Chapter 11

What the fuck...

Kerry stared at the six-foot green iguana. The beast slowly blinked its massive, reflective eyes, letting out a thick, raspy hiss as its forked tongue tasted the air.

For a split second, her fight-or-flight response screamed at her to batter the door down. But then, cold, hard logic kicked in.

I just survived a billionaire using a four-million-dollar SUV as a battering ram in broad daylight, she reminded herself. I am not about to be intimidated by a teenager's overgrown gecko.

She forced her breathing to steady. The lizard didn't lunge; it was just chilling in the dark, likely as annoyed by the intrusion as she was. Sweeping her phone’s flashlight upward, Kerry caught the faint, tell-tale red blink of an infrared night-vision camera tucked into the corner of the ceiling.

Ah. He's watching.

Kerry turned her phone light slightly, illuminating her own face in the pitch black. She looked dead into the camera lens and gave a slow, provocative wave. Her already beautiful face was plastered with a look of absolute, harmless innocence. Forget humans and animals—even a ghost wouldn't be able to resist that expression.

She wasn't afraid in the slightest, which meant locking her in the dark was an entirely pointless game. Sure enough, barely two minutes later, there was a sharp click as the door unlocked from the outside.

Kerry pushed the door open and stepped out into the gloomy living area. There was no one in the hallway.

Instead, blocking her path were two massive dogs. One was a Tibetan Mastiff, the other a German Shepherd. Both wore terrifying, vicious expressions, their muscles coiled.

Dogs were nothing to joke about, especially guard breeds. Kerry and the animals engaged in a silent standoff for a few seconds. Then, she calmly unzipped her bag, pulled out a sleek fountain pen, held it up, and commanded in a testing tone, "Sit."

The two massive dogs tilted their heads, staring intently at the pen. Two seconds later, in perfect unison, they dropped their heavy hindquarters and sat obediently in front of her.

Kerry broke into a smile. "You can't eat this," she told them gently. "I'll bring you some good treats next time."

With that, she stepped forward. True to their training, the two dogs didn't block her path, merely sniffing around her ankles as she walked past.

Stepping fully into the living area, Kerry glanced toward the sofa on the right. A boy in a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants was sprawled across it, leaning against the plush cushions and playing on his phone. His hair was a bit messy, but he was strikingly handsome. She could clearly see Clif Condon's features in his face—father and son shared the exact same arrogant, overbearing aura.

Kerry smiled brightly. "Dustin, I didn't expect you to be so thoughtful. Thank you for the little surprise you prepared for me."

At her words, Dustin Condon frowned, looking visibly annoyed that his horror house had failed.

Kerry ignored his reaction and continued, "Today is our first meeting. If you don't want to dive straight into the lessons, we can just chat and get to know each other."

Dustin finally spoke. He was twelve; his voice hadn't broken yet, but he forced a deep, condescending tone. "My family hired you to work, not to chat. Did you think our money was that easy to earn?"

Kerry smiled warmly. "So mature. It's great that you understand at such a young age that money doesn't grow on trees. In that case, hurry up and get ready. Let's not waste any more time."

Dustin choked on his words. He hadn't expected her to trap him with his own logic. Despite losing the first round, he decided to stick to his strategy of immovable defiance. He maintained his lazy sprawl on the sofa, not only refusing to get up but blatantly continuing his mobile game as if she didn't exist.

Kerry wasn't in a hurry. She walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows and, with a sharp swish, pulled back the heavy blackout curtains. Blinding sunlight instantly flooded the room. She squinted for a moment, and once her eyes adjusted, she pulled the rest of the curtains completely open. The gloomy room was suddenly bathed in brilliant light.

Dustin was sitting with his back to the windows. The sudden glare on his phone screen made it impossible to see his game. His brow furrowed deeply. "Who told you you could touch things in here?" he demanded angrily.

Kerry turned around. The sunlight formed a golden halo around her silhouette, obscuring her exact expression, though her lips seemed to be curved in a faint smile. She replied with perfect patience, "Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes."

"None of your business," Dustin snapped, his face dark. "Close them!"

Kerry’s expression didn't change. "If you are asking for my help, I can close them. But if you are giving me an order, I'm afraid I can't help you."

Dustin looked up at her. One face was bathed in light, the other shadowed. The boy's eyes were hostile; the woman's were entirely unreadable.

After a few seconds of staring each other down, Dustin spoke first, his voice dripping with teenage arrogance and entitlement. "Why should I ask for your help? You need to figure out your place. Don't try to pull the 'teacher' card on me, and definitely don't try to use your age to act superior. This is my house! I am the employer, and you are the hired help!"

He deliberately slowed his words down at the end, as if afraid she was too stupid to understand her lowly status.

Hearing this, Kerry looked at him with utter calm. "Is that so? I had assumed my salary was paid by your father. I didn't realize you were the one signing the checks."

Dustin's frown deepened. Before he could snap back, Kerry continued. "Also, I remember very clearly that when your father hired me, he specifically 'warned' me that I was coming here to be a teacher, not a nanny. So it’s not that I don't understand my place. It’s that you don't understand my place."

Dustin sat frozen on the sofa, glaring at her with pure fury. The length of his silence proved he had never encountered such a difficult opponent before. But he refused to swallow the loss, so he fired back, "Are you trying to use my elders to suppress me?"

Kerry was sharp, and she had studied adolescent educational psychology. From the kid's words and body language, she could instantly map out his mental state. Just based on the word "elders," she could deduce that the Condon family was quite strict with the younger generation. Furthermore, he was obviously bluffing to cover up the fact that he was still intimidated by the adults in his family.

Without missing a beat, Kerry softened her tone. "Of course not. You’re right—no matter what my profession is, at the end of the day, I am an employee hired by the Condons. And I haven't been treating you like a little kid either. I think we can have a conversation like two adults. What do you think?"

Dustin’s anger had already reached a boiling point; he had just been waiting for her to add fuel to the fire so he could use it as an excuse to kick her out and save face. He hadn't expected her to suddenly show weakness. He pressed his handsome lips into a thin line, refusing to speak. The anger in his eyes faded slightly, replaced by heavy vigilance.

Kerry didn't wait for him to ask. She laid her cards on the table. "I'm not going to give you some grand lecture about how a student should just be obedient and do what they're told. When I was your age, I was just as wild and rebellious. I understand you. But in the spirit of fairness, you need to understand my difficulties, too. Do you think I enjoy forcing people to do things they don't want to do? We are both just victims of circumstance. You have your tasks, and I have mine. We're both just trying to survive. Why make things harder for each other?"

She had a terrifyingly accurate read on the teenage psyche. The younger kids are, the more they want to play adult, and the more they feel the adults in their lives just "don't get it." To earn his trust, she first had to establish an equal playing field.

Sure enough, her display of "genuine emotion" worked. Dustin stared at her suspiciously for a moment before asking, "From what you're saying, you want to peacefully coexist?"

Kerry nodded, her eyes shining with sincerity.

Dustin looked away, a flash of mockery in his eyes. He proposed, "As long as you don't interfere with me, I won't kick you out."

Kerry shook her head slightly. "It's: as long as you don't kick me out, I definitely won't interfere with you."

Dustin looked back up at her, his instincts screaming that there was a trap hidden in her words.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

Kerry offered a faint smile. It was the kind of expression that looked perfectly harmless at first glance, but upon closer inspection, was actually terrifyingly calculated.

"Instead of exhausting yourself trying to run off a new tutor every other week," she said warmly, "isn't it simpler to just deal with one person? I will respect all of your hobbies and personal behaviors. All you have to do is cooperate with me for exactly one hundred minutes every time we meet. Outside of that block of time, whether we peacefully coexist or completely ignore each other's existence... that’s entirely up to you."

Dustin Condon narrowed his eyes, studying her. No matter how she spun it, she was still demanding that he play by her rules. She was definitely different from all the other tutors who had come crawling into this room, but how different could she really be?

He asked maliciously, "Are you sure you’ll respect all my hobbies and personal behaviors?"

Kerry didn't even blink. "To be perfectly honest with you, I am not afraid of anything that is alive and moving, nor am I afraid of anything that is dead and not moving. The only exception would be if I opened a door one day and saw an actual, literal ghost. In that specific scenario, I might consider retreating. But honestly, even then, it’s only a 'might.' Once you’ve seen enough ghosts in this world, even they get a little boring."