Chapter 59 The Golden Cage
Aria POV
I stood in the middle of the kitchen while Grayson checked the locks on the heavy front door and the service entrance, and the only sound in the apartment was the hum of the refrigerator kicking back to life after being off for months.
The place was massive and empty, and since Grayson didn't want to turn on the overhead lights for fear of being seen from the street, we were moving around in a dim, grey twilight that made everything feel even more lonely. I walked over to the pantry and opened the door, finding nothing but a few rows of canned soup and some dried pasta that looked like it had been sitting there since the building was constructed, so the fact hit me that we weren't going to be eating anything fresh for a while.
"I think the seals on the windows are tight enough to keep the heat in, but don't go near the glass with a flashlight or your phone screen turned on," Grayson warned, and he walked back into the room while he wiped a layer of dust off his hands onto his dark jeans.
"I'm not going to do anything that gets us caught, Grayson, because I'm just trying to find something to eat that doesn't taste like metal and preservatives," I told him, and I pulled out a can of tomato soup and a box of crackers that was slightly crushed.
"Is there even any water in the pipes, or are we supposed to just sit here in the dark and wait for the Syndicate to get bored and go home?"
"The water is on a separate tank system for this floor, so you can take a shower if you want, but keep it quick because I don't want the heater running longer than it has to," he replied, and he sat down at the marble island with a heavy sigh that told me he was finally starting to feel the weight of the day.
I grabbed a pot from under the sink and started rinsing it out, and the noise of the water hitting the metal felt incredibly loud in the silence of the penthouse.
"This feels like a prison, even if it's a nice one, and I don't know how long I can stay trapped in here while I know Nana is probably worried sick back at the clubhouse."
"Martha will take care of her, and Jax is monitoring their communications, so if anything actually goes wrong, he'll find a way to signal us through the emergency frequency," Grayson said, but he didn't look at me while he spoke, instead he just stared at the blank screen of his phone as if he was waiting for it to explode with bad news.
"But you're the Alpha, and your pack is currently being torn apart by your sister and a traitor like Jess, so shouldn't you be doing something other than sitting in a dusty kitchen with a baker?" I asked, and I turned the stove on to start heating the soup, while I watched the blue flame flicker under the pot.
"I am doing something, Aria, I'm staying alive so I can keep you alive, because if I go back there right now without a plan, I'll just be walking into a trap that Delilah has been setting for years," he explained, and his voice sounded tired and flat, which was a version of him that I still wasn't used to seeing.
"The Hart family has always been about power and control, and my sister thinks that by cutting me off from the board, she can force me to crawl back and beg for her forgiveness, so the best thing I can do is stay hidden and let her think she’s already won."
"So we just wait? That’s the plan?" I asked, and I started stirring the soup while the smell of tomatoes began to fill the small space.
"We wait, and we stay quiet, and we try to remember that we’re the only two people in this city who actually know the truth about what happened at Apex," he said, and he finally looked up at me with an expression that was hard to read in the shadows.
I didn't have anything else to say to that, so I just focused on the cooking, and for a few minutes, the only sound was the clinking of the spoon against the side of the pot.
I found two bowls in a cupboard and poured the soup out, and then I sat down across from him and pushed one of the bowls toward his side of the island. We ate in silence, and I kept thinking about how weird it was that I was sitting in a multi-million dollar apartment eating canned soup with a man who was essentially the king of the city's underworld.
"You didn't have to choose me over the company, Grayson, and I know that everyone back at the clubhouse is going to hate me for being the reason you lost your seat on the board," I said, breaking the silence because the quiet was starting to make my head hurt.
"I didn't do it for the company, and I didn't do it for them, I did it because I was tired of watching people like Jess and my sister treat everyone else like they were just pieces on a board," he replied, and he pushed his empty bowl away before standing up to look out the window through a small gap in the curtains.
"Besides, I think I’m a better outlaw than I ever was a CEO, so don't go wasting your time feeling guilty about a life I was already starting to hate."
I watched him stand there, and the truth became clear that he was just as trapped in this life as I was, and even though we were surrounded by luxury, we were both just two people running from a fire that hadn't gone out yet.