, especially since he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. But that ending with Helix... things are about to get very complicated, and the stakes are rising fast.
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