The study was soundproof.
That was the first thing I noticed when the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me. The silence out here was different from the silence in the living room, out there, the silence was shocked, hanging heavy over a cooling body. In here the silence felt owned. It smelled of aged paper, unlit cigars, and the faint, hum of the server rack blinking in the corner.
I leaned against the door for a second, my forehead resting against the wood. My hands were shaking so hard I had to make fists just to stop the tremors.
Twenty minutes. That's what she said "We have 20 minutes".
I checked my watch and 4 minutes had already passed since I left the living room.
I pushed off the door and walked to the desk. My father Marcus Thorne didn't do things like hidden wall safes behind paintings or wall. He thinks that theatrical. He preferred plain sight.
The safe was built directly into the side of his massive desk, a steel square that looked like a supercomputer terminal. It didn't have a dial, It had a biometric scanner and a keypad.
I stared at it.
My mother thought I knew the code because I was the "heir" the one he dragged to board meetings and forced to sit through quarterly earnings calls. She thought he trusted me.
But he didn't trust me and he didn't trust anyone.
I knew the code because I had seen him enter it once, three years ago, reflected in the window of the chaotic rainy night outside when he thought I was asleep on the couch.
I crouched down. The leather of my shoes creaked, the sound impossibly loud.
Don't think about the body. Don't remember the floor.
I placed my thumb on the scanner. A red line swept across my print.
Beep, Authorized.
My breath hitched and the keypad lit up.
I typed in the numbers. 19-05-88, not a birthday or an anniversary. It was the date his first company went public. The only day he truly loved.
There was a heavy mechanical sound, and the steel door popped open an inch.
I pulled it wide, my heart throbbing like a trapped bird. My mother was expecting bonds, the master ledger, the physical hard drives containing the blackmail material she called "leverage." She needed those things to secure her position before the sun came up.
But the safe was empty.
Well, almost empty.
The shelves were bare, no stacks of cash or gold bars, no thick bundles of legal deeds. The dust-free interior mocked me.
Sitting in the exact center of the metal shelf was a single object: a black tablet, powered down, resting on top of a plain white envelope.
I reached in. The air inside the safe felt cold.
I grabbed the envelope first, It was light. On the front, written in my father's sharp handwriting, was a single name:
DAVID.
I tore it open, my fingernails shredding the paper, inside was an index card with two sentences.
If you are reading this, your mother has made her move.
Play the part, or you both die.
My world turned upside down.
He knew.
He hadn't just suspected, he had known. He had calculated the probability of his own murder, factored in the variables my mother's ambition, her patience, the timing of the financial shift and he had let it happen.
Why?
I looked at the tablet and picked it up. It was heavy, military-grade. There were no buttons, just a screen that instantly flickered to life the moment I touched it.
A loading bar appeared. SYSTEM LOCK: 98%.
It wasn't a bank account but a countdown.
"David!"
My mother's voice came from the hallway, muffled by the soundproofing but still sharp enough to cut through the panic.
"David, we don't have time!"
I shoved the index card into my pocket. I looked at the empty safe. If I walked out there with nothing, she would panic and if she panicked, she might decide I was a loose end, just like him.
Play the part.
I grabbed the tablet and a random stack of blank stationary from the desk drawer just to give the illusion of bulk and slammed the safe shut.
I took a deep breath, trying to force my face into the mask of the obedient son she expected to see. I had to sell it and I had to be the weak, functional pawn she thought I was.
I opened the door.
My mother was standing in the middle of the hallway, holding a thick plastic trash bag. She had changed her shoes and was wearing sneakers now.
"Did you get it?" she asked, her eyes locking onto my hands.
I held up the tablet and the stack of papers.
"It's all digital," I lied, my voice sounding hollow "The accounts, the keys. It's all on this."
She let out a breath she'd been holding, for the first time, her shoulders dropped. She believed me. Because why would Marcus Thorne leave his son a warning instead of a fortune?
"Good," she said and gestured to the bag in her hand. "Put that in your room and Hide it. Then come back downstairs."
"What's in the bag?" I asked, though I already knew.
"His clothes," she said, her voice devoid of emotion "We have twelve minutes to stage the break-in."
I nodded. I turned and walked toward my room, the tablet was in my hand.
As I walked away, the screen in my grip buzzed once, silently and I glanced down.
GPS SIGNAL ACQUIRED.
PROTOCOL: DEAD HAND.
STATUS: ACTIVE.
My father wasn't gone. He had planned for this.