12

Gregory

"Did you seriously grow up here?" Allison asks, staring out the window as we roll down the private driveway toward the mansion.

It's an enormous house. Ostentatious, obscene. "My great-grandfather built this place to project the family's power," I tell her as the sedan parks near the side entrance. The private doorway is for close members of the organization only. "But yes, I grew up here."

"I can't even imagine," she says, a strange laugh in the back of her throat. "And it's not like I came from nothing. But this..." She trails off, at a loss for words.

It's hard to see this house through her eyes. This building and the accompanying power dynamics are woven into my very existence. The columns, the tiles on the roof, the multiple wings, manicured landscaping, multiple cars, the armed guards, they're all a part of my life, etched deeply into my childhood. The dim rooms, the twisting passages, the secret staircases, libraries, music halls, and billiards rooms, they're the veins