Chapter 7 - The Master of the House
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The truth of his failure had actually begun three weeks earlier.
Adrian thought he was a mastermind, utilizing encrypted messaging apps to contact a disgruntled former employee of my estate. He had paid ten thousand dollars for detailed schematics of my wine cellar and security rotation schedules.
He never realized that my Director of Security, a former intelligence operative named Vance, had flagged the ex-employee’s communications months ago. We intercepted the request the moment it was sent.
I didn't confront Adrian. Confrontation would only make a rat scurry back into the walls. I wanted him out in the open, fully committed to his own destruction.
So, I gave him exactly what he asked for. I provided Vance with false camera schedules to leak back to him. We cloned a set of useless keycards. We paved a beautiful, completely believable, and highly monitored route directly into the heart of my estate.
“Where are they?” Marissa shrieked, finally breaking her silence. “Adrian, if they aren't in the basement, where are they?!”
“I moved my parents to a protected, luxury apartment owned by a blind-trust law firm Adrian has never even heard of,” I explained calmly, turning my face toward the terrified woman. “They’ve been enjoying room service and spa treatments for the last three days.”
Marissa’s breathing became erratic, bordering on hyperventilation. “But… the guys downstairs… they said they saw them. They tied them up! They said they were in the chairs!”
“They looked real, damn it!” Adrian shouted, turning his wrath on his girlfriend. “The basement is pitch black! I saw them on the video feed!”
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I couldn't hold it in anymore. I laughed. It was a loud, genuinely joyous sound that echoed off the bookshelves, and I knew that laughter frightened him far more than any screaming ever could have.
“The 'hostages' downstairs,” I said, wiping a drop of blood from my chin against my shoulder, “are two weighted, thermal-regulated mannequins hidden beneath thick wool blankets. They were positioned exactly where your amateur thugs would see what they desperately expected to see in terrible lighting.”
