The nerves were buzzing through me as Aiden rapped the wooden patterned door with the numbers 315 plated on the front. The corridor smelled different. Odd. I couldn't even distinguish the scent but it was equal parts clean and musky. Which didn't make a lot of sense. But the thoughts were diminished when the door flew open and Emma— well I think it was Emma — stood at the threshold with a soft smile that soon turned into concern.
Her soft and worried gaze was brighter than it had been last time I saw her. Her dark pin straight hair was free of grease, tucked behind her ears. Her features were so delicate. Like a young Natalie Portman. "Arian," she smiled and her gaze shifted between Aiden and I. "What happened to—"
"Oh I'm fine," my hand came up and touched the bottom of my cheek. "It was just an accident. Can we come in?"
"Yeah," she stepped aside and waved us in. "I'm Emma."
"Aiden," he introduced himself and I spun around with a guilty wince, realising that I hadn't made introductions myself. He came and stood beside me and wrapped his arm around my waist.
The room was nicer than I thought it would be. The carpet was a toffee colour, thick and lustrous. The walls were a bright cream. The standard shade for show rooms or waiting areas. The appliances were modern and the living area was equipped with a large television, a coffee table and fruit bowl as well as some snug looking sofas. From where we stood, I could just see the end of the bed in the room off to the right. It looked as though it was scattered with new clothes, still tagged, shopping bags scattered on the floor.
"So," Aiden smiled when I glanced up at him. It was clear that he could see what I was staring at with burning curiosity. Had Emma blown the cash that I'd given her on brand new clothes? "Should we sit. Emma, you can tell me about yourself?"
I hadn't specified what she could spend the cash on. And it seemed reasonable to want some new outfits considering what she was dressed in when we met. But that was a lot of clothing. We all sat down on the sofas and I took a moment to assess what she had on as she settled into the couch opposite us. Her pale jeans looked expensive. It was easy to distinguish an expensive pair of jeans from a cheap pair. Well, it wasn't until a stylist for one of Des— his events had filled the silence during a fitting about the evidence being in the stitches as well as the fit.
They fit well.
Aiden started up the conversation and I knew that I was focusing too hard on this girls outfit. It was ridiculous. "So Emma, tell me what's going on? Arian said that you were kicked out of home?"
She was wearing a thin white adidas long sleeve as well. The front was tucked into her jeans and it was a casual cute outfit. I loved it. But I doubted that it was cheap.
"Yeah my Mom— well she's never been the most caring mother," her voice was laced with resentment. "But my step father was murdered a while ago and it got even worse. She just went off the deep end and kicked me out. Said that I was too much to afford. That's because she wasn't in step daddies fucking will."
Ugh I felt stupid for obsessing over the clothes. After all that she'd been through, she deserved to splash out on some decent attire. What was wrong with me?
"What did your step father do for work, if I can ask?"
Aiden laced his hand with mine. Our intertwined fingers sat atop his knee. His white shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows and the material wrapped around his chiselled frame. His appearance— while gorgeous— wasn't all that was captivating about him. His voice was soothing. He listened and wore a calm expression. It would be almost impossible not to trust him. He was so alluring without even trying.
Emma took a deep breath. "He was in insurance. He took care of big clients. But I'm pretty sure he was crooked," she swallowed and averted her gaze. "He wasn't a good person at home either."
"He hurt you?"
She kept her glance on the floor. But it was obvious from the quiver in her lip and the way she turned into herself that she had a haunted past. I knew what shutting down looked like. I had done it time and time again. Involuntarily remembering horrific experiences was a trigger and while I was good at hiding how much it affected me, I still felt it. I knew what it looked like.
"What was his name?"
"Howard Kenners."
Aiden's expression didn't reveal a thing. I had no idea whether that name was familiar to him. He just nodded and tilted his head to the side, fixing Emma with a sympathetic gaze. "Are you in school at the moment?"
"Yeah. We're on summer vacation right now though. I might get one more year there. Depends if the fee was paid before Howard was shot or not. I have no idea."
"When does school go back?"
"A couple of weeks," she shrugged. "I'm not that concerned about school."
"Education is important," Aiden stood up. His hand was still holding mine. I couldn't get used to how much comfort and warmth such a small simple gesture brought me. "I'll make some phone calls and find out. In the mean time, how old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"You're still a minor which means that I can't legally act as your guardian. Social services will want to step in. But I could have some pull down at the offices. If I phone up and apply for guardianship, would that be alright with you? You could come and stay with us for a while?"
Emma seemed to choke up as she stared up at both of us with awe and wonder in her gaze. Even I was a little shell shocked. He was so efficient. He was quick and made things happen so fast. He slipped his cellphone out of his pocket and started towards the door. "Arian, come with me for a minute?"
I told Emma that I wouldn't be long and followed Aiden out in to the corridor. He did a subtle sweep of the space before his attention fixed on me. "I didn't kill her step father."
That wasn't what I had been expecting. The pieces seemed to fit so well. It just didn't seem to make sense. "Are you sure?"
"I don't recognise the name," he looked thoughtful, his hand rubbed the bottom of his chin for a moment before he shrugged again. "I mean, there was a good chance that it was just a murder. Pissed off client? Who knows. What did she say about other friends and family when you spoke? She doesn't have anyone else?"
"It— it seemed like that?" I answered, still feeling miffed over the fact that it wasn't Aiden. "We should double check I suppose. What if she's— I dunno — what if she's using you?"
His brows furrowed with confusion before he softly smiled. "Ari—"
"Ugh," I ducked my head in embarrassment. "Stupid. Ignore me. She's fifteen. I just— it felt—"
"It's been a rough couple of days baby," his knuckles gently brushed down my cheek and I inhaled a deep breath as my heart picked up a speed that was dangerous. "I'll do some research. Make sure her story checks out if that helps?"
"This was my idea," I leaned into his chest and stared up at his strong features. "I don't know why I'm being paranoid."
"Like I said," he let his hands rest on my lower back. "It's been a rough couple of days."
Back in the hotel room, Emma had begun packing up her belongings. She had more than I realised. She shoved all of the clothes into bags. Her shoes and new make up as well. I wasn't the best at math but I couldn't recall giving her enough cash to have purchased this much. Especially branded items such as Vans and Puma. Her new make up collection included Chanel and MAC. The hotel room was about 250 per night which mean that she'd have had less than 1500 left to work with. It just didn't add up. But I ignored that nagging feeling and we helped her get it all loaded into the car.
As we drove home, Aiden questioned the whereabouts of her grandparents, friends from school, other relatives. She had an explanation for all of them. Her biological fathers parents had nothing more to do with Emma or her mother when their son died. They despised her mother and felt no obligation to her when Emma's birth father suffered a heart attack. Her mother's father was never around and her Mom was in a home for dementia patients. She'd never made a lot of friends at school. The ones she did have were elitist. Their parents would never take in someone from the streets. Especially someone who's social status had been crushed at the scandalous death of her step father and her mothers total breakdown due to financial corruption.
She had no one.
The more I heard her talk, the worse I felt for suspecting that she was after cash. She'd suffered. Just as I had.
When we arrived back at the apartment, Emma admired the penthouse as we wandered through. Her reaction wasn't indifferent but it wasn't awestruck either. She was used to living in lavish homes and buildings no doubt. She knew as well as I did that it didn't matter how beautiful a house was, if the life inside it was miserable, nothing could make it seem more beautiful.
Aiden had suggested that we leave the belongings in the car. He would get Brian and Kyle to collect them. We walked into the living room, part of the tour that Aiden suggested so that Emma knew her way around, and we found Zoerina and Hunapo on the floor. Both of them giggled as they rolled around and fought for remote which Hunapo had in his hand for the moment. It wasn't long before a leg almost kicked over a side table. I even feared for the television cabinet window.
Aiden cleared his throat and the two paused and began to laugh even louder. "This is Emma," he said with amusement as Hunapo and Zoerina stood up, catching their breath after the tiring little wrestle. Hunapo offered his hand for Emma to shake while Zoerina stared at the girl with furrowed brows.
"You look familiar," she pointed. "Have we met before?"
Emma slowly shook her head as she frowned with confusion. "No. I don't think so?"
"Huh," Zoerina continued to watch her as though she was desperately trying to catch the thought that kept slipping past her grasp. But Aiden didn't give her a lot longer to dwell before he was pointing between his sister and best friend.
"Just to let you know, Emma will be moving into the spare bedroom. She'll be here for a while."
"Why?" Zoerina questioned, her gaze turning narrow.
Aiden sighed. "Because she's fifteen years old and I'm not comfortable leaving her on the streets. If there's a problem, we can discuss it more later."
Hunapo didn't allow her to continue arguing. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and walked them out of the living area. Emma wore a timid smile as she tucked her silk smooth hair behind her ear and followed Aiden up the corridor. I knew how she felt. I'd been in the exact same position. Feeling like an unwelcome guest from the intimidating sister was somewhat nerve wrecking. But what I knew that Emma didn't, was that Zoerina came from a good place. She'd warm up with time.
The spare room was just as I remembered it from the morning that I woke up after being drugged in town. The yellow throw pillows and rug kept the room bright and illuminated. The large mirror above the bed reflected the sunshine that streamed through the window at the far end of the room and the tall vase with faux sunflowers beside the white washed furniture was a gorgeous touch of colour that kept to the theme.
Aiden let me know that he had some work to do. Some legitimate work. He chose to clarify that he'd be in his office doing pen and paper business. Not down in his basement capping someone before he rolled their corpse in a plastic bag. The fact that I could even string a thought like that together, was a huge sign of progress.
The prospect of murder was still enough to bring on a case of the sweats and nervous knots. But remembering that he's saving more lives than he's taking, puts it into perspective. Like he's clarified before, he doesn't enjoy it. It's a huge burden on his soul. But if justice can't be served through our system, then someone needs to protect our children.
Emma and I hung around in the spare bedroom for a few hours while she organised her clothes and Aiden worked upstairs. We had plans to go to the grocery store in the mid afternoon. I knew what I would be cooking tonight and there were things that we needed. But in the mean time, Emma told me all about her life at a prep school. The gossip. The snobs in short skirts. The douchebags in denim jackets. The sports cars. The pecking order that put the number of zeros in your bank account on some sort of unofficial rank that determined where in the hierarchy you sat. The hours of homework that kept her up at all hours of the night.
Exhaustion didn't seem to concern the teachers but they did expect the students to be at peak performance during school hours. It seemed impossible to keep the balance; so Emma said. She couldn't understand how she was meant to spend that amount of time on her homework and still focus on a whiteboard and the tireless droning of her teachers after getting four hours of sleep.
Once she became more comfortable, she didn't stop talking. She was quick with her speech. Words rolled off her tongue as fast as water pouring from a faucet. Listening was nice though. I was never offered much of a chance to get a word in but that didn't bother me. She had a lot to get off her chest it would seem. The closet grew — along with her confidence — with all of her new belongings and soon the coat hangers were adorned with beautiful dresses, hoodies, jackets. The shoe shelves were lined with heels, high tops and runners. The drawers were filled to the brim with jeans and tops.
At around three in the afternoon, Aiden came downstairs while I was showing Emma how to use the television. He looked perfect in a denim jacket over a maroon hoodie. His black jeans were a flattering fit and his hair sat disheveled but styled. The sound of Dwayne Johnson's voice echoed from the surround sound as Emma settled into the couch with the remote in her hand. Central intelligence was a good movie. Or so I thought. I'd started it some time ago but never finished it. Still, it didn't hold a lot of interest to me at the moment. Aiden looked perfect, as usual, and I glanced down, deciding that I needed to change.
"I'll be right ba—"
"You look beautiful."
My hand rested on the back of the sofa. I paused and glanced over at the kitchen where Zoerina and Po were whizzing up protein shakes. Emma was over on the other couch beside the window, her focus fixed on the movie while she chewed on her nails. Apparently the earth wasn't trembling as it so often felt after he delivered these compliments. This morning, I hadn't put a lot of thought into my outfit. We were just going to the hotel to see Emma. But out in public, I wanted to look worthy beside Aiden. My skinny jeans and thin jumper just didn't seem like enough.
"Oh, thanks," I said to Aiden, feeling embarrassed because he could tell. It was clear that he could see what I had been doing. Perhaps he knew why. "I was just about to change. Do we have time?"
"Yeah of course," he smiled. "You do look beautiful though."
I was being stupid.
"We should just go," I said. "Dinner might take a while tonight."
"You still haven't told me what we're having," Aiden raised a brow and laced our fingers together as we wandered into the tiled foyer. He pressed the elevator button, his grinning reflection disappeared as the doors opened. "You enjoy keeping us all in suspense huh?"
"I'm doing a lentil salad with vegan risotto. Leek and potatoe soup. Roasted vegetables. And deep fried Camembert. Plus a little slab of medium rare steak because I know that you love it."
"Just for me?" He questioned.
"Mhmm," I nodded. "Well I wanted to do a vegetarian meal since Hunapo will be with us tonight. Steak is an easy addition though."
He pressed a kiss on my tender cheek.
When we arrived at the supermarket, Aiden grabbed a cart from the row and we walked through to the air conditioned store. The vegetables and fresh produce were the immediate aisle upon arrival and due to the fact that it was a vegetarian meal, I knew that this would be an important area to pay attention in. I didn't have a list. Even when I wrote them, I rarely paid attention to the items on the paper. I worked from memory. By sight. In the past, shopping trips had been done alone, so I could focus on the shelves. What I needed popped out at me.
But Aiden was a distraction all of his own. Last time we'd shopped together, the recipe was one that I'd done a million times. This wasn't a hard meal. There were just a lot of elements to it. Aiden seemed to understand that I needed to concentrate though. He followed along behind with the cart. Occasionally he added his own items. Dishwasher tablets. Toothpaste. Protein bars. Hand soap. Wine. Soda. Crackers. Almonds. Fruit.
The frozen aisle was quiet while I browsed through the ice cream selection. Aiden loved salted caramel. He told me that one evening that we spent together on the rooftop garden beside work. 'It's just a good combination. Like sweet and salty. It works well. You don't think?' I didn't. My palate was developed. There wasn't a lot that I didn't like or wasn't willing to taste. But salted caramel just didn't do it for me.
I placed the salted caramel in the cart and caught Aiden putting the peaches and cream in as well. We gave each other a cunning grin before an unwanted disgruntled voice interrupted our moment.
"Couldn't even wait until he was cold, huh?"
I turned around and became colder than the freezer beside me when I saw Don - Desmond's co worker - in a suit far too flash for a grocery store run. His chin draped over his collar and the buttons pulled tight against his round stomach. Behind him, his wife lingered in a black bandage dress. Her fried salon blonde hair was hidden underneath a wide black hat.
He scoffed. "How can you look at yourself in the mirror? We buried him this morning. Your husband," he pointed a fat finger at me. "You should be behind bars. It's fucking obvious that you wanted to get him out of the picture to run off with this kid."
Words, too many of them to organise into a coherent sentence, crowded on the tip of my tongue. It was about to spill and it would have been as frantic as I felt. But Aiden stepped in front of me. His broad shoulders were staunch and he was so fierce. So frightening as he slipped his hands into his pockets.
"I would suggest," he spoke low and with a tone that was so calm that it was chilling. "That you stop talking. You leave. And you never open your mouth in her presence again."
Don raised his head as if he wasn't intimidated. But his chin wobbled as he took a not so subtle step back. "You can't tal—"
"You have no idea what I can do."
His wife wrapped her hand around his bicep and tugged him backwards. "Come on," she murmured. "We don't want a scene in here. Let's go."
I couldn't see Aiden's face. But it must have been hard to misinterpret his threats as a bluff because Don's wife was pale as she pulled on her husband. He shot Aiden one last scowl and then turned around, leaving while Aiden continued to watch them until the aisle was clear.
As soon as he turned to me, his expression was soft, it was concerned and he stepped forward and cupped the nape of my neck.
"He's in the ground," I murmured. "They— they gave him a — a funeral?"
It made sense. He was loved. Adored. People thought that he was wonderful.
"They saw what he wanted them to. It doesn't change the truth. We know the truth."
"Do you think Cameron knew. This morning when he visited? Do you think that he knew about the funeral?"
Aiden winced and nodded.
"You did as well?"
He nodded again. "I was going to talk to you about it tonight."
"It's alright. I should have known. I suppose a lawyer will be in touch soon? Surely. I have no idea what was in his will. But it must be something. I probably need to sell the apartment— once it doesn't look like a horror scene— I hav—"
"Let's go on a vacation."
I stared up at Aiden with confusion, my lips still parted from being cut off mid sentence. "What?"
"Let's get out of town for a bit," his thumb rubbed gentle circles on the underside of my jaw. "Just the two of us. Breathe some clean air. Clear our thoughts. I haven't had a vacation in forever."
"I mean. . . can we?"
"Of course," he nodded. "You have time off work. I'm the boss. It's a good time. Let me get you out of town for a bit."
"What about Emma?"
"Zoerina is a good babysitter when she's getting paid enough," he rolled his eyes with amusement. "Emma will be fine at the apartment for a week or two. The building has a pool, games room, gym and golf course. She'll be set."
"You think a fifteen year old wants to play golf."
Aiden sighed with a small smile. "Ari, do you want to get out of town for a bit?"
I began to nod. "Yeah. I really would."