Felix's friends kept looking around, constantly praising him for how nice and big the apartment was, which only made him feel even more smug as his ego and confidence ballooned.

I watched them through the footage. All of my anger subsided and was now replaced with a profound sense of calmness. I just downloaded the surveillance footage and sent it to my lawyer, Elliot Collins.

…

On the fifth day, which was also the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend break, Felix and his family finally packed up to leave.

The surveillance footage showed that they had begun packing up their things at around 9:00 am that day. They didn't bother clearing up the rubbish in the living room or cleaning the stains in the rooms. They only focused on packing up their own things.

While packing up, Felix's mom said to him, "This is such a nice and comfortable place to live in, Felix. I really don't want to leave after just a few days here.

"You must work harder next time and buy another place just like this for Fiona too! Then we'll all finally be able to live comfortably for the rest of our lives."

Felix smiled and said, "Don't worry, Mom. I'll continue working hard. Next time, I won't just buy a bigger place for you, but I'll also upgrade everything you own so that you'll have a better quality of life."

Fiona piped up and said, "That's right, Felix! I'm going to stick to you next time! You can't ever get rid of me!"

After they were done packing up, they brought all their bags and suitcases to the door. Felix keyed in the passcode he had learned by heart to open it, but to his shock, the passcode was now incorrect.

"Beep!"

A loud, piercing beep filled the air, followed by a red blinking light indicating that the wrong passcode had been keyed in.

Felix frowned, thinking that he'd made a mistake, and keyed in the passcode once again. However, the lock still beeped loudly, and the red light continued blinking.

"What's this? Why doesn't the passcode work anymore?" his mom asked.

Felix tried again a few more times, but each time, the door lock refused to open. It continued beeping and flashing red. The massive door just refused to budge.

"That's impossible… I remember that this was definitely the correct passcode… How could I be wrong?"

Felix was beginning to panic, and his fingers were also trembling now.

Fiona lost her patience and marched up to the door instead, shoving him aside. "What the hell are you doing? Can't you even properly key in a stupid passcode? I'll do it!"

She then tried a couple more times and then started kicking violently at the door. "What the hell? What's with this stupid lock? How dare you defy me?"

"Wait, stop kicking the door. What if you break it?" Felix said in panic, his eyes starting to lose focus as they darted around.

His mother looked confused. "It's your place, isn't it? So what if the door breaks? Just replace it, then. If you ask me, I think we should just break the door down. What kind of stupid door won't open with the correct passcode anyway?"

Fiona had always had a terrible temper, and the door was pushing her to the limits of her patience. She gave the door another good, hard kick and yelled, "You fucking piece of shit! Open the damn door for us! We still need to catch a train back home!"

Felix was panicking, and his palms were turning clammy. He gritted his teeth and said, "Maybe there's something wrong with the system. It sometimes loses signal like that. I'll just call the building management and get them to open the door for us."

He hurriedly pulled out his phone, clearly flustered. But before he could dial the building management's number, there was a steady knock on the other side of the door.

Three, in fact.

The knocks weren't particularly heavy, but they carried a serious tone.

Felix was startled. He asked instinctively, "Who is it?"

A clear, authoritative voice then came from the outside.

"We're the police. Kindly open the door and cooperate with our investigations."