Chapter 115 Fractures
Day 15. A marriage counselor appeared on screen.
It wasn't planned, Ariella hadn’t even known Aiden had called her.
“This is Dr. Nina Okafor,” Aiden said to the camera. To ninety-five million people. “We’re doing a live session because…” He looked at Ariella. “Because we’re breaking. And I don’t know how to fix it privately anymore.”
Ariella stared at him. “You didn’t ask me…”
“I know, I’m asking now. Please.”
The bakery had cleared, it was just them, Dr. Okafor, and the cameras streaming their fractures to the world.
“When did you last have a conversation that wasn’t about survival?” Dr. Okafor asked.
There was Silence.
“When did you last touch each other without fear? Sleep without nightmares? Look at your children without calculating exit routes?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Ariella said. “We have twenty-five contractors documented. Thirty-two attempts. The network just froze our accounts…”
“I’m not asking about the network, I’m asking about your marriage.”
Ariella’s throat closed.
“We’re fine,” she managed.
“You’re not.” Dr. Okafor’s voice was gentle. “You’re surviving, that’s different than fine.”
“Then we’ll be fine after,” Ariella said. “After the vote. After we win…”
“What if there is no after?” Aiden’s voice cracked. “What if we spend forty more days fighting and we still lose? What if the last thing we are to each other is soldiers in the same war?”
“That’s not…”
“When did you last tell me you loved me?” His eyes were wet. “Not as strategy, not as comfort. Just…because you felt it?”
Ariella couldn’t remember.
“I love you,” she said. It sounded like an apology.
“I know…But you’re drowning and I’m drowning and we’re both so focused on keeping Elena and Ethan afloat that we’re not…” He gestured helplessly. “We’re not us anymore.”
“We haven’t been us since the contract,” Ariella said, Honest and Raw. “We’ve been in survival, we’ve been in a partnership. We’ve been parents. But us? The actual us? I don’t know if that ever existed outside of crisis.”
The comment section fell silent.
One hundred million people are watching a marriage dissect itself.
“Do you want it to exist?” Dr. Okafor asked quietly.
“Yes,” Aiden said immediately.
Ariella hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t…I don’t know what that looks like. What we look like when we’re not fighting.”
“Then let’s find out.” Dr. Okafor said. “For the next hour, no network. No contracts. No survival strategies. Just two people remembering why they chose each other.”
“We didn’t choose each other,” Ariella said. “We were forced…”
“You chose to stay,” Dr. Okafor interrupted. “After the contract ended. After Richard died. You chose to stay married. Why?”
Ariella looked at Aiden.
At the boy who’d been terrified in a cemetery four years ago. Who’d sat with her in hospitals and courtrooms and police stations. Who’d learned to change diapers and make bottles and sing lullabies off-key.
Who’d built a life with her from rubble.
“Because you see me,” she said quietly. “Not the fighter, not the survivor, just…me. The girl who wanted to bake bread and raise kids and have a boring, normal life. You see her even when I forget she exists.”
“I married you because you were the first person who didn’t need me to be the Frost heir,” Aiden said. “Who looked at me and saw…just a scared kid trying to save his family. Who didn’t expect me to have answers? Who let me fall apart?”
“We’ve both fallen apart a lot.”
“Yeah.” He almost smiled. “We’re very good at falling apart.”
“And putting each other back together.”
“That too.”
Dr. Okafor leaned back. “That’s love. Messy. Exhausted. Built from crisis. But real.”
The session continued. An hour of honesty. Of admitting fear. Of acknowledging that they’d forgotten how to be anything except warriors.
“I want to date you,” Aiden said near the end. “After this. After we win or lose or whatever happens. I want to take you somewhere and…talk. About nothing. About everything. About who we are when we’re not fighting.”
“I’d like that,” Ariella said.
And meant it.
The livestream continued after Dr. Okafor left.
But something had shifted.
Comments poured in.
“This is the most real thing I’ve ever seen”
“They’re actually trying to save their marriage and their lives”
“I’m crying at work”
That night, Lily found Ariella in the bakery kitchen.
“That was brave,” she said. “The therapy. On camera.”
“It was terrifying.”
“Same thing in this family.” Lily started helping knead dough. Something she’d been doing more lately. Learning Claire’s rhythms. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“Do you regret it? Marrying him? Getting pulled into all this?”
Ariella considered. “Three years ago I would’ve said yes. One year ago, maybe. But now?” She looked at the livestream monitor. At Aiden upstairs reading to Elena. At Ethan sleeping in his playpen. At Marcus and Geoffrey playing chess in the corner. At Jessica editing footage. At Claire humming while she shaped loaves.
At Lily, seventeen and perceptive and finally trusting.
“No,” she said. “I don’t regret it. It’s been hell. But it’s been mine. Ours. Real.”
“Even if we lose?”
“Especially if we lose. Because at least we’ll lose together. As family. Not as contracts or obligations or…”
“As Frosts,” Lily finished. “The traumatic, dramatic, disaster kind.”
“Exactly.”
They worked in comfortable silence.
Outside, the network planned.
Inside, a family healed.
Not completely. Not cleanly.
But enough.
Enough to keep fighting.
Enough to keep loving.
Enough to survive whatever came next.
Together.
Like always.
Day 16 brought news.
Marcus’s FBI approval was revoked. He was officially under investigation for conflict of interest.
“They’re trying to remove my vote,” he said. “Disqualify me from the board.”
“Can they?” Aiden asked.
“Maybe. If the investigation concludes before the anniversary, the seat defaults to…” He checked the bylaws. Went pale. “To the President of Frost Memorial Hospital. Who is…”
“Network appointed,” Geoffrey finished. “Three years ago. After the previous president retired.”
They’d lost their fifth vote.
Forty days from the anniversary.
And their plan had just collapsed.