“Aurora said we could use it whenever we wanted.”
That public lie was the final straw. It wasn’t just deception. It was a rewriting of reality, forcing me into a corner where I had to either play along or look like a monster to everyone who saw it.
She was counting on my silence. Counting on the fact that I usually just swallowed my anger and paid whatever bill came due to keep the peace.
But I wasn’t that sixteen-year-old girl anymore, desperate for approval. I wasn’t the college student crying alone in a library on Thanksgiving.
I was a CEO. A homeowner. A woman who’d built something real.
And I was done paying for love I never actually received.
I shook myself out of the memories and turned my full attention back to the live camera feeds.
12:12 a.m.
On screen, everything still looked peaceful. The pool lights glowed purple. The fire pit flickered with warm flames. My father was asleep on the outdoor lounger, his mouth hanging open.
My mother and sister were inside the living room, visible through the glass sliding doors.
Then I saw the first sign something was wrong.
My sister was holding her phone up high, moving it around in the air. She was trying to get a signal, trying to refresh her social media.
The Wi-Fi was gone.
I watched Jessica tap the screen aggressively, her face contorting with frustration. She stood up abruptly and walked toward the router sitting on a shelf near the television.
She picked it up and shook it.
I took a sip of water, allowing myself a small smile.
Shaking it won’t help, Jessica. I cut the connection.
She said something to my mother, gesturing at the device. My mother looked up from her magazine, visibly annoyed.
Then my mother glanced at the television screen. It had gone completely black. I’d logged them out of every streaming service—Netflix, Hulu, all of it.
My mother stood up and walked toward the sliding glass door to call my father. She needed someone to blame, someone to “fix” the technology problem.
She put her hand on the door handle. Turned the latch. Pulled the door open.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
I couldn’t hear the sound through the cameras, but I saw the reaction instantly.
My mother froze in the open doorway. She turned and looked at the alarm keypad on the wall. It was flashing angry red.
She’d triggered the entry delay. The system was giving her thirty seconds to enter the correct code before the siren activated.
She rushed to the keypad and started typing frantically. I knew exactly what she was entering: 1-9-5-8. Her birth year. The old code.
It didn’t work.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
She tried again, typing faster, her fingers jamming the buttons. She shouted something—probably calling for my father.
He jolted awake on the lounger, confused and disoriented. He looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.
My sister ran to the keypad and pushed my mother aside. She tried a different code. Probably my birthday. Or hers.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
They had maybe fifteen seconds left.
I watched them panic. It was chaotic and desperate. My father was stumbling toward the door. My mother was yelling, her mouth forming words I couldn’t hear. My sister was covering her ears, bracing for what was coming.
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