Ferd don’t just sit there

"What is it dad?".

He answered immediately, "I need you to hack into that kid's email, I want all and any electronic records on him alright? Everything".

Is that necessary? Not to mention that that was a crime.

"This is completely necessary", he said as if he had just read my mind, "Mario Levi is a threat and I want to know everything about him. I expect it to be ready by the time I get there".

It was only after I'd nodded that I realized that he couldn't see me but before I could say anything further I was greeted by the sound of the dial as he hung up on me again.

I handed Victor his phone before walking past him and to my room to get my second laptop. Before anything further, I called Jason and told him to come over in ten minutes.

This laptop was highly modified by yours truly to adapt to perform certain tasks such as what my dad had asked me to do. I understand where he's coming from with this and honestly I can't say I disagree since the Levi brothers have always been a pain in my derriere.

Much time had passed since I had retreated to my room to run a complete background check on Mario Levi. It's times like this that being a certified nerd totally comes in handy.

Jason had finally shown up exactly ten minutes after I had called him but he was downstairs with Victor doing whatever my dad must've ordered Victor to do on the phone earlier. I'm assuming they he knew of the task my dad gave me to do since he or anyone else hadn't disturbed me since I've been in here.

Finally, I finished and I closed the laptop shut after I printed out all of the documents but as I set the laptop aside the folder Hydel had given me earlier was peeking out of the corners almost as if to taunt me. Earlier when I had admitted everything to Victor I had skimmed through the folder with him but I wasn't nearly as thorough as I wanted to be.

Reaching for my bag I pulled out the folder and opened it. There was information about my birth mother there. From when she was born up until college, there were photos even a copy of her birth certificate. I don't know how Hydel managed to pull that one off. Though I guess it can't be that hard if I did the same thing to Mario. Obtaining his records were way too easy. The difference was that the information on my mother was not online, these were all documents that Hydel had to procure physically.

Voices from downstairs interrupted me. If I wasn't mistaken it sounded like a females. As caught up as I was in the file I was willing to ignore it until there came a knock on my door.

"Victor I'm busy", I distractedly muttered until I heard a voice that was in no way Victor's.

My heart halted in my chest as I quickly scanned my room to make sure it was presentable before I ducked the file back into my bag and zipped it.

"Ariadne come in", I finally replied a few seconds later. It didn't take long for the doorknob to twist and for her to barge inside and stomp over towards me like she owned the place.

Normally I would've commented on it but the look of desperation and uncertainty on her face had me biting my tongue.

She sat beside we where I was already seated at the bottom of the bed. We were close, really close. I noticed that she was still wearing her cheer leading uniform. The blue and white vest top with the short, pleated skirt could barely be considered as appropriate. But as she sat and the skirt expectedly rode up and exposed her slender tan legs that were basically resting against mine, I found it a little uneasy to breathe.

My eyes flew to her face as I immediately scurried away from her and put some space between us where we sat on the bed.

She didn't seem to be bothered by that because almost mechanically she moved closer to me once more and this time she took my left hand in hers and squeezed them a bit. This time when I tried to meet her eyes I realized she was staring straight ahead with a determined expression.

Finally, I drew in a deep breath and broke the silence, "Why are you here Ari?".

She didn't miss a beat. "To tell you the truth".

Wait, the truth about what?

"The truth about what?"

She sighed before she continued, "I know the truth about who you are and why you came here", she rushed out, "so just please let me get this off my chest before you say anything Julian. I've known the truth about you for a while now and I never told anyone. It's like I told you the other night, I've been trying to protect you all along".

She hadn't given me any time to process anything that she had just told me.

holy shit!

This means that she'd also been lying to me all this time.

There was no denying that I was angry now. I could feel my features hardening as I pulled my hand out of her grasp and rested it on my lap.

If she knew this entire time then it means that my safety had been compromised this entire time to a greater degree than I initially thought. I definitely know what my dad will do when he gets here. There was no escaping that now.

I only cared about one thing now.

"How did you find out?", my eyebrows furrowed in frustration as I glared ahead of me. I already had a theory about what was happening here. I hoped I was wrong but, I'm barely ever wrong when it came to my intuition. And only seconds later would she prove me right.

"It all started the day when you and I first kissed".

She stopped and looked at me with watery eyes. I wanted to reach out and comfort her but I couldn't. I could hardly believe what she was telling me. I knew this day would come. The second she had called me by my real name I had known that she knew about my secret. But I hadn't even tried to do anything about it nor did I ask for any explanation.

Apart of me has always known that my secret no matter how much of it she knew, was safe with her. That's why I didn't rush to get to the bottom of it after that night when she'd used my name.

"I saw Mario at the supermarket that evening and he started to flirt with me. When I told him that I wasn't interested he got upset. He said he'd seen me hanging out with you and that you were no good for me. I told him that he was crazy and that I liked you and nothing he said would change that. He laughed at me. It was a sadistic laugh that had chills running down my spine. He whispered something to me: he said that you had a secret one that would make me change my mind about going out with you. When I tried to walk away from him he claimed to have evidence and somehow he convinced me to see this 'evidence' he had".

"Is that so?", a voice asked from behind my door before it was pushed open and Jason walked in.

Both Ari and I looked up at him the same time. My head whipped up so fast that I nearly had a whiplash.

Suddenly Ari was speechless and my body had regained it's mobility, recovering from its prior catatonic state.

"Please", Jason gestured a hand towards Ari, "continue".