THE HEIR'S REVENGE

chapter 143

"I need to talk to my employer," she said after a moment. "Formally. About what this means for my continued role with the household, given that I'm now potentially a security liability myself, rather than purely an asset."

"You're not a liability," I said immediately, more sharply than I intended.

"Ethan," Yemi said gently. "I need you to let me think about this professionally, for a moment, the way I would think about it for anyone else in my position. I've spent this whole year protecting Lily. If my own visibility now creates a vulnerability that could be used against this family, I need to seriously consider whether continuing in this specific role is still the right choice, regardless of what I feel personally about any of it."

I sat with that, the particular cold, unwelcome shape of it settling into place, and understood, watching her work through the calculation with the same careful rigor she brought to everything, that this was not a conversation I could simply argue my way out of, however much I wanted to.

"What would that mean," I asked quietly. "If you stepped back from the security role."

"I don't know yet," Yemi admitted. "I haven't fully thought it through. It might mean transitioning to a different position within the household's broader security arrangement, something less directly tied to Lily's day-to-day protection. It might mean something else entirely." She paused. "I don't want to make that decision in the middle of a panic, today, just because a photograph exists. But I also don't want to pretend the question doesn't need to be asked, just because I don't like the answer it might require."

Henry, who had been quiet through most of this exchange, spoke carefully.

"I think there is a version of this where the two concerns — Yemi's continued role with Lily, and the two of you building a life together openly — do not need to be as entangled as this morning's panic might be making them feel," he said. "Agent Cole has continued developing his own relationship with Lily this past year, and could reasonably take on considerably more of the primary security responsibility, with Yemi's role evolving into something that reflects her actual current position in this family, rather than continuing to occupy a professional category that was always going to become complicated the moment your relationship became public."

I looked at Henry, considering this.

"You mean stepping back from being Lily's assigned bodyguard specifically," I said slowly, "without stepping back from this family."

"Precisely," Henry said. "I do not think anyone in this room, least of all Lily, wants Yemi to simply disappear from her life because her role has changed. But I also think continuing to formally occupy a security position, now that her personal relationship with you is public, creates exactly the kind of professional and safety complications Brandon has just described. A transition, rather than a departure, seems to me the wiser path forward."

Yemi was quiet for a long moment, considering this.

"I'd need to talk to Lily," she said finally. "Properly. I don't want her to hear about any change to my role secondhand, or feel like it's happening to her without her having any say in it."

"I agree completely," I said. "Whatever we decide, Lily needs to be part of that conversation, not simply informed of it afterward."

---

We found Lily in the garden that afternoon, sitting beneath the butterfly garlands with her rabbit and her latest drawing, and I watched Yemi crouch down beside her with the particular careful gentleness she always brought to difficult conversations with Lily, the same patient, unhurried attentiveness that had, over this past year, made her so genuinely essential to this family's daily life.

"I need to talk to you about something," Yemi said. "Something important, that's going to need your honest opinion, not just what you think I want to hear."

Lily set down her crayon immediately, giving Yemi her full, serious attention.

"Is it about the picture," she asked. "Mrs Park was talking about it this morning. She didn't know I heard."

"It's connected to the picture," Yemi confirmed. "Ethan and I are thinking that my job might need to change a little bit. Not because anything's wrong, and not because I want to stop being part of your life. But because now that people know Ethan and I are together, it might not be safe for me to keep being your main bodyguard the way I have been. It could actually make you less safe, if people who wanted to hurt this family figured out they could get closer to you by getting close to me."

Lily considered this with visible seriousness, working through the implications with the same careful thoroughness she brought to everything genuinely important.

"So you'd stop walking me to school," she said slowly. "And stop being at the house every day, the way you are now."

"The daily part might change," Yemi said honestly. "Agent Cole would probably take over most of what I currently do. But I'm not going anywhere from your life, Lily. I want to be very clear about that. I'd still be here. I'd still be part of dinners, and butterfly projects, and everything else. It would just be different than being your assigned security."

Lily was quiet for a long moment, and I watched her small face work through something with visible effort, and understood, watching her, that this was harder for her than either of us had perhaps fully anticipated.

"I don't want it to be different," she said finally, her voice smaller than usual. "I like it exactly the way it is. You're my Aunt Yemi. You're not supposed to be someone whose job changes."

Yemi's expression softened, something genuinely moved beneath her careful composure.

"I know," she said gently. "And I promise you, whatever changes about the job part, the Aunt Yemi part isn't going anywhere. That's not a job. That's just who I am to you now, and that doesn't change no matter what my actual work looks like."