Chapter 3 - The Early Arrival
I instructed the moving crew to park their massive truck behind the thick willow trees so my brother would not see them immediately.
I stood perfectly still on the front porch with my arms crossed, waiting for Keaton to step out of his ridiculous car.
He slammed his car door shut and strutted toward me, completely ignoring the fact that I was supposed to be working a hospital shift.
He demanded to know what I was doing here and told me to get out of the way so he could stock the refrigerator.
I calmly informed him that there was no refrigerator left to stock, and he was officially trespassing on private property.
Keaton laughed in my face, pulling a shiny brass key from his pocket and attempting to push past me to reach the front door.
I simply stepped aside and allowed him to slide his stolen key directly into the brand-new, high-security deadbolt I had just installed.
The key refused to turn, and Keaton cursed loudly, aggressively jiggling the metal in a desperate attempt to force the lock open.
He turned around with a furious glare and commanded me to hand over the correct keys immediately because he was the host of the weekend.
I pulled out my phone, opened my new smart home security application, and pressed a single red button on the screen.
The deafening shriek of a hundred-and-twenty-decibel commercial alarm system instantly ripped through the quiet forest.
Keaton covered his ears in absolute agony, stumbling backward down the wooden porch steps and falling hard into the dirt.
I pressed another button, activating the high-pressure lawn irrigation sprinklers directly beneath where he was sitting.
He shrieked as freezing cold water blasted him directly in the face, completely ruining his expensive designer clothes.
He scrambled desperately to his feet, slipping in the rapidly forming mud while screaming vicious curses at me over the blaring siren.
I turned the siren off but left the sprinklers running, enjoying the pathetic sight of my arrogant brother completely soaked and shivering.
He pulled his ringing cell phone from his wet pocket and answered it, his voice trembling with a mixture of cold and pure panic.
I listened closely as he frantically explained to the person on the other end of the line that I had somehow locked him out of the house.
He paused for a long moment, his face draining of all color as the voice on the phone screamed at him loudly enough for me to hear.
Keaton looked at me with wide, terrified eyes and told the caller that the buyer was going to be incredibly angry.
I realized instantly that the twenty guests were not just family members coming to celebrate a successful scam.
My mother had invited the shady private lenders to the lake house this weekend to officially hand over the property to clear her massive debt.
Keaton hung up the phone, pointed a trembling finger at me, and swore that I was going to deeply regret messing with their business.
May you like
He climbed back into his sports car, slammed it into reverse, and sped away down the muddy driveway in total defeat.
I turned back to the security team and told them we needed to escalate our defensive strategy immediately.
