Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
But complacency was no excuse. I should have covered my tracks better. The fact that I’d successfully kept a lid on my surveillance for the past four years wouldn’t mean a damn thing if it all fell apart now.
I pulled up the live camera feeds on my computer and cycled through them until I found Hailee in her bedroom. I needed to determine whether she saw something she shouldn’t have seen while I was out of the house. It shouldn’t have been hard to verify. No doubt, she’d already be packing her suitcase, horrified by the discovery and eager to put as much distance between herself and my cameras as possible, and she’d be right to do so. This little film project was never supposed to go this far.
It all started at Graham’s request. About a month after he got sent away to prison, he mentioned during a phone call how much it killed him to be separated from Hailee. No way in hell was she going to agree to send a letter, let alone photos; the wound was still too fresh. So I began covertly taking pictures and videos of her around the house, which progressed into installing hidden cameras in the common areas, just so that he could see her and feel like he was still part of her life.
It was a devious exercise, but underhanded tactics had long been a staple in my professional arsenal. I hadn’t amassed my fortune by stumbling blindly into a lucrative market. I studied the industry closely, looking for gaps in the system that I could exploit. If I came up against a wall, I found a way around it, or under it. Seeking a yes was akin to inviting someone to tell me no, so I stopped asking for permission and made myself indispensable; they couldn’t afford to refuse me.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t think twice about installing the hidden cameras all around our home. The spying didn’t affect Hailee’s routine in any way. Why upset her further when she’d already been through so much? It wasn’t like I was capturing anything I couldn’t have witnessed myself.
But everything changed when I accidentally caught her masturbating in the home gym at our old place in Palo Alto. I should have immediately deleted the video. I knew that. But I couldn’t stop watching it. I played the footage on my computer over and over, mesmerized by the sight of her looking so vulnerable, so caught up in her own enjoyment. She had no clue that she was being recorded, which meant that every move and sound she made was completely for her pleasure. I already found her beautiful, but when I saw that video, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. She wasn’t just my niece by marriage. She was a gorgeous young woman with an insatiable appetite for desire.
So, I leapt across the line and just kept running. I installed more hidden cameras in the house, including the bathroom and her bedroom, and I hoarded the footage of her in those spaces for my own use. It was my dirty little secret, until I made a potentially fatal mistake.
I accidentally included a video of Hailee masturbating in the day-to-day footage that I sent to my brother. I didn’t even realize I’d done it until he called me unexpectedly that same evening. But instead of threatening to cut off my balls, he asked for more footage of that nature. While part of me felt guilty about invading her privacy, I had to admit that it felt good not to carry the secret alone. I couldn’t imagine being trapped somewhere far away from her, unable to feel her warmth or see her smile. But Graham and I both understood the agony that accompanied wanting her in ways that were forbidden. This was the only way we could have her, and we’d had our fill a hundred times over.
But we always knew it couldn’t last forever. It was only a matter of time before she left for college. The past few months had felt downright desolate without her in my house. I kept expecting to find her reading in the den or drinking coffee at one of the windows. Not knowing what she was doing and who she was doing it with drove me insane. I thought about slipping her some malware that would allow me to watch her through her webcam, but I didn’t want to risk tipping off her school’s network administrators.
I leaned closer to the computer screen and watched her intently. She was still on the bed, lying on her side. Then she shifted, opened her legs, and positioned her body toward the camera. No, not toward the camera. There’s no way she’d have felt comfortable displaying herself if she knew she was being recorded. If anything, the fact that she seemed to be gearing up to touch herself was proof that she hadn’t seen the footage.