Fifty-Four

VALERIA

With nothing better to do, I wandered around the mansion. I had been doing this so often for the past week that I felt I could draw a detailed map of the Dimitri's house with my eyes closed. I had fully recovered from the effects of the poison now but Dimitri still wouldn't let me go back to work.

"You still need to be closely observed," he had said one day when I attempted to broach the subject of at least leaving the house.

Staying at home wasn't the only change that had happened this week. These days, Dimitri always came home early. I had spotted him more times than I could count hard at work on his computer. That meant he had taken to bringing work home with him instead of spending a lot of time at the office. And then there was Summer. She had been staying away from the house. She only returned late and night. When she was in the house, she took pains to stay out of my way. She even went as far as having dinner in her room most of the time.

Sometimes I couldn't help but