Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(13)
CHAPTER TWO
Leo
Panic (noun): unpleasant chemical reaction triggered by falling off the top of the food chain.
The SilentWitn3ss main control room is smaller than the news room—more compact, I suppose, and quieter. I have a desk up on a platform in the far corner, where I can flick through the new clips at my leisure and watch over the team at their workstations.
This morning, however, all my attention is focused on a particular feed: Aeron, waiting at JFK to greet Ash and Ethan as they arrive back from their ski holiday. He came into frame a moment ago and waits on a metal bench; Harvey is a few feet into the background. They’re dressed casually, both handsome and healthy and fresh. Two normal guys amid a sea of hurried travelers. Ha.
My hand keeps shaking around my coffee, and it’s not because of caffeine.
SilentWitn3ss was always my baby. I knew when I sold it to Aeron that he wasn’t fond of sharing, but there are ways around that, of course. So I manage it my way—for the most part—and then he uses it here and there, as he needs to. There’s the arrangement with Detective Posner, and then there are days like this when we cheat a bit. Stage a clip. Meet my lovely boyfriend: he deliberately puts his little brother on the same flight as an NFL player in the midst of a rape scandal, just so they can all be caught in the same shot. Our operative is, ahem, a fan hoping for a glimpse of his fallen hero; Aeron just happens to be there in the background, ready to greet little Ash like any other doting brother-slash-father-figure-slash-regular-guy.
Sure, fifty percent of the viewing public don’t buy this crap. One too many brain cells and it doesn’t compute. But the other fifty—the kind who watch animals being cute on YouTube, and who believe what they read in the National Enquirer—they’re enough. When it comes to scandal, if you want herd immunity, well…you have to start with the sheep. We don’t get a lot of real news on SilentWitn3ss, not unless some proper vigilante stuff goes down. Most of it is celebrity sightings-slash-stalkings, personal dramas, and stupid cats stuck in trees, amid the revenge porn feeds we’re constantly shutting down. But what we do get is enough to keep our sponsors happy. Enough to keep Aeron happy. And that, for now, is good enough for me. He needs all the good press he can get.
So here I am watching Harvey, who is watching Aeron, who is watching Arrivals for Ash. Technology’s amazing, isn’t it? Or creepy, depending on what your opinion is. The window shakes slightly as our operative, who wears the camera attachment just behind his ear, turns away; he already told the viewers about the NFL player, so he can’t be too obvious. It’s nice work. We have a whole team responsible for pinning top pick clips to the front page, and this one’s currently the main feature.
I put my coffee down, slide my trembling hand along the desk, and find my phone. It takes longer than usual to type out a message; I keep hitting the wrong keys. I spy big brother on Big Brother x
Onscreen, Aeron comes back into the corner of the frame. He shifts to slip his own phone out, reads the message, then his face alights with the smallest of smiles. For a second, I’m thrown back to another time when I studied that smile on a computer screen and nerves clawed through my insides; now I shudder with softer adrenaline, the kind that makes me tighter in places I keep just for him. I’ve spent so many years being afraid of beautiful things.
Oh, I am owned. But then I always was. If I sound resigned to my fate, thank God for that—it’s been a long time coming. And even cages grow comfortable if you can reach through the bars.
My phone vibrates with Aeron’s response.
I’m ready for my close up xx
He always is. Aeron Lore views the world through a microscope with a scarlet lens; he sees everyone and everything in painful detail, each analyzed to identify his own personal advantage. In his line of vision, your faults light up like tumors on an MRI; if you’re lucky, he can use them, and you’ll get his special brand of chemotherapy. Either you take it or resign yourself to rot. It will make you sick, of course. But you’ll survive.
Or if you’re like me, he’ll become a surgeon with a magic knife, as if he can somehow bleed the faults out. And you become his drug. His superpower, his weakness, his immaculate vice. Fun and games, little children.
Don’t be like me when you grow up.
My fingers still shake, my knuckles clanking painfully together. Christ.
The office phone on my desk buzzes. Without looking down, I hit the acceptance button, nearly sending my coffee flying as a secretary’s mild voice crackles through.
“Shit,” I mutter, catching the cup just in time.
The secretary clears her throat in a rush of static. “Miss Reeves? Your ten o’clock is here.”
“Ask her to wait outside my office. I won’t be long.”
“Of course.”
Onscreen, the camera falters again; a young woman brushes past the operative, her haze of red hair obscuring the view for vague seconds. Then she passes, and Aeron comes back into sight, getting to his feet as the loudspeaker announces arrivals from Flight 894, Burlington International, and a steady stream of passengers spills through into the lounge.
Look at this man on the monitor right here, all warm brown eyes and nonchalant grace as he kneels to welcome Ash, his sandy-haired mini-me. Ash practically catapults himself into Aeron’s arms, his green Moshi Monsters cap knocked sideways at an oh-so-cute angle. Now they’re high-fiving. Grinning at each other like loons. The headlines just write themselves, huh? Ethan, Ash’s nice boy nanny, traipses behind wearing a green t-shirt that proclaims I’m kind of a big deal. Comments are already pouring in beneath the live stream, gushing and ignorant and poorly spelled. Perfect.