rhys kinlan ; steals hearts (stealhearts) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-08-26 12:42:00 |
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She had been sitting at Miles’ desk in his quarters, eyes glued against the screen. Responses to her messages were flooding in, though nothing indicated what might have gotten him locked away (certainly must have been theft related). His cover blown, Audrey was already beginning to weave her own escape, claiming she hadn’t known her husband was living a double life. It seemed to work and it also helped that her distraught feelings were genuine. The room was disheveled. Clothes thrown across as though a hurricane had swept through, picking up valuable information and discarding everything else away. In his mess, she set the communicator down resting her forehead against her palms as she let out a deep exhale. Rhys hadn't bothered to wait for an invitation. He'd dropped everything. His best friend was locked away. They'd raided his assistant's house. He probably should've skipped town. That's what Miles would have done. Melded into the shadows and set himself as far apart from him as possible, but Rhys wasn't Miles. And Audrey was still his assistant. He could say he knew the other man, true. He could say that he had a tie to Audrey in the way that she had formerly been his show assistant, which was also true. He was trying to work this all out in his head, while also attempting to figure out how he'd be getting his best partner-in-crime out of his current predicament. Best place to look for clues was where the EKP had started. Now that he'd arrived, coming in through the front door as he had so many times before, he could see what havoc they'd wrought. They didn't know Miles like he did. Then again, Miles probably hadn't left anything, but it was a good a reason as any to go see Audrey after all this time. It had been a long time too. She also sounded distressed. "You feelin' okay?" he said without so much as a knock. He probably should’ve knocked. Audrey had jumped out of her chair at the voice. She supposed Ms. Han had gotten accustomed to seeing Rhys, she had just let him through. Swiveling around on the chair, she turned to face him a bit in a daze. “Yeah,” it was empty. She wasn’t sure how to feel exactly. In just the past month their lies had been crumbling against them. This certainly had to be rock bottom. What was there left to lie about? “You?” was all she could respond. How long had it been since she had last seen Rhys—she had met with Gerard plenty of times, but not Rhys. Despite how angry she had been with him, the comfort of seeing her friend outweighed it entirely. Rhys' hands came to rest on Audrey's shoulders to steady her. He couldn't remember the last time he touched her either. The last time he'd seen her, he'd stood a respectful distance from her and she got flustered and left after his cold act. He couldn't magically warm up to her in a room full of people he'd just given the third degree. "Hey," he said in a soothing voice. It was the same one he'd been using on his child hours before to put it to sleep. While Chloë had been a godsend, she wasn't constantly there. She hadn't moved in or anything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. He flipped it open and a few pictures flapped out. "I got a kid." Sure, the moment should've been more about her, but he was looking to knock her out of whatever her mindset was. A distraction. "His name is Zevran. Mother skipped town and dropped him on my doorstep. You should come see him sometime." That done, he closed the wallet and put it back in his pocket before shifting gears again. "I brought you cake." It wasn't going to fix anything, but she liked cake. She seemed to relax at his touch, shoulders slouching and no longer tense. His voice was soft and soothing, feeling maybe just a little less stressed. All this work was reversed with one simple action. Her eyes widened as she looked at the photos, not believing the words that slipped out of his mouth. "Y-you.. you—!" Audrey pressed her back against the chair, bumping against the desk. "You have a kid?! Since?? How long have we not—what??" The cake hadn't even registered. Everything was working out perfectly. She'd shifted from one crisis to what was starting to look like another. Maybe revealing the child so quickly wasn't the best idea. He thought it'd be like ripping off a band-aid, but that's not how it went. She'd completely zeroed in on it. "Uh, late last month? Like I said, his mom dropped him off on my doorstep... Chloë took him to Vivi's crazy engagement party. With the silly hats." He was not surprised, considering the fact that it was Reinholdt. One day he'd find that man not being so ridiculous. One day. Maybe. "Cake?" He tried again, raising it to her eye level. “Last month? And you didn’t say anything?” Audrey closed her eyes, fingers pressing and rubbing at her temples as though this would somehow calm the shock of the situation. Her eyes picked up, finding the cake in her face. “I need wine.” "I was busy. You were busy. Nothing really to say to anybody. Hadn't even settled the kid in yet, but we're here to talk about your husband and what he's done. You need to tell me what they said exactly." He'd put the cake down and walked around to the bar on the side of the room. The decanter had been moved, but the amber liquid was still inside. He poured her a straight scotch. "This is better for the situation," he said ushering the glass into her hands. He helped himself to a swig from the bottle itself, but not enough to intoxicate, just relax. Audrey grabbed the glass greedily, quickly sipping away at the liquid. Sitting back, she set the glass on the desk, trying to go through the motions of the day. “They broke in, warrant in hand, demanding to look through Miles’ belongings. I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about or who they were talking about.” Audrey shook her head. “I couldn’t really stop them. They went through the room, looking for something. I don’t know what. Evidence?” she looked back up at Rhys as though hoping he’d answer some questions. There was a mountain of things that Miles could have been convicted of, and they'd both participated in both of those things. Some people would notice Audrey from the Sapphire house, but she'd always been smart about keeping her face covered when doing anything less than legal. His brain was firing in a ton of different directions. "You didn't have anything that would implicate you in any sort of shady dealings, do you? If so, we should move them out of your house now." Even as he spoke, he looked around the room for any sign of a hiding place Miles might have employed. He'd gone and gotten himself caught. He didn't understand how that happened. He usually worked with a solid group of people. Usually he worked with his girls and sometimes with Rhys' girls, but here was Audrey completely clueless. And he'd looked over the answers from Ari who was also clueless. This didn't add up. Audrey shook her head. “Well, I do, but—” He was right. It would be best to move the paperwork out of her home and into a Thieves’ Guild safehouse. Once this blew over she could regain her father’s conspicuous paperwork. “It’s in another room.” Standing up, she finished the glass. As she was about to reach for the decanter, her network device rung. Her hands clumsily set the glass down, reading the message as quickly as possible. “Aisling got back to me,” the blonde frowned eyes not reaching the thief, “She says he got caught robbing the treasury.” “Excuse me?” Audrey shrugged unable to provide him any other information. “She says he was caught in a heist. Maybe he went with others. Ari doesn’t seem to know anything about it, neither does Damia. None of the merry women knew and Miles never works alone. Do you know anyone else he could have possibly worked with? What about when he isn’t in Emillion?” Audrey had begun pacing, pushing aside clothes or broken items with her foot to prevent herself from tripping. “The treasury? What the fuck was he thinking? You can’t rob from the king.” Walking back to the chair, she sat down digging her face into her hands. “I’ll probably be suspect for accessory. I need to clean myself but doing that will only throw him under the carriage. I’ve already told the EKP that I don’t know of any Miles. Fraud would be the best bet, but I don’t want to turn my back on him.” There were some truths that were harsher than others. "He'd turn his back on you in a heartbeat." It wasn't anything personal, it was just how they were wired. As long as Rhys wasn't going to get in trouble, he'd help her out. The moment he got implicated was the moment he skipped town. "Didn't work with you ladies. He didn't work with us guys either. I don't know if he works with anyone else. I wouldn't see why." "The fucking treasury." He knew the man was good, but that was a big risk to run alone. "He's going to hang. Might as well get your widow's black ready. Mourn Basil for about six months and claim that you had nothing but love and respect for the man you were married pretended to be or something. They always go soft on the women." But Audrey had the worst pokerface and the biggest over reactions and the worst way with words ever. "Does anyone else know about your...arrangement? Anyone not in the circle?" “Hang?” She just about lost it. Clutching her hands in fists, she pounded them against the thief’s chest. “It’s petty theft, he didn’t try to fucking kill anybody.” “Treason, Aud. Theft from the king is an act of treason, which is punishable by death.” She had tried to voice something, anything. Instead she slumped on the floor. “He’s going to die?” It wasn’t a question as much as a realization of how grave the situation really was. "That is the likely sentence," he said darkly, far too smoothly. Far too acceptingly. He was still confused. There were bragging rights in success and possible infamy throughout the ages if he pulled it off and moved to another city, but there had been no success. "Where's your sister?" “I don’t know,” she shook her head. “She’s been gone for two weeks. She walked into an argument Miles and I were having and we stumbled over our lies. I told her the truth. Besides the people that we know, she’s the only outsider to know Miles’ real identity, or rather Basil’s.” "Oh." That was something to be tucked away for later. Considering her sister was in the fighter's guild, he made a note to avoid her. She was so polite and composed, the exact opposite of her sister...he didn't want to be there to experience any sort of emotions she might be suppressing beneath the surface. "I thought you guys told her when you started?" He hadn't been told not to mention it to her. He'd just been going along with the flow, a pure character actor, slipping into Gerard once the costume was on. “I thought it would be best not to, clearly it wasn’t.” “On the bright side, this means Chloë can stop bleeding me dry of jewelry,” he muttered mostly to myself. “Wait, what do you mean? You gave her the shinies?” “You didn’t see her wearing them whenever she was escorting Gerard to all the fancy parties?” He was clearly surprised. “But,” she looked absolutely distraught. “But you married my best friend.” Audrey fell silent for a minute, pulling her legs against her chest. “I’m sorry.” "No, it made sense." Now that he'd had months to get over it. "At the time. I just thought he'd try this sort of thing after your arrangement had run its course. Apparently, we were both wrong on that front." “I want some cake now,” she frowned. “And more alcohol.” He picked up the cake and handed it to her before refilling her glass with more scotch. "I'll give you an hour to wallow. Then we get to cleaning things up. Then you can get back to wallowing." It wasn't kind, but if the EKP came back, he wanted to make sure there was nothing for them to find, just like the first time. Audrey had already begun devouring the cake, chocolate smeared on her cheeks before she looked up at him again. Taking a sip of scotch to wash down the cake, she looked up at him. “Will you wallow with me? More alcohol!” How could Rhys so no to that face? She’d had a horrible day. “I think we both deserve some wallow time,” he said with a frown. He dragged a chair around the desk and sat down beside her. One hour, he thought as he slumped down into his seat. One hour and they’d have to get to work. He should’ve brought more cake. |