Drink Me

43. MONSTERS

MONSTERS

Words failed to escape Riley's lips but his face screamed the what the fuck that had died in his throat.

He looked at the child again: his head of unruly jet black hair, those childish round eyes and bow-shaped lips that resembled Aidan's grown-up ones and wondered how on Earth he hadn't realised it before.

"Does he know?" Riley asked eventually.

Aidan shook his head.

"Have you always known?"

"No, Caroline told me about three years ago," Aidan said.

"Is that why you decided to come back to London in the end?" Riley queried, as many pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

Aidan nodded.

"Are you going to tell him?" Riley continued, still unable to shake the shock from his voice, after all, five minutes before he didn't have a nephew.

"It's not really my decision to make," Aidan retorted.

Riley's eyes widened.

"I think it is," he said. "That child deserves a father."

Aidan looked at him with a defeated expression. "He had a father, and he died. I don't want to traumatise him again by throwing this bombshell at him. Maybe when he's older," he mused.

Riley's fingers mindlessly lit another cigarette.

"Aidan, what you're doing... what we're doing," he said leaning closer to his cousin. "The consequences for Edward could be terrible..."

Aidan rubbed his face with his hands and for the first time, Riley saw worry in his eyes.

"One more reason not to screw it up," he replied.

Riley wanted to shake him and tell him to wake up and smell the arrest order looming on his head. The only way for Aidan and Caroline not to end up in prison for life or worse was to give up now before the entire plan of destruction was set in motion.

"How do you think we're going to get away with all this?" Riley asked instead, careless about making Aidan suspicious of his intentions. "I let go of all the things I held dear because I know what I'm getting myself into," he admitted, realising for the first time how true that was. "You have Alice and your son, you've got so much to lose..."

Aidan stared at him for a long moment. "When you really believe in something, you just can't give it up..." he said, his voice heavy with words that he simply couldn't share.

Riley stole another glance at Edward now jumping in victory on the sofa. When his eyes focused back on Aidan, he found the man looking at the boy with such intensity and joy and in that moment he knew.

He'd thought Alice was Aidan's weakness, but it had turned out to be a four-feet-five, freckled boy with messy hair instead.

"Does Alice know?" Riley asked again.

Aidan's eyes widened. "Are you insane? She's already sure Caroline wants to steal me, I can't tell her I actually have a child with the woman."

Riley nodded in agreement but another thought formed in his head. This was big news, this notion could have been used as leverage. But Edward was just a child and his newly found family, he didn't feel comfortable at the idea of the kid being used as bait.

He looked at Alice, who was now observing the two men that were surely taking too long to smoke a cigarette. He wasn't sure she would have had his same considerations towards the boy.