He looked up from his phone, his eyes fixing on Patricia with a coldness I had never seen before.

“I am thinking of exactly what has been happening in this house while I was upstairs,” he added.

Patricia swallowed hard, her chest rising and falling rapidly under her silk blouse.

“Nothing has been happening except me trying to keep order,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Is that so?” my father asked.

He tapped the screen of his phone one more time.

The blue light on his phone blinked twice, indicating a connection had been established with the house network.

I looked from my father to the blank screen on the wall.

The screen suddenly flickered, its default display of a sleeping landscape disappearing into a black screen.

Patricia noticed the change and turned her head toward the wall.

Her face went pale, the color draining from her cheeks in an instant.

“Emiliano…” she started, her voice barely a squeak.

My father did not look at her; his eyes were locked on the wall display.

The silent tension in the room stretched so tight it felt as though it would snap.