My Ward My Woman

They left and I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a good minute before turning and heading for my office. I had to think about my approach. If I accused and chastised she’d just withdraw and I still wouldn’t know shit. This had gone far enough.

This last development could’ve ended badly; she could’ve been hurt. I can’t have that. Rebelling is one thing; I did a bit of my own at her age. But endangering her life was something else entirely. That was not allowed. And who is this friend that invited her there and left her standing on a corner?

I headed up the stairs once I’d calmed down enough to be rational, or something, close to it. She was curled up in the middle of her bed with her arms wrapped around her middle. I moved into the room until I was standing where she could see me and held my hand out. “Phone.” She turned bruised eyes up to me and I almost caved, but not this time.

She sat up and got her purse from where she’d thrown it on the chair next to the bed and with a pout passed the phone to me. I grabbed her laptop from the little desk by the window and she flew off the bed. “What are you going to do? You can’t go through my stuff.” I held her back with a hand on her chest, which was the least of what I wanted to do to her.

After the fear of not knowing where she was had worn off, and finally having her back safe and sound, seeing that she was okay, the anger rose again. She’d defied me and in doing so had put her life in danger. I can’t afford to let this one go or next time she may not be so lucky.

I gave her a scathing look before turning and leaving the room. Once downstairs again I got to work. It took no time for me to get into her emails since I knew her passwords. She was forever changing them but she had no idea that I had something on all her electrical devices that would allow me to get in.

I’d not violated her privacy thus far and had only used it as a precaution just in case. My enemies wouldn’t think twice about using her to get to me, but she didn’t know that. Somehow, I didn’t think that’s what this was about but just to be sure.

There was the usual back and forth in messenger between her and the friends I knew of and some I didn’t. Most of it had to do with school and other trivial teenage bullshit. The one that caught my attention was from someone calling themselves the White Rabbit. That one stuck out since all the others pretty much used their real names somewhere in the title.

I opened the first message and didn’t see anything suspicious. Just the usual how are you etc. But the more this person interacted with her, the more I noticed a trend in the conversation. It all seemed based on the fact that she was too sheltered.

At least that was the underlying message I got. I could’ve disregarded it as just more teenage rebellion, but something about the way the person spoke struck me as more intrusive than just another teenaged girl.

“Who are you?” I read the last five or so messages that had started just before her eighteenth birthday and continued until this afternoon. It was right there in black and white, this person asking her to meet in West Haven.

I knew of a way to find out who it was but I’d have to wait until I went into the office on Monday. I put it all away for now and tried to make sense of just what the hell this White Rabbit was after.

It was obvious that Alexandra came from wealth; I kept the girl in the best of everything. She got a quarter of a million dollar car for her birthday for fuck sake. But so were most of the kids in that school she went to and as far as I know they were the only ones she’s known for the past five years.

From the tone this person seemed to have some kind of resentment towards her, something my bright-eyed girl wouldn’t catch onto since she was still an innocent, though lately you wouldn’t think it with her behavior.

I copied everything from this person but my real interest was in her IPO. Once I got the location I’d be able to tell more and then I’ll make my move. Come Monday I’ll have removed this person from her life one way or another. No one was allowed to harm her.

The servants were gone for the day since the weekends they worked half days. When she was younger I’d had a live in staff but that changed when she reached sixteen or there- about. Now they came daily and left in the evenings. I maybe should see about changing it back, that way she could go back to behaving herself and stop tormenting me at night.