Love You, My Kidnapper

Chapter 10: The Plan

“Have you not heard anything Collette?”

“Well I have, but I’m not sure if they’re just rumours or if they’re facts. I heard that Bryon might be locked up in the basement. It would make sense considering that it is one of the most heavily guarded place in the whole mansion, however my father would never be this stupid to have someone like that locked up mere steps from where I am.” Zaydn considered my comments, his eyes gleamed softly in the light of the chandelier.

“But it wouldn’t matter if the person in the basement was injured severely. Plus have you ever been to the basement? Do you know the layout?”

I grasped at my memories, and came up with nothing. That’s odd, how had I not ventured down into the basement. I was quite the adventurer when I was little, I was pretty sure I had scoured every inch of this house, yet, why was I unfamiliar with the basement? Looking up, I realized that Zaydn had been regarding me with a hopeful look.

“Sorry, I don’t recall anything about the basement, but however, I do know where I could get a hold of the floor plans to this house.” Suddenly Wilhelm coughed and Zaydn and I both turned our gaze in the direction of the butler. I saw my father making his way towards us, and quickly I began some aimless chattering about how I was doing, what I was up to, and the normal boring conversation topics that you would hear at dinner parties. My mind wasn’t into the conversation, and either was Zaydn’s we were both thinking hard about the basement rumour, although I was thinking more of my lack of knowledge of the basement.

“How are you both doing?” My father’s voice broke through. I wasn’t sure as to how to answer that, my mind hadn’t switched gears fast enough. Luckily, Zaydn had such a way with words.

“Lovely, Miss Santos is absolutely a delight to talk to.” He smiled at me, and I faked a blush.

“Oh, you’re much too kind, but didn’t we agree to call each other by our first names? ” I said. I didn’t want to accidentally call Zaydn by name when he was using such formalities, it would seem odd.

“Ah yes, we did. Your beauty was just too stunning for me to remember half of our conversation.” That comment earned a real blush. Zaydn’s sly tongue was both a curse and a blessing.

“I see you two are doing well then, I’ll leave you to it,” My father said happily as he was called out by another guest to talk about the recent decline in stock market prices.

I let out a sigh of relief that we had manage to keep up the façade. I stared at Zaydn long and hard.

“Did you really have to say all that? Now come along,” I dragged Zaydn behind me.

“Where are we going? Won’t it look weird if we both left?”

“We’re teenagers, everyone will just think we couldn’t take our hands off each other, and now we’re finding a quiet place to…” I trailed off to let Zaydn fill in the blank.

“Are you looking forward to that?” Zaydn’s mouth was close to my ears. I turned to give him a glare before looking back to the front.

“I’m kidding. I think Bryon would kill me for it if I ever did lay a hand on you.” I couldn’t help but smile at Bryon’s protective and jealous tendencies. He had grown up too fast for him to really experience those high school relationships and emotions.

I was now outside of the intimidating metal door. The one that led to the family safe and all our riches and important documents. I was breaking the family rule by bringing Zaydn in here, but things had to be done. For a room that held all our precious belongings there were many blind spots where the security cameras could not pick up. It was utterly ridiculous. I told Zaydn to stay at the entrance to stand guard as I made my way to the cabinet. Pulling out the drawer with the floor plans I looked for the one thirteen years ago and the most current one, which was dated about five years ago. My father was a big fan of renovating our house to accommodate his new tastes so we had a new floor plan every several years. With the two papers in hand, I silently slipped back out of the room and guided Zaydn towards my room.