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“It’s nothing.”
I smiled seductively. “Then, why don’t you join me?”
She took a step toward me and farted. “Oh!” It was so adorable that I almost mistook her for human. Quickly backing off, she said, “Not tonight.”
“What do you mean “Not tonight”?”
“Just, not tonight.”
“But I had all these plans about what I was going to do to you.”
“Not tonight!”
“Okay,” I said disappointedly. “Would you prefer I let you have the bedroom? There are other rooms I can sleep in.”
“Yeah, do that.”
“I mean, if you insist,” I told her collecting my bag and exiting the room.
As soon as I was in the hallway, the bedroom door slammed behind me with a crash. It was followed by the longest fart I had ever heard. In a few hours, she would be fine. That meant I had until then to find what I was looking for and do what I had to do.
Parking my stuff in the 3rdbedroom, I retrieved my safe finder and went to work. The process was tedious but I did it. Starting with the master bedroom, I searched every inch of the wall. When I was done there, I checked the master bath.
I knew the chances of the safe being in either of those places were low, but this was the best time to do it, while the effects of the erythritol were at its peak. What excuse could I give Eris if she caught me in Armand’s bedroom, especially since I had to pick the lock to get in?
Luckily, I didn’t have to give any. And if she walked in on me in Armand’s office, I could always say that I was looking for a book to help me fall asleep. It wasn’t a great excuse but it would work.
Opening Armand’s second-floor office door, I slipped in and locked it behind me. Alone, I examined the space.
The first places I checked were the pictures on the wall. Jimmy’s device said there was nothing behind them. I next checked the wall-length bookshelf. Nothing there. Sitting at his desk chair, I checked his desk. Still nothing.
I was about to declare that Jimmy’s device didn’t work when I noticed something. The office had two air vents. One neared the ceiling. The other neared the floor.
On its own, this meant nothing. Ceiling vents are better for cooling while floor vents are better for heating. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it if I hadn’t just finished scanning every inch of the bedroom.
Putting the safe finder next to the floor vent, it immediately went off.
“Gotcha,” I said freeing my hands and prying open the vent.
Behind it was a standard consumer-grade wall safe. I recognized the brand. It had cost me a lot of money to get the retrieval code for it a few years back. I had my father to thank for that. One day out of the blue my father told me it was time for me to learn to crack a safe. It was a skill he had and I was expected to have it as well.
The problem was that I turned out to be horrible at it. I suspected that it had to do with the added technology since my father’s day, but he refused to acknowledge the change. When I brought it up, he said I was making excuses. So, instead of continuously bashing my head against the wall, I did what any smart person would do, I bought the company that built the safe.
It was my first legitimate purchase. Buying it was what started me on my new path. From them, I learned that every safe company incorporates backdoor codes that can open any of their safes. They call it a failsafe in case of emergency. But for the right price, it can be yours.
The only problem with the brand of safe in front of me now is that their failsafe is 16 digits long. And to ensure their safes aren’t easily compromised, they include 49 dummy combinations with the one that works. It was looking like a long night, and it was.
“Finally!” I said three hours later when I identified the correct combination.
Opening the safe I found it to be empty except for about $50,000. That surprised me. Growing up, my family’s penthouse had been exploding with cash. My father couldn’t launder the money fast enough. What did Armand do differently that left only petty cash in his safe?
Putting that mystery aside, I made note of the safe’s combination and closed it. Returning everything to how it was when I had entered, I re-locked the office and headed for my room.
Lying in bed I thought about everything going on. It was all dependent on Jimmy being correct about Armand carrying his ledgers with him. If he was wrong, we were all screwed. How had I gotten here?
For so long I had lived life like I had no future. I had accepted that I was my father’s son destined to follow in his bloody footsteps. But then a miracle happened, Father got sick. As tragic as it was, it was the first time I pictured a way out.
It was then that Dillon had become my motivation. Having not crossed any lines, I could still become a man he could love. It was because of him that I came up with my plan to go legitimate. And I was about to get everything I ever wanted until Armand interrupted my father’s funeral. He couldn’t just be satisfied with my father’s empire. He had to have mine too.
