Chapter 31

Darren was confounded when a guard came for him at the warden's request, considering Aiden had not looked at him even once during class and had just sat on his desk stiffly. It wasn't particularly difficult to guess as to why, given their conversation the day before, though Darren had gotten the impression that there was more than a hangover and a busy mind torturing that dirty blond head.

Grasping the office's door handle, Darren paused. He bent down and pretended to be tying his shoelaces, all the while scoping the corridor. There was movement by the gates, Mike and Louis bickering with a few inmates, and voices coming from the field. No spying guards, at least none in sight. He still didn't know exactly which one had been lurking in the shadows on the night Aiden had tried to kill him, but whoever it was, he was convinced they were the reason behind Marcus' sudden visit.

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 looked almost fine, 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. "Why now?"

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 that very clear."

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 have spooked 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 to burn 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.

Darren dug his fingers into the couch. "I will not apologize for something that I did to prote—"

"To protect what, exactly? A runaway prince? Or was it his dead sister's AI with her big Valrais secret? Or maybe, just maybe, was it your own comfortable little life as a shipping mercenary?"

Aiden could bite, too. He wasn't just a victim; he was a predator, here to rip Darren's head off his shoulders, even if he was about to lose that chance very soon. His time for revenge had almost run out, and he had hours to kill Darren if he was willing to sacrifice whatever he had left worth sacrificing.

Darren opened his mouth to speak, but a knock at the door cut him off. Schooling his face with some effort, Aiden donned his warden's fa?ade and invited the visitor inside.

"Hi, boss," said the tall man with the shaved head who Darren recognized as the Chief of Guards, Nigel. He threw a glance at Darren, but didn't seem all that interested.

"What is it?" Aiden prompted, crossing his arms as he directed an expectant look Nigel's way.

Nigel hesitated for a moment before squaring his shoulders. "The people from Central are here to perform the inspections. They're waiting downstairs, in conference room four."

Aiden's brows shot up. "We are having an inspection? This was supposed to be at the end of next month. I wasn't aware the date had been changed." Darren didn't know about it either. And inspections were usually announced to the inmates, so they knew to be on their best behavior.

"Shit! Sorry, boss. They called while you were on leave with a last-minute change. It completely slipped my mind. But, uh"—he flashed Aiden an apologetic smile—"they said they were doing it in two stages. The inspectors today want to see just the new areas. They are auditing the expansion project. The regular inspection will happen as planned."

This was the first time Darren was hearing of an inspection being conducted like this. It sounded very weird.

Aiden stood up. "Perhaps I should send you to give those gentlemen the tour then?" he said in a mocking tone that had Darren forcing down a smile.

Nigel raised his hands. "Nah. I think I'm good, boss. Thanks. I was just on my way down to see Dave in ISO before I have lunch."

"What are you still doing here, then?" Aiden slipped on the warden uniform's vest and held the tablet to his chest. "Mr. Howe, it seems I won't need your assistance any further. You can go back."

Darren didn't like this. He and Aiden weren't done talking. He still needed to say his piece, to convince Aiden to help him. But with this sudden inspection and Nigel here, he couldn't exactly do anything other than nod his head and walk out of the warden's office, or he risked exposing them both.

As Darren made his way to the fields where the rest of the inmates were already in the middle of a football game, he prayed to any made-up deity who would listen that Aiden agreed to talk to him one last time.

Because if he didn't and instead decided to simply walk away from Darren's world, neither of them was going to come out of whatever was about to hit them unscathed.