Chapter Fourteen - Five
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I call out. But I’m talking to orange-red tail lights through a hazy cloud of dust as she steals my rental car and leaves me out at her family farm. Abandoned.
I trudge down the driveway in the dark. Princess Shrike was a lot easier to manage when she was six, that’s for sure. There’s a little bit of moon out tonight, so at least I’m not gonna trip over something random and break my neck.
Still. I sigh. This trip wasn’t supposed to be this way. None of this shit was supposed to happen. Just a quick pop into Denver, then back on the plane to London so I could get back to business.
When I get to the edge of the driveway, I stop at the gate. The Shrikes almost never close this old thing. It’s tall, and metal, and has electricity hooked up via solar. Spencer Shrike is a pragmatist. Anyone with a truck can blow through his gate. So they stopped using it a long time ago. It only acts as an alert system now. Motion sensors set off the security system when you go through it. I disabled that this morning using the app.
But what he didn’t do… is unhook the solar. And the solar power controls the app that operates the motion sensors. And where there’s an app… I allow a devious grin build on my face… there’s a way inside.
If your name is Five Aston, that is.
My father is a freak of a genius, much more so than me. But my father learned most of his skills before the apps got really sophisticated. I’ve been building them practically since I was born. I know my way around everything you can think of. Dating sites, restaurant guides, email, video conferencing, music players, corporate log-ins. You name it, I’ve corrupted it to my advantage. I have back doors in more than ten thousand seemingly harmless applications.
But I also have my finger on the pulse of banks. Governments. Media. Hospitals.
Yeah. That makes me a little scary to some people. People like those men down in Denver last night. They know what I’m really capable of. No one but me knows that. Not even my father knows that. Not even my grandfather knows that. But these people can take a good guess. They want me and if they can’t have me… well, I’m sure they’re thinking the world is better off without a Five Aston if they can’t control him.
I’m thinking they’re a little crazy.
I feel my way through a hydrangea bush until I find the mounting apparatus for the gate electronics system. Then I pick up a rock, smash it against the little plastic clips that hold the top panel on it, pull out my phone and the little white charger cord from my pocket, and hook myself up.
My fingers fly across my screen, typing in commands until a bright blue screen appears with the words ‘Shrike Family.’
Take that, Spencer.
I maneuver my way through, clicking off the cameras I want disabled, then close everything back up and make my way back to the house.
If I’m stuck out here, well… I might as well make the most of it. I have the front door camera on a timer to black out when it senses my approach, then turn back on nine seconds later. So I gotta hustle. Spencer’s trigger is ten seconds of downtime. Sometimes this place gets severe power fluctuations during storms, so he’s learned to let that ten seconds slide and avoid a string of needless alarms.
No one but him knows that. Well, except me.
I grin again.
But I’m not supposed to know.
He doesn’t know me at all if he thinks I didn’t hack every single system he’s got running out here. Back when I was ten.
My grin turns into a guffaw as I make my way towards the house. The camera mounted on the roof blinks, then shuts off. And I start running. I hit the door four seconds later, punch in the entry code, and make my way in with one second to spare. Inside, this whole scenario repeats. It feels a little bit like playing Mission: Impossible, except there’s no cool red laser lights for added visual.
Twenty seconds later I’m on the stairs.
There are no cameras in the bedrooms. Outside every window, trained on every low-hanging tree limb, on the top of the porch where I once met the princess to stargaze when we were kids… yes. All those places. Just in case anyone was gonna get any funny ideas about sneaking in for some middle-of-the-night fun.
Spencer Shrike is looking at you, Five Aston.
Her bedroom door is open. It’s got a pink crown painted on it that says ‘Princess Rory’ in sparkly glitter. I shine my phone on it to get that sparkle effect before I enter.
I made that for her when I was eleven. She put it on her door and never took it down.
Even when you abandoned her.
I didn’t abandon her, for fuck’s sake. It was the best choice at the time.
At least that’s what I told myself. But this trip home is making me second-guess all those choices now.
I walk in the room and take it in. My princess has a room fit for a princess. Ronnie painted up her room in a whimsical fairy-tale theme, long time ago. She did this for all her girls. Even Sparrow and Starling got painted murals, only their rooms were all birds and cherry trees. Even Kate and my little sister got painted rooms.
Rory’s bed is a modern take on a traditional white canopy, complete with white netting over the top and the fluffiest pink down comforter you can imagine.
I flop down on the bed and look up at the little foil stars I made her when I was eight.
And smile.
She never took them down either. They are all swaying from my flop. Stray bits of light leaking in from outside make them sparkle. They used to have glitter. And back when we were kids, they’d sparkle like a motherfucker. But I think most of that glitter has fallen off by now.
Still, they’re like stage props. Up close they look their age. They look like they’ve been used a thousand times before. Like they are a thousand years old. But from far away, they are whimsical and perfect.
I’ve been up here plenty of times, even though Spencer did his best to keep me away. He’s not a dumb guy. Not at all. He’s kind of a genius in his own right.
But come on. I’m Five Aston.
Once I get a thing in my head, there’s just no stopping me. He should know that by now.
My first unauthorized visit to her bedroom, I was seven. My family was here for the annual Fourth of July party. Everyone was here. Even my oldest sister, Sasha, came. And that crazy motherfucker Merc. And insane Uncle James.
How did Rory grow up so innocent and sweet when all the family assassins dropped by for the holidays on a regular basis? I mean, I figured that shit out pretty early.
Of course, I hacked into my dad’s first secret office in the house by the time I was six. And she… well, the first word that comes to mind when I think of my little princess is… sweet. Then comes trusting. And, if I’m being honest right now, a little bit naive.
Anyway, that first visit I came in through the window. Hence the need for tree limb and rooftop cameras.
But Jesus Christ, it was a great night.
All the adults were a little tipsy by the time it was dark enough for fireworks. My dad has a thing for explosives, so Fourth of July was the perfect opportunity to put his skills to use. He and Spencer would be busy for weeks planning beforehand. And we’d sit out on the lawn and watch. Back then Rory’s little sisters were a handful for Spencer and Ronnie. Too young to take your eye off them. And Sparrow wasn’t invited into the Kate and Rory Club yet. She was glued to her mother at the time.
But Kate has been my partner in Princess crime since the very beginning. She’d help me out in all kinds of ways. They were up here in Rory’s bedroom putting on princess costumes before the show. She knew I was coming and excused herself for the bathroom so I could have some alone time with Rory.
I came in through the open window, wearing my little kid version of a suit—dark blue shorts and a white polo. Kate nixed the tie before we left home, but I still think it would’ve been a nice touch. She said I looked like I was going to school, not a summer party. So I relented. But she was wrong. Our school uniform was blue pants with a green polo. Totally different.
“Hey,” I remember saying. “What’re you doing, Princess?”
She stared up at me with those wide blue eyes and smiled. “My dad is going to shoot you if he sees you coming in my window.”
I shrugged it off because even though Spencer Shrike is kinda scary when you’re seven, he’s still not gonna really shoot a kid. Especially one with the last name Aston.
“I wanted to see if you’d like to watch the fireworks with me.”
“Of course.” She giggled. “I always watch the fireworks with you, Five.”
“No,” I said. “I mean, out there.” And I hiked my thumb over my shoulder, pointing to the roof.
She gave me a sidelong look that was so adorable, I just wanted to take her hand and squeeze it.
And that’s how we spent that night. Watching our fathers put on a show that was good enough to be a city production. Those bursting red sparks high in the sky were a metaphor for my heart. She made it explode with love.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say to the aged tin-foil stars dangling above my head. “I just meant…” But fuck it. I can’t even tell her what I meant. Because if she knew what kind of a guy I really was, she’d probably walk away from me and never look back. She’d choose some dumbass like Cliff Middleton instead of me. And then I’d have to watch her. I’d be forced to watch her go through all those milestones meant for us. Engagement. Marriage. Honeymoon. First house. Pregnancy. Children.
I’ll miss out on all of that if I don’t find a way out of this mess. If I don’t keep all those secrets hidden. If I can’t keep her from finding out why I really walked away six years ago and never came back.
It makes me feel very alone in this moment. Not even Kate knows what I did back then. Not even my dad knows, and I have never kept secrets from him. Not even when I made my first million off an app when I was fourteen. An unauthorized app. Illegal, if you want to get technical.
But by that time, it was too late, wasn’t it? I was in deep by then. Way too deep to just turn it all off and choose another path.
I take out my phone and find the app I gave Rory for Christmas the year I left for Oxford. Love Notes, it’s called. It’s filled with all kinds of pre-written nerdy teenage boy love declarations.
But it also had a special feature on my administrator version. A camera add-on that I never sent to her because it would’ve given me secret access to everything on her phone. And even though I’m a devious little fucker on the best of days, I couldn’t spy on her like that.
I press the tab that will turn my camera feature on in my app, and then smile. “Princess,” I say. “Can you guess where I am?” I pan the phone around so she can see everything. Her canopy with dangling stars. Her window, lit up by the moon outside. And then I focus back on me and my frown.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For everything. And I know you don’t have any idea at all what I’m sorry about, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna find out soon. So I’m saying it first. Because I mean it, Rory. I’m fucking sorry I got us mixed up in all this bullshit. I’m sorry about walking away six years ago. I’m sorry…” I stop and sigh. “I’m sorry for coming back. Because it’s not fair. Not to you or my family. To your family. And you deserve better than me, ya know? You deserve a guy who will put you first and I’m… I’m afraid I haven’t done that. I fucked up, Ror. Bad. And it’s all catching up with me. I’m gonna get caught. I’m gonna have to pay for all of it eventually and I’m afraid that…”
I stare at the phone for several long, silent seconds.
“I’m afraid I just fucked up, Princess.” I sigh again. “I really fucked this shit up and I’m sorry.”
I press the stop tab and cut the recording short. And then my finger hovers over the delete option. I should delete it. If I get caught with this, they’ll use it against me. This little virtual heart-to-heart could be my downfall.
But just as I’m about to delete it, I see another icon at the bottom of my screen. An icon I haven’t seen in—hell, since I was ten. One of the apps I built. I vaguely recall telling my sister Sasha it would “change death as we know it.”
It came out a little morbid at the time, but it’s not morbid. I was just… well, I laugh. Then just admit it. I was kind of a morbid kid.
My phone must’ve assumed I’d be interested in that old app since I just pulled up Love Notes.
But I’m not interested in the death app right now. I’m wavering on if I should send this video to my princess. Make her stop, take a breath, and give me a second chance to make things right.
Will this make it right? Or will this make it worse?
I just don’t know. I can calculate all the probabilities in my head. But it’s too close to fifty-fifty to give me a solid projection.
“Love,” I say out loud to the tin-foil stars, “is not a calculation, Five Aston. Love is a leap of faith.”
I’m not real good at faith.
But I am good at taking risks. So I inhale the deepest breath I can and… press send.
There. It’s done.
Princess Shrike is gonna get that video confession when she opens Love Notes.
“Fuck!” I yell to the canopy of dangling stars. “I fucking forgot Cliff Middleton has her phone!”
How could I be so stupid?
Is this what love does? Makes people stupid? It has to be, because I might’ve just fucked up everything. I just sent an admissible confession to my enemy!
He’s gonna tell her. He’s gonna tell her everything he can think of so he can take her away from me. He’s gonna tell her I’m not who she thinks I am. That I am a bad guy. One of the worst bad guys in the entire world.
That I am, and have always been, a fucking criminal.