CHAPTER 173

Six months later, I stood in the nursery of our Geneva home, rocking our newborn daughter Elena while watching the news coverage of our latest operation. Twelve trafficking facilities shut down simultaneously across three countries, over two hundred victims rescued, and fifteen criminal organizations permanently eliminated.

The media was calling it the most successful anti-trafficking operation in history.

But I was looking at the faces of my sleeping children and wondering what kind of world we were really building for them.

"Turn it off," Harry said quietly from the doorway, noting my expression. "You don't need to relive it right now."

"I need to understand what we've become," I replied, not taking my eyes off the screen. "Look at that footage, Harry. Look at what we did to those facilities."

The satellite images showed the aftermath of our coordinated strikes - buildings reduced to rubble, vehicles destroyed, no survivors among the trafficking personnel. It had been precise, efficient, and absolutely ruthless.

"We saved two hundred and thirty-seven people," he pointed out.

"By killing forty-three people. When did we stop being rescuers and start being executioners?"

"When they started using refugee children as inventory. When they proved that conventional law enforcement wasn't enough to stop them."

Elena stirred in my arms, her tiny face scrunching with the effort of processing whatever dreams newborns have. She was only three weeks old, but already I could see hints of the analytical intelligence that seemed to run in our unusual family.

"Addison asked me something yesterday," I said, settling into the rocking chair by the window. "She wanted to know why the children we save don't have families to protect them."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that some children aren't as lucky as she is. But then she asked why their families couldn't protect them the way we protect her."

"And?"

"And I realized I didn't have a good answer. Because the truth is, those families tried to protect their children. They just weren't good enough at violence to succeed."

Harry moved into the room and sat on the edge of the daybed, his expression troubled. "You're questioning whether what we do is right."

"I'm questioning whether what we've become is sustainable. Elena's going to grow up in a world where her parents are internationally known for eliminating criminal organizations. Addison already shows signs of tactical thinking that would concern child psychologists. And Liam..." I paused, thinking about our three-year-old son's disturbing ability to identify potential threats in crowded areas.

"Liam what?"

"Liam drew a picture yesterday of our family. In it, Jax, Lucas, and you all have guns. I have a baby in one arm and a knife in the other. And he drew himself holding what looks like a grenade."

"He's three. He probably doesn't understand what grenades actually do."

"He understands that our family solves problems with weapons. That's what concerns me."

Through the nursery window, I could see Lucas in the garden with Addison and Liam, teaching them how to identify edible plants versus poisonous ones. It should have been a normal family activity, but I knew Lucas was also teaching them survival skills that most children would never need.

"There's something else," Harry said, his voice careful. "Something you need to know about the Lebanon operation."

"What about it?"

"The intelligence we used to locate those facilities... it came from interrogating captured traffickers. And the interrogation methods weren't exactly conventional."

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air. "Define 'not conventional.'"

"Define torture without calling it torture."

The words hit me like a physical blow. We'd crossed another line, one that transformed us from aggressive law enforcement into something darker and more dangerous.

"Who authorized that?"

"I did. We had less than six hours to find those children, and conventional questioning wasn't producing results."

"Harry..."

"I know. I know what it means, what it makes us. But those children are alive and free because of the information we extracted."

Elena began crying, the sharp wail of a newborn who needed feeding but might also be responding to the tension in the room. As I adjusted her position and tried to soothe her, I thought about the moral compromises we'd been making in the name of protecting innocent people.

"We can't keep doing this," I said finally.

"Doing what?"

"Becoming more and more like the people we fight. At some point, we'll cross so many lines that there won't be any difference between us and them."

"There will always be a difference. We protect children. They exploit them."

"But what if our children grow up thinking that violence is the only way to solve problems? What if they become weapons because that's the only example they've seen?"

Before Harry could answer, Jax appeared in the doorway with Addison, who was holding what looked like a field first-aid kit she'd assembled herself.

"Mama, are you sad?" she asked, noting my expression with the perceptiveness that characterized everything she did.

"Mama's just thinking about some difficult questions, sweetheart."

"What questions?"

I looked at her serious five-year-old face, seeing intelligence and compassion but also a hardness that shouldn't exist in someone so young.

"Questions about how to make the world safe for children without teaching children that the world is dangerous."

"But the world is dangerous," she said matter-of-factly. "That's why we learn to protect ourselves and other people."

"Do you think everyone should learn to fight?"

"Only people who want to protect good people from bad people. Like us."

The simplicity of her worldview was both comforting and terrifying. To Addison, our family's violent lifestyle was completely normal and justified. She saw no contradiction between loving tenderness and lethal capability.

"What if there were other ways to protect people?" I asked. "Ways that didn't involve fighting?"

"Like what?"

I struggled to answer, realizing that our children had never seen examples of non-violent problem-solving when it came to serious threats. Their entire frame of reference was built around the idea that love meant being willing to kill for the people you cared about.

"We could work with police, or courts, or governments to change laws that protect children," I suggested.

"But what if the police and courts and governments don't work fast enough? What if children get hurt while we're waiting for laws to change?"

Out of the mouths of babes. Addison had identified exactly the problem that had driven us toward increasingly extreme measures - the gap between institutional responses and immediate need.

"That's a very good question," I said. "What do you think the answer is?"

"I think we save the children who need saving right now, and we also work on the long-term stuff. But we don't let children suffer while we're being patient with slow systems."

Jax smiled proudly at her reasoning, but I could see the concern in his eyes too. Our daughter was developing exactly the kind of pragmatic moral flexibility that had led us down this path in the first place.

"There's something we need to discuss," Lucas said, appearing in the doorway with his phone in hand. "All of us."

"What now?"

"The documentary. About our work with the task force. It's been nominated for an Academy Award."

"That's good news, isn't it?"

"It would be, except the publicity means our faces and our children's faces are about to be broadcast globally as part of the awards coverage. Every criminal organization that sees us as a threat will know exactly what our family looks like."

I felt the familiar weight of consequences catching up with choices we'd made months ago. The documentary had seemed like a good way to raise awareness about trafficking and legitimize our work.

Now it was about to paint targets on our children's backs.

"How long do we have before the broadcast?" I asked.

"Three weeks."

"Enough time to disappear?"

"Enough time to make some very difficult decisions about our future."

As Elena fell asleep in my arms and our other children played in the garden below, I realized that our success had created its own kind of trap.

We'd become too visible to hide and too dangerous to ignore.

And that meant the war we'd been fighting was about to come home in ways we'd never imagined.