Escape: A Stepbrother Romance

by Ashe, Jessica

  One day, I asked her what her mother would’ve wanted, but she went off the rails at me. I made a mental note: don’t try to use her mother to win an argument. Vicky had changed since we’d started sleeping together and again when she found out about her mom, but the changes had come too late. Her place at university was already set, and she didn’t want to change things.

  “Are you going into the office today, Dad?” Vicky asked.

  “No,” he replied. “There are too many distractions there. Those cyber security guys keep digging into all the computers including mine. I can’t get any work done.”

  “Are they any closer to finding out who did it?” Vicky asked.

  “I think so. I heard talk last time I was in the office that sounded like they had a lead, but that was a few days ago and there haven’t been any developments since.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” Vicky said. I stared at her as she ate a slice of toast. She didn’t look disappointed; she looked relieved.

  We’d spoken briefly about what happened to Sheri and Vicky admitted to being pleased that she was getting her just desserts, but she always changed the subject quickly. I said once that I hoped the person responsible would be caught so her father would go back to spending more time at the office, but she jumped down my throat and said she was pleased at what happened and hoped the guilty party got away with it. I didn’t care enough to argue so I just shrugged my shoulders and changed the subject.

  Roy’s phone rang and he answered it, despite an evil stare from Sheri who hated it when people used phones at the table. She saw it as being disrespectful to the meal she had made and, while I agreed in principle, I didn’t think she was really the one to be talking about disrespect towards food given that she had stolen most of the recipes she made.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Roy said to the person on the phone. “That’s impossible. Remind those analysts who hired them in the first place. If they think they’re getting paid for coming up with such utter nonsense then they have another thing coming.” Roy’s face turned red in the space of ten seconds as he listened to what sounded like a male voice on the other end of the phone. “You don’t have the authority to do that. I’m the managing partner. That’s my decision.”

  Roy listened for another twenty seconds or so and then hung up after threatening the caller with his job.

  “Is everything okay, Dad?” Vicky asked. Her dad spent too much time ignoring her to notice the nervousness in her voice and the way her leg was twitching under the table. She was worried about something, and I had an awful idea I knew what it was.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but the law firm has made a report to the police about the theft of those leaked emails.”

  “Good,” Sheri muttered. “I’m glad the police are getting involved. Hopefully this little shit will learn his lesson.”

  “Why the police?” I asked. “This sounds like a civil matter.”

  “It’s a theft,” Roy explained. “It’s one thing for an associate at the firm to leak the information, but they’re saying someone who wasn’t supposed to have the information in the first place leaked it. That makes it a theft and the firm is within its rights to press charges.”

  “This is good news,” Sheri said. “I suppose I would’ve preferred to settle this quietly, but the thief blew that option when he leaked the information. As far as I’m concerned he can rot in prison.”

  I glanced over at Vicky again. She’d stopped eating and had turned a ghostly white. I saw a drop of sweat drip down the back of her neck. Oh Vicky, what have you done?

  “What happened?” I asked. “Did someone hack into the firm’s servers?”

  “No,” Roy said. “They’re saying someone got hold of a hard copy of the emails and then leaked them to the press.” He didn’t look at Vicky. If he had, he would’ve noticed she looked like she wanted to throw up. “One of the websites didn’t properly redact the email account that sent the evidence.”

  “Surely the culprit didn’t use their professional or home email account?” I asked. Please God Vicky, tell me you aren’t that stupid.

  “No, but they figured out where the email was sent from.”

  “Where?” Sheri asked.

  “Here,” Roy said. “The email was sent from this house. It wasn’t me and it damn sure wasn’t Sheri. So,” he said, looking up at me and then finally looking over at Vicky. “Which one of you two was it? Which one of you do I blame for messing up our lives and your own?”

  ---

  Roy knew. He knew the culprit was Vicky. If he’d thought for a second that it was me he would have been screaming in my face right now. The man was still slightly scared of me, but he wouldn’t have held back at something so important. The fear in his voice and the way he wouldn’t look at his daughter for more than half a second at a time made it clear that he knew and just didn’t want to accept it.

  Roy’s mind must have been working overtime right now. He probably pictured his perfect daughter with a criminal record and the consequences that entailed. She wouldn’t be allowed into college, and would struggle to get a job stacking shelves, let alone as a lawyer. I hated the man, but one thing I couldn’t deny was that he wanted his daughter to have a good career. Now he could see that all slipping away.

  I saw Vicky try to speak. She kept opening her mouth but the words wouldn’t form. She’d never so much as been given detention in her entire life and now she was facing criminal prosecution.

  “Vicky,” I said calmly. “Go upstairs to your room please.” I knew I must sound like her father, but she had to get out of the kitchen before she fainted.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Roy yelled as Vicky tried to stand up.

  “You don’t get to order her around anymore,” I yelled back at Roy. I sounded like a hypocrite, giving orders to Vicky while scolding Roy for the same thing.

  “Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that? She’s my daughter.”

  “And she’s my girlfriend,” I said. I’d never described anyone as my girlfriend before, but if the word felt weird on my lips, it was nothing compared to the expression on Sheri’s and Roy’s faces. My God, if I knew they would’ve looked so funny I would’ve told them weeks ago. They were speechless. “Vicky, I’m not telling you, I’m asking you. Please go upstairs.”

  Vicky nodded and stood up leaving our parents open mouthed of the table. I was waiting for Vicky to make it upstairs, but she froze half way up and pointed to the door. She could see something through the window. Seconds later there was a loud knock on the door.

  Go, I mouthed to Vicky, but she stayed motionless on the stairs. Roy walked over to the door and opened it to reveal two police officers in uniform and one in the suit and tie that signaled a detective.

  “Mr. Marshall?” one of the officers asked. Roy nodded his head. “We’ve received a report from the legal firm of Williams Conwich & Hall regarding a theft that was traced back to this house. We need to talk to you and your family about this incident. May we come in?”

  Roy nodded and showed them into the living room. He offered them a drink, but they all refused.

  “As I understand it,” the officer continued, “you are the managing partner at Williams Conwich & Hall. Is that correct?” Roy nodded his head. “Then you are no doubt aware that there was a serious theft from your firm involving a Ms. Sheri Ramsden.”

  “Her name’s Sherri Marshall now, but yes, I’m aware of the theft.”

  Roy made a damn good lawyer, I had to give him that. You would have no idea from his cool and calm demeanor that his daughter faced criminal prosecution. He was probably hoping there was still a way out of this, but I knew that was unlikely. Vicky had left a trail and where there was a trail there was usually a conviction.

  If the worst happened and the case ended up in front of a jury then Vicky was screwed. Juries didn’t understand evidence involving cybersecurity and IP addresses, so they always agreed with whatever the expert witnesses sai
d.

  “We have it on good authority that information was sent from the IP address of this residence. We would like to search all your computers to review the hard drives.”

  “You’re going to need a warrant,” Roy said. “I will fully cooperate, but I’m going to need to see a warrant before I let you go through my hard drive. I have sensitive client information on there. Some of that information has already been leaked to the press, so you can understand how concerned I am about security right now.”

  “Of course,” the officer said. “We can come back with a warrant, but I am going to ask if you or any of your family would like to come forward to talk about this.”

  “We will cooperate,” Roy said again. “But I’m going to need to see that warrant.”

  I looked over at Vicky who was now sat on the stairs watching the conversation unfold intently. I silently urged her to go upstairs, but I didn’t think she could even see me.

  “Don’t bother with the warrant,” I said, walking up to the police officers. “I did it. I found hard copies of the emails and leaked them to the press. She deserves it,” I added, looking spitefully at my mom for added dramatic effect.

  Vicky burst into tears immediately. She tried to confess and pleaded with the officers for me to be let go, but her words were too muffled by tears for anyone to understand them.

  The officer placed me under arrest, but didn’t bother with the handcuffs. I walked willingly to the police car and stepped in the back. All I could hear was the sound of Vicky’s tears as I left the house not knowing if I would ever see her again.

  Caiden went to prison and it was all my fault. After watching Caiden get dragged off in a police car through tear filled eyes, I ran upstairs to my room and tried to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. I thought I’d been so careful. I opened the email account I’d used to leak the information and stared at the sent email.

  I wasn’t good enough with computers to figure out where the email had been sent from, but if the security analysts tracked it back to this house then that must be true. But how? I specifically went to the pub to use the public Wi-Fi. Finally, it clicked. The timestamp on the email didn’t look right. I remembered being at the pub at dinnertime and left by eight o’clock, but the timestamp on the email was ten to nine.

  The attachment to the email was huge. I’d scanned in a number of pages using the high megapixel camera on my phone and while the image quality was high. It also meant the pictures took up a decent chunk of memory. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I guessed that the pub’s Wi-Fi was too slow to upload the photos, so when I hit send there was a delay in sending out the email. I’d immediately closed my laptop after hitting send and come home. My laptop would’ve reconnected to the Wi-Fi at home and finished sending email from there.

  I laughed briefly through my tears. It was almost too incredible to believe. Caiden was going to prison because of slow Wi-Fi. Except that wasn’t really it. He was going to prison because he chose to protect me.

  I tried to tell Dad the truth about what happened, but he didn’t want to hear it. He knew I’d been the one to leak the information but he’d much rather Caiden went to prison for it. Sheri might feel differently, but it quickly became apparent that my dad’s marriage to Sheri wouldn’t last long enough for her to have any influence over Dad.

  Sheri and I both pleaded with Dad to have his law firm drop the charges, but he refused to budge. Soon after that Sheri filed for divorce. Dad wasn’t exactly devastated about the whole thing. His marriage to her had been more about good publicity for his law firm and that was the last thing she was providing right now.

  I visited Caiden in prison soon after his arrest. He made it clear that I was not to do anything stupid like confess to the crime. He said we would both end up getting in trouble, and at least this way my record would stay clean.

  I nearly confessed anyway. It wasn’t right that Caiden was in prison while I was heading to university, but he made it clear he intended to take the blame for what happened and had already given a full confession.

  After that initial visit, Caiden wouldn’t let me see him again. He removed me from the approved visitor list and refused to appear when I showed up at the prison the day before I was due to leave for Cambridge. I knew what he was doing. He wasn’t abandoning me; he hadn’t forgotten me. He was trying to help me move on. He didn’t want me coming down from Cambridge every week just to visit him prison. I understood what he was trying to do, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

  We left something major unsaid. I never told him I loved him and he never said anything to me. I didn’t need him to. I knew how he felt about me and his actions spoke louder than words, but I wish he’d heard them from me. He’d done everything for me and I’d never done anything for him except land him in prison.

  The words nearly came out on my one visit to the prison, but it didn’t seem like the right place. I’d never told anyone I love them before and it felt far too momentous a thing to say when prison guards were listening.

  The first few weeks and months at Cambridge were predictably miserable. I didn’t participate in many of the Fresher’s Week events and I developed a reputation as someone who preferred to sit in her room rather than go out drinking.

  Fortunately, there were plenty of other people like that at Cambridge, although usually they were studious because of pressure from family to get good grades. I let everyone assume I was staying at home to study, but really I was just wallowing in my own self-pity.

  Caiden ended up being sentenced to three years in prison. He’d probably get out after two with good behaviour, but two years was still a hell of a long time for an eighteen-year-old, especially when he hadn’t done anything wrong. It felt like a lifetime to me. The news about Caiden’s sentence nearly sent me tumbling off the edge, but instead it acted as a jolt to the system. I gained a new lease of life.

  Caiden wouldn’t want me being miserable for two years. He would want me to do something with my life; he’d want me to do what I wanted to do with my life.

  I all but gave up studying. I showed up to lectures and did the bare minimum to get through, but I was practically a part-time student now. I used the free time to set myself up in the career that I wanted. I tried blogging for a few months, but with such limited kitchen facilities at the University I couldn’t prepare any special food. Desserts, which were still my favourite, were particularly hard to prepare in a student kitchen.

  Whenever I became despondent, I just thought of Caiden and my mum. They were a lot alike in some ways. They would both want me to live my life and have fun. It was impossible to feel sorry for myself when I had two such positive influences in my life. Okay, so they weren’t around for me at the moment, but some people went their entire lives without having anyone so special. I’d been blessed.

  One evening, I’d cooked a meal for the other students in my halls using all the leftovers they were about to throw out. Everyone loved the meal and a few people asked me to show them how to make the dishes. That gave me an idea.

  Instead of starting a blog, I decided to go straight for videos and upload them onto YouTube. I was a good writer, but I always came across as overly formal instead of chatty and fun. My target audience was fellow students who wanted to cook meals without buying expensive ingredients. I did a lot of research and realized I needed a persona to use on camera. Fortunately, I already had one. I dressed up in conservative clothes like my knee length skirts, blouses, and a pearl necklace, and then prepared meals on camera in a student kitchen.

  My online persona was that of a prim and proper English girl who appeared formal and well-educated until I opened my mouth. I kept the posh accent, but added in a fair few of the words I’d started using since I met Caiden. Basically, I swore like a sailor. People loved it. The contradiction was so unusual that a few popular websites shared my videos and my viewer numbers exploded.

  Advertising revenue started rolling in. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to buy
better equipment which then improved the quality of my videos. I even paid a few editors to add some fancy techniques and make the videos look a little more professional.

  As the first year of university was coming to an end, I knew I had to drop out. I couldn’t make videos fast enough to keep up with demand and each one I released had more viewers than the last. However, there were not many recipes I could make in such a small kitchen so I decided to strike out on my own.

  I used the money I earned to rent a one-bedroom flat which was small, but open and therefore had good lighting for the videos, and I didn’t return home for the summer. Dad probably wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t tell him, but eventually I had to let him know I wasn’t going back to Cambridge and he could stop paying the fees.

  It was a good job I had my own place, because he wouldn’t let me back in the house. He was furious. According to him, I was giving up my entire career and my entire life over a silly dream. He even tried to bring Caiden into the argument. He said “Caiden went to prison so you could become a solicitor, not a fucking chef.”

  There was no reasoning with him and I couldn’t be bothered to try. I’d made my mind up by this point. If the worst happened and everything went downhill from here, I could always go back to university. A year out wouldn’t be unusual. Plenty of students took a year out at Cambridge because the stress got to them and as far as I could tell Cambridge always welcomed them back with open arms.

  I kept in touch with the friends I made at university and they were delighted—and perhaps a touch jealous—about my success. One friend said it must be like I was living a dream and I agreed, but I never needed to pinch myself to prove I was awake. If this were really a dream, Caiden and my mum would be by my side to witness my success. I’d done the living a dream thing and escaped from that once already.