Chapter 42 #2
They had yet to find anything, but Nala knew it was only a matter of time.
She was starting to become more paranoid than Tasha was.
Because I know what’s going on. Did my sister have any idea? Just how scared was Tasha in the end?
She often counted in her head. Maggie and Jay were an outlaw couple.
Robin and Lucian were not much better off.
That only left Seba and Quail, as well as Josephine and Starling.
Would Ravenwood try to off them too? Was he going to nuke the whole Aviary before the tell-alls began?
If Ravenwood was arrested, every Aviary member would be questioned.
Nala lost herself whenever she could. Video games.
Phone games. Books. Anything was better than watching Varen hunch over her dining table, surrounded by large machines as she tried to hack into Xan Ravenwood’s private databases.
The woman needed a team, but she was only one woman - one very, very smart woman who knew what she was doing, but one woman nonetheless.
The frustration on her face was enough to make Nala throw up sometimes.
All she could do was cook her dinner and try to entice her with video games as a break.
That lasted about half an hour at a time.
Then Varen was back at the computers, grumbling, cursing, and threatening to throw machines across the room.
The security personnel ignored them both unless otherwise summoned.
Nala got used to their presence to the point she stopped recognizing them.
Oh, there were some men and occasionally a woman wandering around the loft while she watched TV or cut onions in the kitchen.
They walked around the building outside at all hours of the day.
They were armed. They were dangerous. Yet as long as Varen kept paying them, they stood around her house utterly silent, and always observant.
They were like the shadows in the corner.
Two days later, Nala heard something she never thought she would.
“Holy shit!” Varen leaped up from her seat, staring wide-eyed at a white screen on her main monitor. “I fucking did it.”
Nala turned on the couch, wondering what that meant. “You did what?” Hey, if she was excited, then so was she! “You found some evidence?”
“I hacked into his personal email. Nala!” She pivoted toward her, eyes wide and wild. “Do you understand? I broke through to his email! Not his business emails, although I can use this to access those too. But his emails.”
Nala stood, letting the TV remote fall to the floor. “Have you found anything yet?”
“I don’t know… but I have little time. I’m sure he has it set that he’ll be notified of another IP address accessing his email. I probably have a few hours at the very most!”
She sat back down, focusing on the screen as if it were a giant Christmas present.
“Don’t bother me, okay? I’m going to be printing like a mad woman for the next few hours.”
She did.
The printer never shut up. Nala did what she could to help, such as replacing ink, refilling the paper, and then going up to one of the security guards to ask for a paper run down at the local office supply store.
By the time a man returned with a stack of computer paper, Varen had queued a hundred emails to start going through.
Nala organized them for her. Emails about private holdings.
Emails sent to Aviary members, sometimes about business deals and others chastising them for not participating enough.
One sinister email to Lucian last week said, “Now, Mr. Clark, let’s be reasonable… your darling girlfriend is in the hospital. Perhaps it’s time to pay up what you owe.”
The emails Nala let herself read were truly a sociopath’s diary.
Veiled threats. Direct threats. Musings between him and other close confidants about what it would be like to do this and that, none of “this or that” being anything cheery.
Did redheads really feel more pain? Or was it less pain?
Would Melanie feel a lot of pain in the hospital?
When he more or less told Hawk to cut the break-lines to Othello’s car when she “went on a sojourn to Germany,” he implied that he wanted Melanie to live - and feel pain.
“The beautiful birds of The Aviary need to have their wings clipped eventually. Otherwise, they will stray too far from their nests and learn too much of the world. Women like them should be submissive, demure, but always available. That is true joy.”
Vomit!
“This is so much fucking evidence,” Nala muttered in awe. “Ven, we’ve got…”
A loud clatter erupted as Varen dropped the cup she held. Nala’s head shot up. What she saw was the death of her girlfriend’s ability to keep her cool.
“GET OUT.”
The nearest bodyguard lifted his head with only mild interest. “Excuse me, ma'am?”
“I said get out!”
Varen shouted at every man in the room, until all three bodyguards shuffled out, mumbling about a crazy client.
Nala stayed in her seat in the living room, holding a stack of emails she was in the middle of organizing.
When Varen returned from her frantic, frothing pacing, it was with total darkness in her eyes.
Was she going to tell Nala to get out too?
“What is it?” Nala squeaked, holding the papers in front of her mouth. “What did you find? Varen…”
She sat back down in her seat, head in her hands.
Nala got up. This was the first time they were alone in days, and there was hardly any intimacy between them.
She wanted to touch her. She wanted to pull Varen’s head to her chest and run her fingers through that dark hair.
“I don’t know what you found,” she would say, “but know that I’m here and that I love you.” Yeah, right.
She glanced at the computer screen. An email, like all the others. An old email, based on the date stamp. Three years ago. Apparently, Varen decided there was enough damning shit already and started honing in on the crap she really cared about - Desirée and her death.
In fact, the email that was open on the screen came from Desirée.
“Mr. Ravenwood, let me say that I do not intend to press any charges. Please do not think that! I want this to blow over as smoothly as possible. I do intend to leave the project. I’m sorry that I have to do this, but I hope you understand the conflict of interest we now face.
On the subject of the child, I have not had the paternity test completed yet.
However, since my fiancée is a woman, I hope you understand when I say that…
without a doubt, this child is yours. I will not be pressing charges for the event that brought this child’s creation, but I do hope we can work out some kind of support.
My fiancée and I have considerable debt and raising a child is not cheap in this day and age.
I feel that for a man of your standing this is not too much to ask.
My lawyer is willing to work with yours over whether to do a monthly stipend or an upfront amount to cover the child’s life.
It can be put into a trust, if you’d like.
I also do not expect you to be a part of the child’s life, and, as I’m sure you will agree, it may be best that you are not.
Of course, this will all be settled for sure once I get the paternity results back, but please know that I am a confident woman.”
Nala didn’t read any further.
She stood, confused, her brain knowing what it read but rejecting every word. She looked to Varen, who had the appearance of a woman who was about to go mindlessly into war.
“What in the world is this?” Nala asked.
Varen’s head slowly turned toward her. “You don’t get it?” Her voice dripped with venom. “Desirée was pregnant when she died. With Ravenwood’s child.”