Chapter Three

Luc

T o many people, it would most likely seem like I've put an awful lot of thought and planning into a situation that actually may never happen. Maybe I have, but I would rather always be over-prepared for a situation than underprepared. I would much rather have all of these plans in place for multiple different scenarios than find myself in a situation where I'm in danger, and I don't know what to do.

And make no mistake, I am always in danger in this house, for varying reasons and at varying degrees, but I am always in danger in some way. I always have been, and I suppose that's why I like to have as many escape plans as possible. It makes me feel just a tiny bit safer in an impossible situation.

I watch as they walk down the long hallway to my father's office and the women move through the door and into the other room, the staff quickly following to ensure they have everything they could possibly need. Which in this case means alcohol and a lot of it. From what I could tell at dinner, they both drink alcohol like it's fucking water.

For a moment, I stay seated at the dining table; I want to wait just long enough that my father's conversation with his new business associate is in full swing so that they're too engrossed to worry about where I am.

It's a fine line to walk; I want to leave it long enough that the conversation is flowing easily but not so long that I miss anything important.

I finish my drink and wait five more minutes before I decide that it's been long enough, and I get up and head down the same hallway, the sound of my mother's shrill laughter following me and making my expression sour with disgust.

It's so fake, all of it is. She must be exhausted; I don't think she's been genuine in her lifetime; I know for a fact that she hasn't been for as long as I can remember. It makes me wonder what she's really like, but in all honesty, she can't be nice because a nice person doesn't do the shit she does.

I've gotten way off track, and I refocus my thoughts as my steps become silent. I taught myself long ago how to be as silent as possible so that I'm not seen or heard. It helps that I know this house like the back of my hand. I know every floorboard that creaks and every door that squeaks; I know how to move around so that the automatic lights don't get triggered.

With this in mind, I move into place outside of my father's door, as usual he hasn't taken any care and has left the door open, this just means that I can hear what is going on inside without risking being seen or heard. This thought reminds me that I'll have to make a detour to the security room before I head to my room so I can delete the footage of me here.

It would not be a good idea for me to be caught listening to my father in one of his business meetings. The more I listen to these, the more I wonder just how far he would take it if he caught me.

"As you are aware, we have moved you away from the drug shipments for now. Not only do you need to prove your worth again since your latest fuck up, but if you do, we have something else in mind for you."

"Understood," my father replies, although he doesn't sound happy about it.

"Is the shipment ready?" the guy asks, "The boss was not happy to hear about the delays."

My father's voice comes out sharply as he replies, "You mean the delays because I was in a car accident?"

The guy's voice is cold as he replies, "Yes, that delay. You've been working for us long enough now that you should know that he doesn't give a shit what has caused the delay, just that there was a delay."

"Yes, I'm aware," My father replies tersely.

His response tells me all I need to know about the other guy. My father likes being in control and he likes lording that control over everyone else in the room. He'll shout, scream, and demand, almost impossible things and then blame the poor fucker that tried to give him the impossible, and then he will fire them, or worse.

But with this guy, he's conceding, he's not even putting up much of a fight, which means that the guy is very much in charge, and I kind of like that my father is, for once, not calling the shots. It does make me concerned about what kind of a person the guy is but I'm pretty sure shitty is a good descriptor.

"He still expects you to have everything prepped and ready to go by the eighteenth, and if I were you, I'd get an extra shipment ready for him so he doesn't decide to take his frustrations at the delays on you."

"Is that a threat?" My father asks bluntly.

"No, that's a fact." The guy replies, no emotion in his voice at all.

"What would you suggest that I try and get more of? What would appease him the most?"

"Most likely the guns," he replies.

The way he says it so casually, an uninformed listener would be tempted to believe that they misheard him, but I've listened to a few of these conversations by now, and I know that I haven't misheard anything. He wants my father to get an extra shipment of guns so that their boss doesn't punish him, and from the conversation so far, I'd be inclined to think that means pain and lots of it.

I listen for a while longer before their conversation switches to lighter topics, or at least non-work-related ones. Once that happens, I quietly move away from the door, making sure that I stay light on my feet and don't step on any of the spots that creak or groan. My top priority now is to get to the security room and get rid of the footage before anyone realizes that I was listening.

Walking through the many hallways of this mausoleum, I make sure that I pay close attention to the sounds around me; it would be incredibly unusual for any of them to start to take any interest in me or what I'm doing, but on the off chance that they suddenly start it pays to be careful. I've already walked past the room where my mother is entertaining that guy's date, and they're still giggling like hyenas, and I have no doubt that even more alcohol has been consumed in the hour or so that they've been left alone.

Finally, I get to the security room and let myself in, sitting at the computer and pressing a few buttons so that I can delete the parts that I need to with no trace that I've been here, or at least very little trace that I've deleted something. You'd have to know what you were looking for to be able to tell that someone has done something to the footage. This is pretty much the only thing that I know about security cameras, and it's limited to this particular system.

Any other system and I wouldn't have a clue what to do.

For some reason, this time, it's taking me longer than I would like to delete the parts of the footage that show me going down the same corridor as my father's office; the system just seems to be slower than usual. I also have to make it seem like one of the cameras that lead to my half of the house went down. Fortunately, there's been a known problem with that camera for a couple of years now; every time they fix it, I break it again, so there won't be any suspicions about where I was or what I was doing, just in case they do suddenly become interested in what I'm doing.

The longer that I'm in the room, the more worried I become about how long it's taking, and my leg starts to bounce nervously. Finally, I get the last piece of footage deleted, and everything is as it should be; if you looked really closely, you'd probably be able to tell that someone has messed with it, but there's no way that I know of or that I've been able to find online, of getting the footage back. As far as I know, once I've deleted it, that's it; it's gone forever.

I'm really hoping I'm not wrong.

Fortunately, since I'm in the security room, I have access to all the cameras in the house, which means I can check the ones outside of the security room to make sure that I'm not going to run into anyone out there. I did think about using them to watch my father, but they don't have audio, and I'm pretty shit at reading lips, plus if I were caught, it would be a lot more challenging to explain why I was in here than it would be to explain why I was in the hallway.