17
Aiden
Aiden took Rick tothe conference room. Operating the console at the door, he disconnected it from the ship’s comms as Darren had suggested and took the chair next to his friend.
“Aiden…” Rick pinned him with a hard and disapproving gaze, but the lines across his forehead betrayed concern. “What’s going on? Why isDarren Howehere?”
Aiden stared at the recessed light strips that spanned the edge of the ceiling as he tried to order his thoughts. Where was he supposed to even start? Should he tell Rick about lying to him first or about who Darren really was?
“Rick… I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t want to, but I had to because you’d have tried to stop me. I… used a fake ID and got the warden job at Horizons. I planned to kill Darren after talking to him about Claudia.”
Rick’s jaw clenched, his hands balling into fists on top of the table. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t turn this into an argument. He just waited silently for Aiden to go on.
Aiden didn’t deserve Rick’s open-mindedness, his understanding nature. But he took it all the same, because fromhere on out he was going to treat his friend the way he should’ve from the start.
“On the night when I was going to do it, Darren told me that Claudia’s death report had been forged and… that she had been the one to go after him. Then he sent me to a bar on Mars.” It all felt so long ago as he said it, even if in reality it had been only weeks.
Confusion diluted the shock on Rick’s face. “That’s why you were there that day…” He wrinkled his nose and searched Aiden’s eyes. “I know his trial didn’t make sense. The investigation too… But… if you were really going to kill him, he would’ve said anything to save himself. Sowhydid you believe him?”
A gut feeling. Along with Darren Howe being the first person to offer a semblance of an explanation that made sense. “Because for the first time, things added up. What he told me explained the discrepancies PI Deverson and I came across. Then when I went to Mars, I met one of Darren’s…”
Subjects? Was that it? No, Darren didn’t treat anyone as such. In fact, his attitude hadn’t changed at all, save for him dropping the overconfident, flirty act he’d had going on at Horizons.The first wall, and one to come down a lot sooner and easier than Aiden would’ve thought.
He wondered when it had happened exactly. That night in the mess hall? Or maybe it had been sooner, perhaps as early as the night Aiden had meant to kill Darren, but failed.
“Aiden?” Rick broke through Aiden’s racing thoughts, bringing him back to the present.
It took Aiden a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. “I met one of his friends,” he said, feeling how true it was. Because Darren wasn’t really a royalty, hadn’t grown to be one and likely would never truly act it. That role had been meant for Sara from the very start.
Heart squeezing as the princess’ beaming smile popped into his mind, Aiden handed Rick the tablet with all the proof he’d collected. He apologized for lying again, told Rick about the hideout and Sara, about the massacre of the Valrais Royal Family, how Marcus had been the one behind it and how he’d erased all historical records of Earth’s last monarchs. A recount of the Horizons’ prison break followed, making Aiden shudder at the memory of the two henchmen who’d tried to kill him, and then he finished with how Nan had helped them escape and meet up with Bea.
“This is so fucked up,” Rick said and went quiet, seeming to process everything Aiden had dumped on him. “So Nan, the hacker’s grandmother is the one that got you off the prison?” he asked, handing the tablet back to Aiden.
“Yes.”
“Makes sense now why she didn’t strike me as your regular old lady,” he chuckled fondly.
“She’s anything but,” Aiden agreed, his mind supplying one of the robbery stories she’d told them on the way to the Kepler outpost. “After she dropped us off, we picked up Tiverich and went into hiding.”
“Shit, Aiden.” Rick shook his head and worried his lip. “I had no idea about any of this. I mean, I didn’t buy the crap the authorities were feeding the public but this… I still can’t wrap my head around it even after seeing the evidence. And you… I can’t imagine how you didn’t go crazy after finding out.”
Aiden hadn’t had the luxury or he would be dead now, instead of bringing his best friend up to speed. Sex with Darren the night after their escape had certainly helped alleviate the worst of his breakdown, even if he was stubbornly trying not to acknowledge it.
“Yes. And there is one more thing. Darren HoweisRen Valrais, the heir.”
Rick frowned and nodded slowly, taking in this last bit of information. “Right. That’s why he’s here. You are helpinghimso he can reclaim his family’s legacy.”
“Yes.”
Rick’s eyebrows slanted down further, his thoughts practically written on his face. “I… How? Even if Claudia lied to you and Marcus is the one who… orchestrated the assassination, he still killed her, Aiden. Are you sure you are okay with”—he cast his gaze around the room—“being part of this?”
“I… don’t know. But he’s not the man I thought he was, Rick. He’s… nothing like the psychopath I expected to find in Horizons.” That, of course, didn’t excuse Darren committing predetermined murder, but it also failed to present the reality of his crime or what events had led up to it.
All of it was Marcus’ doing. And Claudia had been part of it. She was the spitting image of her father, just as ambitious and undeterrable. What Aiden knew now of her and what he’d felt and thought he’d known for years were at odds, two warring parts inside him that sometimes haunted him at night when he closed his eyes. And if not one of them, then it was the memory of Darren clinging to him for dear life and letting out wails of sorrow he’d suppressed for far too long. That Darren was truly beautiful, captivating in a way so raw and real Aiden simply couldn’t bear to forget.
Rick leaned back in the chair and let his arms drop from the table. “I can’t imagine what witnessing and surviving a tragedy like that does to a person…”
“I’ve not forgiven him. But we are together in this now and if not for his help, I wouldn’t have made it out of Horizons alive.” The truth of that made Aiden shudder, though he suppressed the scenarios that wanted to play out in his mind. Horizons and his past life were both behind him now.
