Probably also a glimpse at how deranged he is.
Sighing, I push away from the library window. He’s gone. He won’t be back until later this afternoon if his patterns are the same as the past two days.
I’ve been searching the house for a way out, and it hasn’t been going well.
Even though I can get into the garden, there are so many guards on duty that they have a permanent, watchful eye on me. I can’t go anywhere without being watched. And when I walked the perimeter of the property, every single gate was double-locked, and the high walls had electric fencing around them.
Today, I decided to search the office upstairs and see if I could use the computer or phone to call for help. It’s a long shot, I know. Someone so obsessed with security is high unlikely to leave a phone lying around with easy access to it.
Still, I leave the library and head to his office right away, not wanting to waste time in case he isn’t gone long.
The office door isn’t locked, and I push it open, gingerly peeking inside to make sure it’s empty before I slip through the door and close it behind me.
The space is barren. Like he’s taken minimalist design to a whole new level. There is one glass desk in the center of the room with glossed steel legs. A laptop sits alone on the table, closed. No draws, no shelves, no paperwork. It’s so bare it’s spooky. Thank goodness the rest of the house doesn’t look this cold and clinical.
I’m so intrigued by how empty it is that I start, with fascination, searching for the computer cables. Walking around the table, I notice that one of the legs has a small black cap above the glass. I touch it softly, and it opens like a lid; inside is the laptop charger. Easy to pull out and self-retract when you release it. There is also a phone charging cable in there. They are very carefully hidden inside the table leg and lead directly into the floor for a power source. It’s clever.
I like the hidden cables, because no one really likes cables everywhere. But the rest of the place is creepy. It’s too clean.
Nonetheless, I sit down at the desk and open the laptop, sighing when the inevitable password screen pops up. I press my finger against the fingerprint lock, knowing it won’t work. The laptop beeps at me in red letters, telling me the passcode is wrong.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I huff, closing it.
Looking around at nothing but white walls and a giant glass window overlooking the garden and the pool, I wonder if his heart is as empty as this room.
“Well, this was pointless,” I sigh, standing up and walking away from the table, then changing my mind and returning to move the chair back into place. I’d rather he didn’t know I was in here.
When Marlen arrives home in the afternoon, I’m waiting for him.
With no means of escaping, I’ve decided to confront him head-on.
He walks through the door, and his expression flickers with surprise when he finds me waiting in the foyer with my arms folded across my chest and a look of determination on my face.
“Stefania,” he greets me coldly.
“Marlen,” I reply in the same tone.
“Is there something you needed?” he huffs, sounding annoyed as all hell that he has to talk to me.
I bite back my sharp retort, opting for some form of professionalism.
“I wanted to find out if you’d contacted my brothers yet to make your demands and what the plan was for my going home?” I ask, looking up at him, trying to keep my face neutral.
“Contact your brothers? Why would I do that?” he scoffs, walking around me toward the kitchen where he dumps his phone and keys on the counter and opens the fridge.
“Um, that’s how these things work. It’s how you get what you want, isn’t it?” I say in confusion.
“You’re making assumptions regarding what I want, Stefania,” I say, pulling a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and pouring myself half a glass.
I watch the bubbles cling to the side of his glass as it sits on the counter, narrowing my eyes to try to figure out what he means.
“You want to make some sort of exchange,” I say, with less conviction than I had a moment ago.
“Wrong.”
Why does he look like he’s enjoying this?
“Are you going to tell me or are you going to mess with me?” I snap, growing impatient with his games and agitated because I clearly have made some wrong assumptions.
