Princess

After some careful consideration and planning, I decided to set my plan (which I still wasn't very happy with) in motion.

It was actually a very simple plan—all I had to do was to convince Dylan to take me around the house for another tour with some insipid excuse and hope that he would buy it and gather all the information I need to find out what it is that Sean Fuller was planning.

So, I called Dylan and met him outside the school’s library.

Before he could even say a word when he arrived, I started, “Hey, look, I feel really sorry about the whole deal with your dad.”

“I already told you, you don’t need to be.” Dylan didn’t sound like his usual self. Instead, his tone was a little more frustrated and sharper than usual. As though he’d noticed it himself, his expression turned alarmed before it was replaced by a look of indifference. There was something about that look though... “You weren’t ready to meet him and I’d jumped into things too quickly anyway.”

“Yeah, but um... I think I should go by your house sometime, just to get used to your life. I do want to be a part of your life, Dylan, and I think that the best way would be for me to get used to it.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, his green eyes unreadable. Something was really iffy about him today, though I still couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was. “I don’t think so. My father’s a little concerned about security and everything.”

Of course he was. “Oh. I guess that’s fine then...”

I just had to think of something else.
***
“Hey, Luke, is there something wrong with Dylan today?”

I strained my ears to hear more, because I was hiding in Tia’s closet with her full permission. I’d came to her telling her that I was worried about Dylan because he was acting very strangely (which was true) but that I didn’t want to point it out to Luke (which was also true) because I worried that he would think I was being a paranoid girlfriend (this part...not so much).

Being the girl that I knew she was, Tia immediately agreed to investigate for me, hardly even batting an eyelid when I requested to hide inside her closet as she did so. I needed to be present to hear what Luke had to say.

“He’s under a lot of stress.”

Though his answer was as short as they used to be, I could sense that it had a lot more warmth than before. It was clear, to me at the least, that Luke was starting to warm up to Tia. His dislike had taken a lot longer than mine for Dylan to fade anyway, probably because his came with more baggage (namely, Sean Fuller). But even he couldn’t deny that Tia was sweet and completely nuts for him or that he had feelings for her as well.

“Stress? But our mid-terms are a few weeks from now,” replied Tia, in a totally innocent manner. I couldn’t tell if she really didn’t understand or because she was playing stupid but I had to say, she was pretty good.

“I meant from his father-”
“Godfather has a mission for Dylan?” Her tone perked up.
Reluctantly, he said, “...not exactly.”
“Is it not going well?”
“Yeah and I can’t say that I’m sorry about it.”
“Why? What’s the case about?”
Luke paused for a seriously long time before he said, “I don’t approve of what he’s trying to do to Dylan. It’s like blackmail.”
“To Dylan? But he’s never done anything.”
“I think that’s the problem.” Luke cleared his throat. “He’s fed of Dylan and how he never cooperates with Uncle’s plans. But this time...there’s a little bit more at stake.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t think I could say anymore. I shouldn’t even be telling you this.”

Dylan had a mission of his own, could it have anything to do with Sean Fuller’s major plans? Perhaps it was why he was so reluctant to bring me to their house. If there was anything fishy going on, the Fuller mansion would be the heart of the deal and definitely not a place you would want to bring your girlfriend.

But it was a place I needed, more than anything, to get into now.
***
Dressed in black, I checked my arsenal once more. I was not about to make the novice mistake I had before by not bothering with a disguise though I was quite certain that in these clothes, I would probably be able to get in and out of the mansion before anyone saw me.

Once I was satisfied with the conditions of my guns, bombs and spy wear, I notified Owen of where I was going.

He didn’t seem surprised that I had come around the idea of giving Dylan up. Instead, Owen nodded and told me, “It would be stupid to think that they haven’t beefed up their security from the last time you were there so I’d suggest that you don’t underestimate them this time.”

“I’m not dumb; I know what I’m doing.”

Owen raised his eyebrows at me. “No need to bite my head off. You’re wearing your earpiece, I take it?”

I nodded.

“What frequency will you be on? I’ll help keep track on you.”

Luke’s warning about how I couldn’t trust Owen was brought to mind so I replied, shortly, “Calloway and the Agency have already been informed of this, there’ll be no need for you to do that. I do need you to keep track of Dylan Fuller and Luke Ouverson then. It wouldn’t do for them to notice that I’m gone tonight.”

The slight downturn of his lips was the only signs of displeasure he had but he said nothing else to me, so I took it as agreement.

And then I left for the mansion.
***
The mansion was very well protected, lit up like the city though it was the dead of the night.

Scanning the perimeters of the estate, the only slightly compromised area I could find was the back of the mansion, where cars often travelled in and out of the tall gates.

I knew that Sean Fuller and his partners purposely kept that area more security free than anywhere else because they detested the idea of guards having to search them. It was not to say that it was completely free since it was still dangerous because of the frequency which their men kept surveying the area.

Still, though, I had to try.

Calming my stomach, I wiped my sweaty palms on my clothes and tried to put the memory of the man I had killed in this very mansion out of my head.

Then I sprinted the short distance from the bushes to the gates and climbed over as stealthily as I could. The cameras in the area wouldn’t pick up anything, at least for a moment, because Calloway’s people had managed to sneak in a virus into all of the Fuller’s technology.

The virus would’ve been activated 3 minutes before I attempted the jump and would probably not be discovered in 15 minutes, which meant that I needed to move very quickly.
After climbing over the gates, I surveyed the area.

There were a few men in the ground floor, the second floor was where Jenna and Sean’s bedrooms where located and the third floor (where I was headed) had most of the security. The only safe way up there, it appeared, was to climb my way up and deactivate any of the bugs I met on my way as fast as I had been trained.

Groaning under my breath (of course they had to pick on the fact that I lacked upper body strength), I threw a hand held bomb at the direction of the front of house. I counted to twenty, heard a satisfying loud ‘boom’ and the sound of some startled and enraged guards before I started climbing.

I managed the first floor easily because most of the men were still distracted by the bomb while the rest were scanning the areas. I was hoping that they would spot the fake agent that the Agency planted outside the mansion and that it would take them a few minutes to realise that he had nothing to do with the bomb because it would buy me some time before they checked the cameras.

The second floor was not as simple, because Sean had woken up after hearing the explosion so almost all of the lights were switched on. I could’ve sworn that Jenna Fuller had caught my eye on my way up but she didn’t expose me, which she would’ve if she had really seen me. Instead, she spoke to her father in annoyed tones about incompetent guards.

There were no windows opened on the third floor so I had to crack open the only one which I was knew for certain wouldn’t be bugged before easing myself in as quietly as I could.

And then I was in.