Chapter 17 Aiden
Aiden
Aiden took Rick to the 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 is Darren Howe here?”
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 from here 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. So why did 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 Howe is Ren Valrais, the heir.”
Rick frowned and nodded slowly, taking in this last bit of information. “Right. That’s why he’s here. You are helping him so 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.
“Does that mean you trust him?”
Aiden felt a thrill rush down his spine as he thought back to the tight hiding space and Darren’s closeness during the GN inspection.
Darren had asked him the exact same question then.
Maybe he’d not meant it to come out that way, but it had, and Aiden had answered in the same way he was going to answer Rick now.
“I do. And… I think he trusts me, too.”
Aiden couldn’t escape that reality any longer, what he felt was true in the core of his being.
It was a betrayal to him and to his love for Claudia, and yet he couldn’t help but confess it.
He’d been fighting his downfall until now, still did when the guilt became too much, but their mission to Earth had changed something.
Shifted the balance within him, knocking him off-course.
The more he got to know Darren, the more he was drawn to him, and soon he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop it.
The craving, the need, the desire… the explosion brewing inside him.
Rick drew his eyebrows together and started playing with the buttons of his leather jacket.
He looked at the frames of the holoscreen mounted on the side wall, then stared out into the dark universe.
“I think most people are not inherently bad. It’s the circumstances that make them do things that might be bad.
And I don’t pretend to know or understand Howe, but maybe, if those circumstances had been a little different for him, his choice would have been, too. ”
Rick’s words crashed into Aiden, throwing his mind into chaos yet again.
If Darren Howe had had the choice of not killing Claudia, he would have picked it.
Aiden knew that in his bones and not just because of Darren’s confession from the night in the mess hall.
If it hadn’t been a matter of life and death, if she’d been willing to listen to what he’d had to say…
there was a chance she could be still alive, wasn’t there?
There were just too many variables. Too many parameters that needed to align and not go wrong. But even if she had let Darren go, what about Marcus? He’d always been obsessed with Claudia, he knew everything about her, how capable she was. Would he have bought whatever lie she’d tell him?
Rick reached over and squeezed Aiden’s hand, perhaps seeing some giveaway of his inner turmoil on his face. “Sorry, Aiden, I didn’t say that to stress you out. It just looked like… you two might actually get along. Maybe even…”
Be friends was what Rick wanted to say, but didn’t. And he was right. Maybe with time, once they’d both healed enough, they really could be.
Shaking his head, and likely that line of thought, Rick smiled. “I’m just glad you are okay. I really am.”
Aiden squeezed his friend’s hand back. “I’m glad you are here. Safe and with me.”
His heart swelled when Rick smiled fondly and for the first time ever, he was the one to initiate a hug. Rick let out a surprised noise, but recuperated quickly, chuckling as he hugged Aiden back.
“I am glad to have my best friend back, too. You’ve no idea how worried I was,” he exhaled, pulling away to give Aiden his personal space back. “Promise me there won’t be any more secrets from now on. Whatever happens, I’m in it with you.”
“I promise. No more lies.”
“Good.” Rick grinned. “Now, when do I get to meet the rest?”