House of Steel by Raen Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

the drawer that had a small,
circular keyhole half-hidden behind the handle.
    The soft rumble of an engine startled her as
she drew her eyes to the window. It had been twenty minutes, if
that, since she had called Mark. She slid the key back under the
stone before she squinted through the white haze to see the outline
of a vehicle pull right along the side of the shop. Her head cocked
as she stumbled to her feet. It wasn’t a tow truck.

 
    8
     
    DAY 2: Friday, December 19 – 12:30 p.m.
     
    V swiped her employee badge along the
scanner, waiting for the red light to turn green before she pulled
the glass door engraved with Parker Enterprises open. The scanner
had obliged, just as it had almost every day for the past ten
years. As she slipped through the door, she wondered what it would
feel like to stop going through it. Would the pain vanish? After
last night, she had realized that today was the last day she would
go through that door as the Director of Security at Parker
Enterprises.
    The sprawling corporate structure stood four
stories high with 150,000 square feet for just over four hundred
employees. It was dim, with no cars in the parking lot, no Kelly at
the front desk to greet everyone and no employees wandering the
campus. It was Saturday. All the employees were at home huddled in
the warmth of their houses as the snowstorm dumped blankets of
white onto the ground. She slipped down the hall with the empty
backpack slung over her shoulder. She knew the surveillance cameras
in the halls would pick her up, but it didn’t matter because her
team wouldn’t question it. It was rare that she missed a day in the
building. It was as if the walls expected her every day with the
exception of Sunday. Her white boots treaded light against the
carpet, the fibers of the nylon only absorbing a trace of
saturation. She pushed the elevator button, watching as the silver
doors opened slowly to bring her to the fourth floor.
    The elevator dinged as it propelled her
upward, one step closer to cutting herself off from Parker
Enterprises. The doors opened to a brightly lit executive floor,
the outside elements reflecting into the floor to ceiling glass. It
was an intricate building, designed with Holston’s touch of modern
meets luxury. Although she had despised what the building stood
for, the empire that he had built, she had always marveled at the
beauty of it. She couldn’t deny him that. She turned to the right,
walking past Mark Jones’s office – the brother of Delaney Jones. He
had only been here a few weeks. She hadn’t realized who he was
during the interview process, but the five minute Google search she
did just a few days ago tagged him to Delaney. Holston Parker was
interested in their family. The intrigue grew.
    V stopped at the heavy double doors to her
left. The doors, made of African Blackwood, glistened in their
rich, saturated oils, telling of the daily polishing. The silver
handles of the door called her, beckoning her to come in. She
punched the code into the keypad on the wall, waiting for the
familiar click before she pulled the door open into the vast office
surrounded in glass. He secured his office, or at least he thought.
V had put in a master key for all the Parker Enterprise’s
buildings, though; one that only she knew. Getting in and out of
Holston Parker’s buildings and offices was effortless.
Uncomplicated. Everything she wanted her life to be.
    The office’s masculine space consumed her as
she crept toward the desk in the middle of the room. The large,
wooden desk spanned over ten feet. It’s high, black executive chair
hung still and empty in the air. She ran her fingers along the
desk, feeling the polished surface of the same rich wood that the
doors were made of. The desk had been handcrafted in South Africa
by a talented tribesman; it had taken him a year to make his
creation. Holston had always reveled in that fact. Her eyes fell to
the sheen of the empty surface. There were no pictures