Darren knocked and waited to be invited inside. As soon as he walked in, he noticed the tautness in Aiden’s face. For once, the man had his mask down, baring his true emotions in a way that made Darren unable to tear his gaze away. Tension practically oozed off Aiden, and his dilated gold-rimmed pupils almost ate up the color of his irises, transforming him into some otherworldly being that was here to either seduce or destroy Darren. Or maybe even both.
“Close the door,” Aiden all but commanded, scrunching his eyebrows as if in pain when he shifted his attention from the screen to Darren.
Darren obeyed, then sat on the couch. Those eyes drew him in again and he wondered as he started at them watching him, if Aiden had taken something. Painkillers was his guess. “Did you clean your office, warden?” he said with a pointed look, giving the room a tilt of his chin.
Aiden’s frown eased, but just barely. “It’s clear. I checked.”
Darren took inventory of Aiden again, noting the two loose buttons of his dress shirt and the fact that he wasn’t wearing the uniform jacket. He kept glaring between Darren and the monitor, scowled at both, then rubbed the lines forming on his forehead as he let out a partially restrained but still very exasperated exhale.
Aiden Kesley lookedalmostfine, but he most certainly wasn’t.
Still undecided on whether to just glare at Darren or snarl too, he reached for his back with one hand. His brows slanted downward and he bit off a grunt at what Darren assumed was most likely a sore spot. Then, in a voice hoarser than usual, he said, “They’ve terminated my contract effective tomorrow.”
Darren didn’t find that surprising. He could guess why, though he asked anyway. “On what grounds?”
“I don’t know. The directive didn’t specify.” Aiden’s mouth twitched. “My fake ID and Marcus’ visit, if I had to guess.”
Darren clicked his tongue. This was bad. Both for him and his escape plan. He was still putting it together, working out how to pull it off. With how yesterday had gone, he hadn’t had the chance to even talk to Aiden yet. To try and convince him that choosing the Valrais side was not just the right thing to do, but likely the only option he had left.
Fuck. This really messed things up. And Aiden… If they were cutting him loose so soon after his trip to Mars, Marcus must’ve figured out he knew more than he’d probably let on.
Darren took in Aiden’s contorted expression. Would he talk if Marcus put him through the same things as Darren? Part of him liked to think that Aiden wouldn’t give up Sara’s hideout now that he knew the truth, no matter what torture he had to endure, but he couldn’t count on something like that.
“Why?” Aiden grimaced, the question not really directed at Darren. “Whynow?”
Because Darren had made Aiden a target just as much as he himself had done so by coming here in the first place. “Because they can’t have you ruining their plans.”
Unfocused fury flashed in Aiden’s eyes. “Marcus already made thatveryclear.”
Just as Darren had thought then, but there was a deeper meaning to Aiden’s words. Something more must’ve happened, something that seemed to havespooked him enough so that he was willing to talk despite yesterday.
Darren studied Aiden’s stiff posture. If Marcus had figured out Aiden knew about the hideout, then why was he still here? Why was he still free instead of strapped to one of those torture chairs with a brainwaves device hooked to his head? Unless…
Darren’s stomach shrank, squeezing in on itself. Had Aiden decided to help Marcus? Was he capable of something like that? He didn’t think so, but he also didn’t really know Aiden. He recognized the darkness that lived inside the man, the despair, but there was so much more to him, so many other parts Darren wondered about when he couldn’t sleep at night.
“Did you tell Marcus about Sara?” he accused.
Aiden narrowed his eyes and scoffed. “Nothing that he didn’t already know,” he hissed back, a flicker of disappointment stirring the gold in his eyes.
Warmth filled Darren’s chest. He believed that, saw the truth of those words in the momentary display of emotion. Marcus didn’t know where Sara was, so if neither of the two of them said anything, the hideout was safe until Marcus figured out the right questions to ask. The interrogation tech he’d used on Darren was useless until you had an angle, a way to chip away at the truth.
“Well, warden Kesley.” Darren grinned, baring his teeth like an animal. “Whatever they have in store for me once you are gone won’t be pleasant. Rest assured.” Marcus would make sure of it, because those were the games the man who’d faked his own daughter’s autopsy liked to play. “You’ve seen what Marcus is capable of. Including using his own daughter.”
The moment those words left him, Aiden’s gaze turned furious. It made Darren regret saying things the way he’d said them, but it was too late to take it back, so instead, he simply braced himself for the ugly accusation about to come out of Aiden’s sinfully kissable mouth.
“You are truly despicable, Darren Howe.”
“Why?” Darren snapped back, somehow unable to rile it in. He knew the crime he’d committed—he lived with it every day—but he’d had little choice. “Because I defended myself?”
“Because you killed an innocent person,” Aiden said, voice raised and angry.
Darren scoffed. “An innocent person?Aiden, I understand that she was your whole world, but did it ever occur to you that maybe you weren’t hers? That, maybe, if she truly loved you as much as you loved her, she wouldn’t have kept such a big secret from you?” he spat out before he could stop himself.
It was unfair. It was dirty. And it hit right where he’d hoped it would, shattering something inside Aiden as his entire demeanor shifted, closing in on itself. Darren wanted to take what he’d said back even more than the words that had started this whole argument. He didn’t have the right to hurt Aiden more than he already had, no matter how much he wanted to infringe upon what Aiden and Claudia had had when he didn’t even have a complete picture of their relationship.
Yet he’d done just that, giving into those dark things that lurked just under his own mask, biding their time until he couldn’t hold them back anymore. And he knew why. It was the unbearable want. It was the yearning that had no place between him and Aiden, pushing him over the edge because it wanted out even if it was doomed toburn and burn and burn until all that it left behind was scattered ash.
“I will never find that out now, will I?” Aiden yelled, his voice cracking.
