Page 26 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)
FIFTEEN
ARIES
T he warehouse door bangs open, the sound echoing off concrete walls like a gunshot.
My heart lurches inside my chest as they enter—Arson first, his body coiled tight like a predator ready to strike.
The tailored clothes—my clothes—hang on him wrong, like a costume that can’t quite hide the animal beneath.
But it’s Lilian’s body language that makes my blood run cold. She follows him, one step behind, her face drained of color, eyes vacant and hollow. She looks like a corpse walking—something vital ripped out of her, leaving just the shell.
“What the fuck happened?” I demand, moving toward them before I can stop myself. My hands itch to touch her, to check for injuries, to pull her against me, but I hold back. The memory of finding her in his bed, in his arms, claws at my insides like a living thing.
“Patricia happened,” Arson spits, his voice scraped raw with rage. “And that fucking butcher Winters.”
“I’m fine,” Lilian says, though the lie is so obvious it’s almost painful to hear. Her voice is flat, dead. “Just…tired.”
“Bullshit,” I counter, studying her face. Something’s changed in her—something harder, sharper, like glass that’s been shattered and put back together wrong. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”
Arson yanks off his jacket—my jacket—and hurls it onto a chair with enough force to make it slide. “They’ve got a medical power of attorney. Signed on her eighteenth birthday. Gives Patricia complete fucking control over her healthcare decisions.”
“What?” The word rips from my throat. “How the hell is that possible?”
“She buried it in the trust fund paperwork,” Lilian explains, collapsing onto the couch like her legs can’t hold her anymore. She looks small, fragile, crushed by the weight of betrayal. “The inheritance from my father. I signed without reading. Stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid,” I say automatically, feeling protective fury rise in my chest. “Trusting. There’s a difference.”
Arson makes a sound like a dog choking on something bitter. “In the Hayes family? Fuck no, there isn’t.”
I ignore him, focusing on Lilian, on the way her hands tremble slightly as she tucks her hair behind her ear. “What else? What do they want?”
“They’ve scheduled some ‘procedure’ for next Friday,” she says, pressing her fingers against her temples like she’s trying to keep her skull from splitting open. “Won’t tell me exactly what it is, just that it’s supposedly going to fix my heart condition permanently.”
“You don’t believe them.”
Not a question. I know her well enough—the set of her jaw, the slight narrowing of her eyes—to see the skepticism burning beneath the exhaustion.
“The doctor let something slip,” Arson interjects, stalking back and forth like a tiger in a cage too small.
His footsteps echo off the concrete, marking time like a metronome counting down to disaster.
“Said something about ‘donors’ being ready, then caught himself. Went white as a sheet when he realized what he’d said. ”
A chill slithers down my spine, cold and sick. “No, I took it as donors to the research, money donors, to fund whatever they are trying to create, using Lilian as the guinea pig.”
“We need to find out more,” Lilian says, her voice stronger now, edged with determination that cuts through her exhaustion. “But whatever it is, they’re planning to do it with or without my consent. The power of attorney makes sure of that.”
The implications sink in slowly, each one more grotesque than the last. Medical procedures.
Donations. Legal control over her body. It sounds like something from a horror movie, not the family I grew up in.
Yet even as the thought forms, I know it’s naive.
I’ve spent the last few months chained in a concrete cell, courtesy of my own twin brother. Nothing should surprise me anymore.
“We’ve got a week,” Arson says, stopping by the window.
The fading daylight carves harsh shadows across his face—my face, but twisted with a darkness I recognize in my worst moments, in my darkest thoughts.
“Seven days to figure out what sick shit they’re planning and how to stop it.
Not to mention the five days left we have to bring down Richard. ”
“And to find out more about my father,” Lilian adds, her voice smaller now, more vulnerable.
“Your father?” I turn to her, caught off guard. “David? Why bring him up now?”
“Because whatever’s happening now, I think it might be connected to him somehow,” she explains, eyes fixed on some distant point, seeing ghosts. “He died when I was so young, right after my diagnosis. Well, left first. Then…car accident, I think. Mother’s always been vague about the details.”
“With good reason, probably,” Arson mutters, his lips curling in a sneer. “Ten to one he either knew too much or didn’t agree with whatever fucked-up thing they were planning, so they found a way to make him disappear.”
“Or he really did die in that car accident like your mother said,” I suggest, repeating the story Patricia had told over the years. Even as I say it, doubt curdles in my stomach. “Not everything is a conspiracy.”
Arson snorts, the sound dripping with contempt. “Do you really believe that shit? After everything we’ve learned about the family and their lies?”
“I’m saying we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I reply, frustration building like a pressure cooker about to blow. “Not everyone is part of some grand conspiracy.”
“No, just the people who matter,” he fires back, each word a bullet aimed at my chest. “Just the ones making decisions about Lilian’s life, her health, her future. Just the ones who kept me locked away for years while you lived the golden fucking life.”
And there it is—the raw, festering wound between us, the poisoned root from which all our conflicts grow.
“I didn’t know about you,” I remind him, my voice taking on the razor edge that seems reserved exclusively for these confrontations. “I didn’t choose any of this.”
“Didn’t you?” He steps closer, eyes—my eyes—burning with an accusation that feels like acid. “You’ve been the perfect Hayes heir for years. Never questioning, never pushing back. Just following Richard’s blueprint like the good little soldier you are.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me or the choices I’ve made,” I snap, hands curling into fists so tight my nails cut into my palms. “You’ve been watching from the shadows, building your little revenge fantasy, thinking you understand everything when you?—”
“STOP IT!” Lilian’s voice explodes between us, raw and cracked with emotion. “Both of you, just stop!”
We turn to her, twin expressions of surprise quickly replaced by concern as we take in her face—flushed with anger, eyes bright with tears that refuse to fall. She looks seconds away from shattering.
“I can’t deal with this right now,” she continues, pushing herself up from the couch, swaying slightly with exhaustion.
“My mother has legal control over my body. Donors are waiting for the results of some mysterious procedure they want to perform on me. My entire life has been a carefully constructed lie, and you two want to stand here measuring dicks over who had it worse?”
The vulgarity, so jarring coming from her usually careful mouth, hits us both like a slap.
“I’m going to bed,” she announces, moving toward the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. “Feel free to continue tearing each other apart, but do it somewhere I can’t hear you.
” She stalks away, shoulders rigid with tension, leaving us staring after her, momentarily united in our shock at her outburst.
The bedroom door slams, the sound reverberating through the warehouse like a gunshot.
“Well fucking done,” Arson says after a moment, the sarcasm cutting enough to draw blood.
“Me? You’re the one who?—”
I stop myself, recognizing the trap we’re falling into again. This endless cycle of blame and counter-blame, this vicious merry-go-round of hatred and resentment. It accomplishes nothing and helps no one—least of all Lilian.
“This isn’t helping,” I say instead, running a hand through my hair, tugging at it hard enough to hurt. “She needs us unified, not at each other’s throats.”
Something shifts in Arson’s expression—not softening, exactly, but a fractional easing of the constant hostility, like a predator deciding to postpone a kill rather than abandon it. “For once, we agree.”
We stand in awkward silence for a moment, neither knowing quite how to proceed in this fragile truce. The air between us feels electrified, charged with the potential for violence. Finally, Arson breaks the silence with a sigh that sounds like it’s being dragged from somewhere deep and unwilling.
“I’m going to order food,” he says, pulling out his phone. “She hasn’t eaten since breakfast.”
“Pizza,” I say automatically. “Margherita with extra basil. It’s her favorite, and after everything, she could use some good comfort food.”
He gives me a look I can’t quite interpret—surprise, perhaps, that I know this detail, or irritation that I knew it before him. His jaw tightens, but all he says is, “Fine. Pizza it is.”
While he makes the call, I move toward the bedroom where Lilian has retreated. I pause at the door, uncertain of my welcome after her outburst. After a moment’s hesitation, I knock softly, the sound barely audible even to me.
“Lilian? It’s me.”
No answer. I try again, a little louder, tamping down the surge of anxiety her silence triggers. “Lilian? Can I come in?”
“It’s not locked.” Her voice is muffled through the door, heavy with exhaustion and something else—something that sounds like defeat.
I enter cautiously to find her curled on her side on the bed, facing away from the door. She doesn’t turn when I approach, but I can see the tension in her shoulders and the way her hand grips the pillow in a white-knuckled fist, like it’s the only thing keeping her from floating away.