CHAPTER FIVE
Lachlan is still using the old tracking devices left behind by former security; bracelet pulse monitor locators that are supposed to be impossible to remove.
Other security in the East Wing consists of motion detectors on the windowsills.
The “big one” is the CCTV which should capture and flag any and all motion after eight PM on Estate grounds.
This should all combine to keep Julian safely inside.
It’s two AM when Lachlan realises the kid has successfully snuck out.
His tracking bracelet is on Mimi, fast asleep in her bed.
God only knows how he achieved that. The sill monitor is disabled.
Lachlan will never be sure how he avoided the motion detectors in the cameras, but at two thirty AM, Julian is well and truly free, and the cameras caught nothing.
It takes Lachlan almost two hours to find him.
He has to run a backtrace using satellite imagery after calling his friend Jolene Mercer for a favour, and that takes time, but eventually he finds Julian in the back of an SUV parked up by a lover’s lake twenty miles away.
In the driver’s seat is a guy closer to Lachlan’s own age than Julian’s plus a few others, all of whom he drags out roughly.
Lachlan fires three warning shots into the air, angled to land in the lake nearby when they’re all out.
They huddle close to the SUV, afraid of the gunshots, so Lachlan pulls them away from it, uses force on everyone but Julian whose expression of disgusted anger transforms into wary confusion.
Lachlan doesn’t harm anyone, no bruises, just some good old-fashioned roughing up, especially for the twenty-something loser with a pimple-tache who was in the driver’s seat with Julian in his fucking lap.
Lachlan puts himself between the kids and the SUV, now a fair way away, facing them.
‘Let me tell you the top three outcomes of befriending a rich kid,’ he reels off, tone deadly flat.
‘Number one; you become leverage. Number two; you die protecting them. Number three: you’re used to send a message.
’ His gaze flicks onto pimple-tache. ‘Engaging in sexual activity with a minor that I was hired to protect seems more like a bid to commit violent suicide than anything else.’
The guy balks. ‘It… what?’
Lachlan steps in, hauls the guy up by his collar.
‘Stop it!’ Julian yells. ‘Leave him alone! STOP!’
Lachlan ignores him and instead, presses the gun right where it’d do the most damage. ‘If you ever come near him again,’ he intones with soft lethality, holding the gaze. ‘I’ll make a hole where there wasn’t one before and pay men on the inside to take turns breaking it in. Heard?’
The guy nods frantically, scrabbling uselessly to get free. ‘Yes, God, I’m sorry, I’ll stay away, I’ll—’
‘Julian,’ Lachlan calls out, clipped. ‘Come here.’
‘You don’t tell me what to do, you fucking psychopath!’
Lachlan doesn’t repeat himself.
He punches pimple-tache hard enough to split his lip, nothing more. The guy squeals with his hands over his mouth, falling gracelessly to the ground.
Julian starts hitting Lachlan or trying to.
Lachlan holds him back easily.
‘I will now demonstrate the least harmful outcome of number three.’ He wheels around, raises the gun at the SUV parked up behind him and then opens fire at the fuel line. The car catches fire violently beneath, not exploding but roasting itself. Pimple-tache is sobbing his heart out.
Julian is staring at the fireball with wide, wet eyes.
Lachlan lets silence do the work until he feels it’s time.
‘I have plenty of bullets and full immunity,’ he informs Julian loud enough that the others can hear it over the burning roar.
‘Look at me.’ Julian’s fire-filled focus snaps onto Lachlan, all his clever sharpness and hostility struck through, mortally wounded.
‘I signed a five-year contract. You’re stuck with me, so either get over it and meet me halfway, or tell your friends to start buying cheaper cars. ’
Julian stares.
Lachlan waits. A glass window pops.
And then the kid spits in his face.
?
Lachlan reports the incident in full to Clara who seems impressed at Lachlan’s tactics. He does take pains to explain that a degree of friction in the first few weeks is to be expected as he doesn’t want her to think this is how it’ll be forever, but she’s not concerned at all.
‘No scars, no blood, no long-term injuries, otherwise it’s your jurisdiction,’ she confirms, signing over a hazard bonus in cheque form, which he’ll mail directly to Margot. ‘Mr Penhalyx has faith in you.’
Julian has been in a foul mood ever since the SUV BBQ and Lachlan’s smart enough to know that he’s definitely plotting some hideous revenge. He’s on his guard while supervising the installation of primary upgrades, he’s watchful.
He still doesn’t see it coming a mile away.
Lachlan can go a long time without sleep before it affects his cognitive function.
During this first two-week lockdown, he’s on three hours of sleep spread throughout the day.
Maybe it’s because he’s not used to dealing with fucking children.
Maybe it’s because he’s right at the very start of realising how different Julian is from everyone else on the planet.
Maybe he just didn’t expect it because… who would?
He’s been looking out for shit like worms in his bed or snot in his food.
Kid pranks with a sting.
Lachlan is a very light sleeper, so it wakes him almost immediately. The slight shift of the mattress, the creak of springs, a breath before the telltale click of a hammer drawn back, those things alert him, but they come in second to the wholly unexpected sensation of weight on his chest.
He’s wide awake in an instant but can’t move.
Julian has Lachlan’s own gun and he’s aiming it at him from above while straddling Lachlan’s chest.
‘Hi,’ the kid says, sorely lacking inflection for someone holding a P229. His stare is focused but flatline. Lachlan’s mind bursts to life with scenarios. The hammer is drawn back.
Julian’s finger is already compressed around the trigger.
Lachlan remains entirely lax, doesn’t react. ‘Hi.’
‘The others never had permission.’
Lachlan scans for context, secures it. ‘That must be scary.’
Julian inclines his head slowly, blinking like an owl. ‘What else did he give you permission to do?’
The gun is shaking.
‘Protect you. Manage you. Keep you safe.’
‘By whatever means necessary?’
‘No, there are parameters.’
‘Tell me them.’
Lachlan hesitates, sifting through best outcomes. Honesty has the best-case scenario yield. ‘No scars, no blood, nothing permanent.’
Despite clearly suspecting it, Julian’s brow still lifts in pure childish astonishment.
The split second his attention breaks is enough.
Lachlan rips the gun from his hand, knocks him sideways onto the bed and pins him down hard before he can recover.
Julian immediately fights back, twisting violently beneath him, clawing for the weapon.
He must have felt powerful holding it.
Lachlan pins him down until his strength ebbs.
He feels lower than pond scum. Lower than the toads.
The kid is crying, hissing curses under his breath, promising revenge. When all that fails and there’s only tears left, Lachlan lets go of him.
‘I’ll find a way to get rid of you, I swear to God I will, you psycho, you fucking… I hate you. I hate you!’
Lachlan doesn’t respond, but he takes it seriously, and he stores his personal gun in a lockbox from then on.
?
It’s been a month.
A gruelling, non-stop month of Julian Penhalyx doing everything in his limited power to get rid of Lachlan Tanner, including train his baby sister to hate and fear Lachlan.
Meanwhile, the most basic upgrades of the East Wing are underway.
Lachlan oversees each element personally to ensure localised control.
Blaire is friendly, practical and extremely helpful.
She seems to have been waiting for someone like him to take the job because when he explains his ideas, she wholeheartedly agrees.
They thoroughly discuss the hiring process for upgrade installation, which requires all kinds of specialists, and between them, they craft a clever implementation plan where multiple teams will contribute but no one group ever has control over the installation or understanding of access.
She anticipates his needs in terms of staff rotation too.
That all goes swimmingly.
Lachlan upgrades the tracking devices for Julian and Mimi, and because Julian obviously has some affinity with technology, Lachlan has to innovate outside of what already exists.
He often has ideas for things that he can’t buy, but two years ago, he met a woman named Jolene Mercer who changed all of that. She’s his tech person, his go-to. One of several people he’s helped out in the past who remained in his circle. No one can create like she does.
They do favours for each other sometimes, but this time, he can pay her.
It’s his design, her application.
Whispernet Microthreading; micro-trackers woven directly into fabrics using conductive thread, charged by body heat.
Lachlan has to be very careful when he adds these pieces to the laundry cycle.
He employs Blaire in choosing the clothes to use, makes sure to select favourites and of course all shoes and jackets.
The threads monitor pulse and location. In a pinch, he could use them to transmit sound, but it might short out the rice-grain-sized device or fry one of the conductors.
He implements these over two weeks and loudly still insists Julian wear his tracker, even upgrades it to throw Julian off.