Chapter 147: Darren’s Confession.
Liam stepped back into the suite, and Darren looked up from the couch immediately.
"Where’d you go?" Darren asked him right away because Liam couldn’t just walk around as he pleased seeing as he was the one who invited them.
"Just needed some air." Liam offered a smile, easy and casual, the kind meant to close a conversation before it opened.
Darren studied him a beat too long. Something had shifted in Liam’s face — subtle, but there, the smile sitting slightly off from where it usually landed. Darren clocked it instantly, the way people who’d spent years reading each other’s moods would, especially their best friend. Something had happened out there that Liam didn’t want to talk about.
He didn’t push it. Whatever it was, Liam clearly wasn’t ready to hand it over yet, and Darren had learned a long time ago that prying rarely got him anywhere faster than just waiting it out.
Liam’s eyes drifted to the TV instead, still playing the late news on mute now, captions scrolling along the bottom.
"Why the hell are you watching the news," Liam said, dropping onto the couch beside him. "At this hour, porn would’ve made more sense."
Darren huffed something close to a laugh, but it didn’t fully land, and he glanced toward the bedroom door — Mateo, still sound asleep behind it — before answering.
"Wasn’t in the mood for either, honestly."
Liam caught the glance, understood the implication, and let the joke drop without further comment. Right. Kid in the next room. Not exactly the moment for that particular line of humor.
He settled back, studying Darren properly now, picking up on the same thing Darren had just clocked in him minutes earlier — something sitting heavy behind his expression, distracted in a way that didn’t match his usual energy.
"What’s on your mind?" Liam asked.
Darren didn’t answer right away. He glanced at the muted TV, then back at his hands, working through whatever internal calculation was keeping him quiet.
"I ran into someone a while back," he said finally. "Guy from school. Drake."
Liam waited, the name meaning nothing to him yet. "Okay."
Liam coulsnt recall knowing someone by that name and even if he did, he wasn’t significant enough to have Liam remember his name years after.
"He showed up on the news tonight." Darren nodded toward the screen. "Wanted. Him and some other guy — murder charge. Store clerk."
Liam sat up slightly straighter. "You’re serious."
"Dead serious." Darren informed him.
"And you knew him."
"Knew him well," Darren said, something distant creeping into his voice. "Back in the day."
Darren was showing a level of honesty that Liam appreciated becauee his past was one thing he hated to revisit more than anything.
Liam turned the name over, still coming up blank. "Who is he? Never heard you mention him before or maybe you did and I forgot..." Liam confessed.
There was a chance Darren did mention him and his memory failed him.
Darren exhaled slowly, clearly deciding how much of this he actually wanted to unpack. "Drake ran with my crew back in high school. Before everything. Before I got out."
That landed differently than Liam expected. He’d known, in broad strokes, that Darren’s past carried weight he didn’t talk about often — the occasional offhand comment, the way certain topics got steered around rather than through. But specifics rarely surfaced.
"Ran with your crew," Liam repeated slowly. "Meaning what, exactly?"
Liam wanted him to say it out loud so there was no room for misinterpretation.
Darren met his eyes, and for a moment there was nothing guarded in the look at all — just plain honesty, the kind that came easier late at night when defenses had worn down.
"Meaning I ran things, Liam. Drake wasn’t in charge of anything back then. He was under me."
Liam sat with that, feeling something cold settle in his stomach as the full shape of it came into focus. He’d always known, abstractly, that Darren’s history wasn’t clean — the fights, the scars, the specific way he moved through confrontation like it was second nature rather than something learned. But hearing it laid out this plainly reframed things.
If Drake — a man currently wanted for murder, dangerous enough to be flashing on the evening news — had once answered to Darren, had been the smaller piece in whatever structure Darren used to run, then whatever Darren had actually been capable of back then went considerably further than Liam had ever let himself fully imagine. He was friends with Darren there but Darren knew how to hide the darker aspects of his life.
"You were running something," Liam said slowly, not quite a question as he already had his answer.
This wasn’t exactly new information to be honest, Liam had suspected it and Darren had implied it as well.
Darren didn’t confirm it outright. He didn’t need to. The silence that followed did enough of the talking on its own, and Liam found himself recalibrating everything he thought he understood about the man sitting next to him.
However, he wasn’t threatened or worried about Darren’s own moral compass.
"Fuck man! I was expecting something way more dramatic! Tell me something I didn’t know," Liam waved it off, completely changing the tone of the conversation.
"Huh?" Darren was caught off guard.
"I had an idea but I wanted to add some drama to the atmosphere and it worked. He contacted you and if he contacts you again. Maybe call the police next time? Just a suggestion," Liam said.
He had momentarily forgotten how the very movies he watched frowned upon snitches.
"Oh right. Snitches get stitches," Liam muttered to himself but he noticed the earlier tension from the conversation had disappeared which was the most important thing.
If their faces were on the news, it would only be a matter of time before they are found.
After all, it wasn’t like they were ghosts.
Liam was calling it a night and told Darren to get some sleep as well bringing an end to a very exciting day.