My husband changed the locks on our mansion while I was at my mother’s funeral, texting me: “You took too long to grieve. Pack your things
I hadn’t just married David; I had allowed him to exist within my ecosystem. And now, I was changing the climate.
I sat in the back of my town car, parked just out of sight behind a row of towering cypress trees, watching the feed from the neighborhood surveillance cameras on my secure tablet.
Three blocks away, at the heavily fortified entrance to the community, the polite facade of a residential gate disappeared.
A massive, military-grade steel barricade smoothly slid shut, sealing the entire neighborhood off from the outside world. The automated system rejected all incoming delivery drivers and guests. The perimeter was now hard-locked.
Through the camera feeds, I watched four black Cadillac Escalades with heavily tinted windows and the subtle, grey Apex Guardian logo silently roll down the palm-lined street in a staggered, tactical formation.
Trailing closely behind them was a heavy-duty, flatbed tow truck, its diesel engine a low, menacing growl against the manicured silence of the neighborhood.
In the Apex command center, miles away, I knew a technician’s fingers were flying across a mechanical keyboard.
