TWELVE

RIVER HEIGHT, Warmaukey, almost seemed a different part of the town entirely. The mansions and building were top-notch. From the outside, they were extremely large, peeking over their also large gates and held back by their big compound so that you could barely see the houses over the top of the gates. Each compound had about five to ten minutes driving space between them before you could come across another mansion with huge but specially designed gates. That part of Warmaukey was way too posh. A well-off, opulent, prosperous and wealthiest neighborhood. 

However, Gilbert Stanley’s house was still the same as the Grayson Cortez remembered it.

It stood apart on a large mass of land, at the literal end of an estate. The gate was very tall, with strong looking bars consisting of the build up. Through the spaces between each bars, anyone would be able to spot the mansion, though it looked small from the distance, built far away from the entrance. When Grayson arrived, the car barely waited ten seconds outside the gate before it automatically rolled open and gave way for him to proceed into the large compound. He sped past trees, lining the pathway leading to the building. Slowly drove around a grand fountain at the front of the house and finally stopped the car. 

Large curtained windows set in solid concrete walls of the four store y long house. Stone statues guarded the entrance, a freshly trimmed lawn, flowering bushes. Fluffy red geraniums grew in each ceramic pots at the both side of the front double door which seemed like it could accommodate a family of giraffe. A well-kept gravel path led to automatic double doors. Each corner of the wall was beautifully carved, and the designs were made with complete care. With the combination of sky blue and spotless white paint, it was looking like a palace from the fairyland. Greeneries around the mansion was adding more beauty to it. The house apparently had been built even before he was born, and while his older brothers were still nothing but kids. It had undergone a few times of renovation to fit in with new house trends.

Just as Grayson got out of his car, a man in suit closed in on him and gave respect by bowing while taking the car key from his hand. The man looked old enough to be even his grandfather, but the teenage boy was used to this kind of respect and courtesy from people from a very tender age. While his parents were still alive, and even more after their deaths. Just because he was used to it, didn’t mean he liked it any bit. So he patted the stiffly old man shoulders, and gave him a curt nod. “You don’t have to do the bow thing,” he stated, with a smile to help the man ease out of his tension. “It’s not necessary.”

And then he headed inside.

The interior of the house was focused around a large living room serving as the main avenue of traffic and entrance area to the adjacent rooms. The living room flowed into a large, wide staircase that provided the main means of egress from the entertainment area of the house to the private rooms on the second floor. Sixteen foot ceilings, pocket doors, fireplaces and tall windows form the main block of the building. Thick drapes were pulled apart from the windows, but the underlying satin remained, to allow the sunlight in during the day. On the first floor, the hallway and living room was painted bright white, no dirt or scruff marks anywhere. Bright lights filled the house, expensive looking chandeliers were hanging down from the ceilings.

Grayson hadn’t spotted his brothers in the first living room. So he proceeded farther into the mansion. He had gotten a text of an emergency meeting, and Gabriel had tipped him in on the fact that even Gideon would be around and if he wanted to stay in Warmaukey for a couple more months and not return to Beverly Hills yet, he should state that clearly and stand on his words without unwavering.  As he walked farther into the building, he practiced his lines over and over again in his head.

Gideon had been briefly seen on the day of his birthday, but hadn’t stuck around for more than twenty minutes precisely, like he had his time calculated. He had wished Gray a short happy birthday, and handed him the gift, what seemed like a house key.

“Look at you, kid, getting the most out of life. But do you think you can handle being a man, all by yourself, without all these...” his eyes flickered all around the ballroom party. “The people. The unending gifts. Our brothers’ support. If you don’t prove to them that you’re man enough, they’d continue to baby and have total control of your life till the day they die. Then you’d shatter because you wouldn’t know how the real world works. You’d be a 70 years old man having no insight on how to go about things.”

The words had stuck to Grayson, coming from a man he had last seen few months after their parents death, he wondered if Gideon had gone to experience real life in the past five and a half years. He was his brother, yet he barely even knew him. He, however, didn’t know how to feel about the honorary visit to his birthday. Was he actually there for him or was he just in Warmaukey to connect with his childhood town? He was the oldest of them all, and Grayson had heard stories that while Greg was in the city, Gideon had been in the town a few years before he turned eighteen and relocated to the city as well. He had even graduated from Warmaukey high school. So Grayson believed if anyone had to know anything about being in the real life, It had to be none other than his oldest brother.

As Grayson entered through a front door on the east facade, he passed into a grand hallway. The wallpaper is what first caught his attention. That section wasn't painted pure white like the living room he had just walked past. An Anglo-Japanese design with Roman and Greek themes in the frieze was on the ceilings and walls. The predominant colors were dark with tan and gold highlights, creating an interesting contrast to the original interior trim painting of ashen pinks, tans, pale blues and black detailing. The tall, heavy, varnished wood doors had as the top panel, colored glass panes of amber, blue and pink, in a geometric design. On either side of the main doors were smaller, longer versions of the colored glass windows. The doors and small windows had molded surrounds of painted wood with bulls-eye corner blocks and decorative accents on the door surrounds and on the baseboard. The door knobs and hinges were golden brass with raised East lake style ornament