Who the fuck had left this letter?
I stepped back into the house and closed the door. With anxious hands and a knowing mind, I ripped the letter open and found the handwriting I’d become so familiar with. I clenched my jaw, wondering how the hell the letter had gotten past the gate.
My house was locked down for a reason. There was no way someone had gotten past my front gates and made it up my driveway.
And yet, they had.
Mr. Steele,
By now, I believe we have come to know one another very well. You know me as the eye in the sky, and I know you as the pompous Hollywood billionaire. You have sins in your past. Sins that should be reckoned with. There are many more people who deserve that money other than yourself. People you have ruined and trampled on to get where you are currently standing. So now that I have done my research and we have come to the dinner table, I am ready to make you an offer.
Step down from your company and donate your wealth to the charities listed on the back of this letter. If you do, you will not be killed. But if you don’t—should you choose to call my bluff—then I will finally be able to see whether or not your brain matter matches the drapes you so delicately hung in your home.
Forever yours,
Eye
Who the fuck was this psychopath? If he thought he was going to scare me into giving away the company I built with my own two fucking hands instead of going to college, he was sorely mistaken. If he thought, for one second, he could breach the security of my home, get into my house, and hold a gun to my head, he had another thing coming. I wasn’t sure how anyone dropped this letter at my doorstep, but I knew one thing was for certain.
If my security had been breached, someone would have come to get me.
I crumpled the letter up and stuck it in my pocket. I had work that needed to get done today, and I needed to get started. I made my way back up to my office and opened my door, turning on the light so my eyes could adjust. Fluorescent lighting was so different from natural light, and it always took some time for my eyes to adjust.
But then, the front door slammed open.
“Mr. Steele! Mr. Steele!”
It was my security guard, and I groaned as I rolled my eyes.
Shit. Someone had penetrated the security of my compound.
“Mr. Steele, you have to come with us. Your bags and spare electronics are already in the limo.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Where was the breach?”
“On the south side of the compound.”
“The one that backs up to the highway? But that’s the most heavily-guarded area. How the hell did they get past it to get in here in the first place?” I asked.
“Don’t know, and don’t care. Right now, we gotta get you out of here. Whoever this is, they just made a statement.”
“And what statement is that?”.
“That they have the resources to get to you, sir.”
A chill ran up my back as I headed out with my security guard. We raced down the stairs, and he practically threw me into the limo. I was shaking with anger as my house receded in the rearview mirror. I had built my home piece by piece, just like my damn company. This asshole was proving to me that he could make me run from my own home. From my own creation.
Just like he was trying to run me out of my own company.
“Griggs? What the fuck happened?” I glared ahead of me.
The stoic man sitting at the other end of the limo finally turned his head toward me. There was a laptop on his lap as his chubby fingers flew across the keyboard. I waited for him to answer me, growing more agitated by the second as we approached the security gate. I groaned as we passed through it, leaving the only place I had ever truly called home as we all fled for my safety.
What a fucking way to wake up.
“Not gonna lie, sir. This is bad,” Griggs said.
“Why?” I barked. “What the fuck happened? The south side of the compound is the part that’s heavily guarded because of the damn highway.”
“They didn’t come through the south side,” Griggs said.
“But Hulk here said the south side was triggered,” I said as I tapped my security guard’s chest.
“It was triggered, but that wasn’t the entry point. Take a look at this.”
Griggs turned the laptop around, and I watched the screen. There was a man coming out from a hole underneath the damn gate. Like some kind of dog that had carved his way into the neighbor’s yard. The cameras followed him all the way to my damn doorstep where he laid the note down and ran, scaling the side of the house and ducking into a blind spot the cameras couldn’t reach.