Chapter 94 Normal Milestone
They spent the next week in the apartment above the bakery.
It was small, and cramped with the smell of bread rising every morning.
It felt normal, blissfully, and dangerously normal.
Ariella baked again, something she hadn’t done in months. Focaccia, sourdough, and cinnamon rolls. Her hands remembered the rhythms, the kneading, and the shaping.
Elena learned to sit up, a completely normal developmental milestone that felt miraculous after everything.
Aiden started therapy, processing his father’s crimes, his mother’s murder, and the weight of an empire built on blood.
“The therapist says I have PTSD,” he reported after his third session. “Surprise surprise.”
“Join the club,” Ariella said. She’d started therapy too, Her nightmares were getting worse.
Claire reopened the bakery. Customers came… some for bread, some for selfies with “the woman who raised a hero.”
“I hate that,” Claire muttered. “She’s not a hero. She’s my daughter who got caught in a nightmare.”
But she smiled for the cameras anyway.
The world moved on. Faster than Ariella expected.
Two weeks after the broadcast, it was already old news. The arrests continued but moved to the back pages. Other scandals emerged. Other stories dominated.
“That’s how it works,” Jessica explained over video call. She was hiding…death threats from the network loyalists. “People have short attention spans, The trials will bring it back into focus. But for now…breathe. Let it fade.”
At three weeks, Victoria Frost’s trial began.
Ariella and Aiden testified on day one.
Victoria sat in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed, looking smaller than before. Diminished.
She smiled when she saw them, a cold, knowing smile.
“You think you’ve won,” she mouthed.
Ariella looked away.
The prosecution presented evidence, Videos, Financial records, and Testimony from Sullivan, who’d taken a plea deal for life in prison instead of execution.
The defense claimed deepfakes, Fabrication, A conspiracy by the Frosts to seize control of the family empire.
“Ridiculous,” Aiden muttered.
But some jurors looked uncertain.
The trial would take months, maybe years.
And Victoria had the best lawyers' blood money could buy.
Four weeks later, Ariella discovered she was pregnant again.
She stared at the positive test in the bakery bathroom, unable to process it.
Another baby, another life brought into this mess.
“It’s okay,” Aiden said when she told him. “We’ll figure it out. Like we always do.”
“I can barely handle one baby and testifying…”
“So we get help. Your mom, Therapists, whatever we need.” He pulled her close. “We’re not doing this alone anymore.”
At six weeks, the first verdict came in.
Not Victoria’s…her trial was still ongoing.
But one of the network members. A CFO who’d helped with the embezzlement.
Guilty on all counts. Forty years in prison.
“One down,” Aiden said.
Ninety-two to go.
At eight weeks, Ariella woke up screaming.
Nightmare…Always the same one. Elena is being taken with a gun to her head. She's Unable to save her.
“She’s safe,” Aiden murmured, holding her. “She’s right here, Safe.”
But Ariella couldn’t shake the feeling that safety was an illusion.
That somewhere, the network was still planning.
Still waiting.
Still patient.
At ten weeks, they got the call.
Director Vance, Voice grim.
“We found something in Victoria's communications. She sent encrypted messages from prison.”
“To whom?”
“We don’t know, but the content…” Vance hesitated. “She’s activated something. It is called Omega Contingency, We think it’s a backup plan. In case the network fell.”
“What kind of backup plan?”
“We’re still decrypting. But the parts we’ve translated reference your daughter, "by name with a date.”
Ariella’s blood ran cold. “What date?”
“Her first birthday.”
Three months away.
“What happens on her first birthday?”
“We don’t know. But Victoria was very specific. Whatever she’s planned…it activates then.”
The call ended.
Ariella looked at Aiden, and at Elena, playing with blocks on the floor. Innocent. Perfect. Unaware that someone had marked her first birthday as…as what?
“It’s not over,” Ariella whispered.
“It’s never over,” Aiden said. “But we keep fighting anyway.”
Outside, the city moved on.
Inside, the Frost family prepared for whatever came next.
Because Victoria was right about one thing:
They hadn’t won.
They’d just survived round one.
And the network always planned for the long game.