Story code: ST-001224
Part 2: The Deadbolt
The silence in the dining room stretched out, thick and suffocating. The celebratory clinking of crystal ceased entirely. Leo kept his foot planted on the bottom tread of the staircase, his breath trapped in his chest. He shoved his trembling hands into his jeans pockets, his fingers frantically curling the edges of the stiff, laminated brochure to hide it completely from view.
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor. They were slow, deliberate, and heavy.
His father appeared in the archway, holding a half-empty glass of scotch. The warm amber liquid sloshed against the rim. His father’s eyes were dark and narrowed, scanning the shadows of the entryway before locking onto Leo. The jovial, grieving parent who had just convinced the developers to hand over a fortune was gone. In his place was the cold, calculating man who had orchestrated this entire elaborate trap.
“What are you doing out of bed, Leo?” his father asked. His voice was low, carrying a dangerous edge that echoed off the high, plaster ceiling.
Leo swallowed hard, forcing his heart rate steady. “I was thirsty. I came down for a glass of water.”
His father took a slow sip of the scotch, his gaze dropping to Leo’s empty hands, then back up to his face. “You don’t have a glass.”
“I didn’t make it to the kitchen,” Leo lied, keeping his tone flat and subservient. He leaned into the sick-boy persona they had demanded of him for three weeks. “I heard you and Mom talking. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
His mother stepped into the hallway, standing just behind his father’s broad shoulder. She had already kicked off her expensive heels. Her eyes swept over Leo with a look of profound irritation, as if he were a stain on the antique rug rather than her son. “He needs to be resting,” she said sharply. “If he looks too healthy when they arrive, it’s going to cause problems with the intake forms.”
“He’s going back to bed right now,” his father said. He closed the distance between them in three long strides, stepping right up to the base of the stairs. He reached out and wrapped his large, heavy hand around Leo’s bicep. His grip was a vice, squeezing just hard enough to press directly into the fading purple bruises he had left there weeks ago. “Aren’t you, Leo?”
“Yes, sir,” Leo said softly. He didn’t pull away. Resistance would only invite a tighter grip, or worse, a search of his pockets where the brochure burned against his leg.
His father marched him up the stairs. Every creaking step felt like a march to the gallows. The second floor was stripped bare, the hallway runner rolled up and tied with twine, the family portraits already taken down, leaving pale rectangular ghosts on the faded floral wallpaper. His father shoved him into his bedroom, the force of it making Leo stumble forward onto the bare floorboards.
“Get some sleep. We have a lot of packing to finish tomorrow,” his father said, standing in the doorframe.
Before Leo could reply, his father pulled the door shut. A second later, Leo heard a heavy, metallic *clack*.
He froze. That wasn’t the standard bedroom handle latch.
Leo scrambled up, rushed to the door, and turned the brass knob. It moved freely, but the door wouldn’t budge. He pressed his shoulder against the solid oak and pushed. Nothing. He dropped to his knees and peered through the sliver of space between the door and the frame. A new, heavy-duty deadbolt had been installed on the outside of his bedroom door. They must have retrofitted it while he was outside doing yard work yesterday. He was locked in.
Panic flared in his chest, hot and sharp. He forced it down. *Focus.* He needed the money.
Leo dropped flat onto his stomach and shimmied under his heavy wooden bed frame. The dust bunnies coated his forearms. He counted three boards in from the left leg and dug his fingernails into the tight seam. The loose floorboard popped up with a soft groan. Beneath it, nestled in the dark cavity between the joists, was a thick canvas pouch. He pulled it out and unzipped it. The rolled stacks of twenty-dollar bills were still there-nearly three thousand dollars he had saved from three years of summer landscaping jobs, meticulously hidden away from his parents’ prying eyes. It was his only ticket out of the state.
He shoved the pouch into his battered canvas duffel bag, quickly throwing in two changes of clothes, a heavy hoodie, and a flashlight. He zipped the bag shut. Now he just needed a way out of the room.
Leo moved to the window. His room overlooked the sloping roof of the sunroom, an easy drop to the backyard grass. He unlatched the sash lock and pushed up on the wooden frame. It didn’t move. He gritted his teeth, planted his feet, and shoved harder, straining his shoulders. The wood didn’t shift a fraction of an inch.
He grabbed his flashlight from the duffel bag and clicked it on, inspecting the window tracks. Thick, tamper-proof steel screws had been drilled directly through the lower window frame into the upper sash, permanently pinning the window shut. The heads of the screws were perfectly smooth, impossible to back out without a specialized power tool. He rushed to the second window. The same smooth steel screws glinted in the flashlight beam. They had perfectly sealed him in.
Downstairs, a floorboard groaned. It wasn’t someone walking; it was the distinct vibration of someone pacing right below him, in his father’s home office. Leo crossed the room and lay flat on the floor, pressing his ear directly against the brass heating grate. The metal was ice-cold against his cheek.
His father’s voice drifted up through the ductwork, muffled but distinct in the quiet house.
“…yes, I know the original arrangement was for Thursday night,” his father was saying. “But the contracts are signed and the money is already in escrow. The developers are gone. We want to expedite the timeline.”
A terrible pause stretched out. Leo’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against the floorboards.
“No, we don’t want to wait,” his father continued, his tone hardening into an arrogant, impatient demand. “The boy is unpredictable. We’re willing to pay the emergency surcharge. Just send the transport team.”
Another long pause. Leo squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers gripping the edges of the brass grate, praying the person on the other end would refuse the sudden change.
“Excellent,” his father said. “Yes, he’s secured in his room. You have our absolute permission to use whatever chemical restraints are necessary when you arrive. We’ll leave the back door unlocked. See you in forty-five minutes.”
The phone clicked.
Leo sat back on his heels, the blood draining entirely from his face. Forty-five minutes. The midnight transport team wasn’t coming on Thursday. They were coming tonight, in less than an hour, armed with chemical restraints and legal permission to use them. He was locked inside a reinforced box on the second floor, his escape money sitting uselessly in his bag, and absolutely no way out.