Page 34 of Five

Like old times. I’d give anything for one careless afternoon filled with old times.

“I’d love that, Rory. Really. Maybe not here,” I say, forcing a smile as I nod my head towards the city pool. “But we could go out to your house for a swim.”

“Perfect,” she says. All her worries fade. I do that to her. It’s me who completes her world. Who keeps her safe. Who makes her happy.

And that’s why I need to tell her the truth.

“But first,” I say, putting my burrito down and turning to take her hand, “I need to show you something.”

“What?” she asks, her smile gone now.

I hate to do it. I really do. But she’s involved. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s involved. And I respect her too much to throw away all the things she’s capable of just for the sake of ego. So I have to.

“My house.”

She smiles again. “Like… your bedroom?” She waggles her eyebrows at me, like I’m hinting at an afternoon romp in the sack.

“No,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Not that. The secrets we keep in that house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come with me.”

She bites her lip all the way across the street, up my driveway, and then looks at me as I stand in front of our garage, my hand on the keypad, punching in the access numbers.

“You have a car in here or something?” She’s hopeful.

And I’d love to give her what she wants. But I can’t. “No, Rory. My dad’s office.”

“Your dad’s office is in the house. You guys built it during the remodel when we were kids.”

“Yeah, that’s one of them. But in here,” I say, turning the handle on the door after the code gives me permission, “in here is his real office.”

She’s been in our garage lots of times. My dad keeps a ’64 GTO and a ’69 Triumph in here. For cover. Not because he likes them or even drives them. They’re just props to explain why we have a state-of-the-art, military-grade security system on our garage.

Rory looks around, sees what everyone sees—cars, tools, things her dad also has in a much larger quantity—then looks back at me with expectation.

“This way,” I say, walking to the back of the garage. There’s a big red toolbox on wheels that slides like it weighs nothing instead of well over a thousand pounds. And underneath the toolbox is a black rubber mat. I pick up the mat to reveal a door. And when I look at Rory, she says, “Oh. Shit.”

Oh, shit is right. Because when I open the door and flip a switch, the light comes on to reveal steep, concrete steps leading down into the ground.

“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

“I wish I could, Princess. But you gotta know. Want me to go first?”

She swallows hard and nods.

So I lead, and she follows, and the whole way down into the secret dungeon-like hole under our garage that my dad calls an office, I’m thinking…This is a very bad idea Five Aston. Maybe the worst idea you’ve ever had. Spencer Shrike didn’t tell her for a reason. It’s not your secret to reveal. It’s none of your business.

And if that’s all this was—me revealing a secret—then fine. I’d blow it off and never bring her down here. But that’s not all this is.

Something is happening and my princess needs to know the truth before we fuck things up or someone gets hurt.

Ford’s office never really shuts down. He never turns the computers off. So when we get to the bottom step, there are sixteen monitors lit up on the far side of the room casting an eerie glow and making things more mysterious and shadowy than they need to be.

“What the fuck is all this?” Rory asks. Her tone is slightly incredulous. Like this is weird, but it’s Ford’s office, and we all know how weird Ford is, so is it really that weird?

Kinda like that.