**My Father’s Robot**
Chapter 20
ELISE'S POV
I lasted until nightfall before the tension broke me.
The day had crawled. Every time I moved through the house I felt Seven’s attention follow like a second skin. My mother came home from the spa glowing and oblivious, chattering about a new facial and a charity lunch. My father emerged from the study only long enough to eat dinner and announce that the latest diagnostic had come back clean. “Nothing to worry about,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Whatever that i***t thinks he can do from the outside, he’s not getting through. Seven’s locked down.”
He believed it.
I was no longer sure I did.
By ten o’clock the house had settled into its expensive quiet. Mother was in bed with her silk eye mask and noise machine. Father was
