Masked

IV.

My father didn't lie when he told me that the next weeks would be straining. We spent a lot of time looking through long lists of suitable employees for RE-Search, my father showed me some of the applications that rushed in on a daily basis and let me decide, which of them could get an interview and which needed closer observation. It was an interesting experience for me, since I was expected to do all these things once my parents had passed on, but it was mentally exhausting. There were too many people who wanted to work for too many jobs, we had to make sure that everyone that was already doing their job for the establishment got an equal amount of work, we had to oversee the progress on recent projects that RE-Search was a part of... After a few days of doing all that from early in the morning to late at night, I was done. Of course, I never expected the job of my father to be an easy one, but for me, who, besides one internship I did years ago, hadn't had any work experience it was anything else but simple to get used to all the tasks we had to perform.

So, I guess it was no wonder that I longed for the weekends, since that was the only time I could get a day off. Although my father did work on Saturdays, he told me that I needn't to assist him since business was running low on the weekends anyways.

Well, imagine my surprise when I heard that we got a visitor on a Saturday noon.

I was in my room at that time, watching a livestream on YouTube when I heard a car pulling up in the driveway. Since my windows were directly facing it, I rushed to one of them to see what was going on. It couldn't be Andrew, since he always went out for grocery shopping in the early morning, and father didn't tell me anything about a scheduled visit from an employee he was expecting today.

I thought my eyes would pop out of my skull when I saw who just left the car and headed towards the entrance.

It was Lara.

"Jesus fucking Christ", I mumbled and headed over to the door to leave the room. If she was here, then...

'Perhaps I did not mess up on that social gathering as bad as I first thought I did", I thought to myself as I was practically running down the corridors to my fathers office. As soon as I arrived, I quickly hid behind another wall. I knew that my father had security cameras around his office to make sure that no one would go through his important documents without him knowing, so I paid attention to setting myself up in one of the few blind spots. Heaven knows what father might do to me if he saw that I was spying on him. Plus, I wasn't really keen on getting into contact with the young Croft, so I didn't know what other option I had but hiding.

Despise all the security, the office of my father was badly soundproofed, so I had no problem listening to what might go on in a few seconds.

Just a moment later, I heard Lara arriving at the door and knocking three times. Almost immediately I heard the muffled "Come in" from my father.

And then an unbelieving "Lara Croft? To what do I own the pleasure?"

I really had to strain myself now to listen to their conversation because, even if my fathers office was badly isolated, the words still came out quite muffled. I held my breath as I tried to listen.

"Hello Mr. Bennet. I'd like to talk about the job offer I got from your daughter. I'm sure you already heard from her that our conversation did not end the best way."

My father sounded calm when he answered, but I knew that deep down he was probably as excited as I was about her arrival at our manor.

"Yes, I was quite ashamed when I heard that you declined."

Lara sighed.

"Well, after I did some research on your company, I decided to change my mind. You surely understand that I must be careful when it comes to trusting new people. You probably know that I'm quite paranoid about that Trinity thing."