Page 3 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

TWO

ARSON

G uilt isn’t an emotion I’m accustomed to feeling. For years, I’ve cultivated a carefully constructed wall of hatred and rage—brick by fucking brick—until nothing else could penetrate. Until nothing else mattered but making the Hayes family pay for what they did to me.

Yet here it is—raw and acidic, burning through my chest as I stare at the burner phone in my hand.

I press my thumb against the edge of the phone until it hurts, focusing on the physical pain to drown out the emotional one. Pain is familiar. Pain I can handle. This other feeling—this guilt—is unfamiliar territory.

Lilian’s face on that security footage haunts me. The fear in her eyes when those suits approached her. The way she fought—briefly, desperately—before being forced into that sleek black sedan. All because of me. Because she decided to help me. Because I let her.

Because I couldn’t keep my fucking hands off her.

I drag my hand across my face, feeling the stubble that’s grown there over the past twenty-four hours. The warehouse’s fluorescent lights buzz overhead, a persistent reminder of how long we’ve been at this. How long has she been gone?

The security room feels smaller with three people in it. Aries paces like a caged animal—five steps one way, turn, five steps back. His captivity has changed him, stripping away the polished veneer he has always worn, and made him rawer. More like me than either of us would care to admit.

Drew leans against the wall, watching us both with the careful assessment of someone who’s spent years playing both sides.

That’s a reckoning for another day. And it’s Aries’s problem to solve, not mine. Drew Marshall means nothing to me.

“Are you going to call them or just stare at the phone?” Aries asks, voice tight with barely controlled rage.

I don’t answer immediately because I can’t bring myself to look at him. The mirror image of my face, but with none of the scars beneath the surface.

The golden child. The chosen one.

The one I’ve kept locked in a concrete box for months while I destroyed his life piece by piece. Yet here we are, united by the only thing we seem to have in common: Lilian.

“Give me a minute,” I mutter, moving away from both of them, needing space to think.

Drew watches me with unconcealed hostility. “We don’t have minutes to spare.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I snap, fighting the urge to put my fist through his face. “These aren’t the kind of men you rush into calling without a plan.”

My fingers clench around the phone, plastic creaking under the pressure.

These men—my so-called backers—are the kind who calculate every variable before making a move.

The kind who probably had a contingency plan for my failure before I even began.

The kind who view human lives as collateral damage in business transactions.

And I invited them into this. Sort of. They found me first, but I was the one who brought them my revenge plan, as if it were a corporate merger that needed investors.

I step into the corridor, needing distance from my brother and his asshole friend. The warehouse feels different now—less like the fortress I’ve built and more like a tomb. The concrete walls press in, reminding me of another prison in another time. Years spent in isolation, in darkness. In rage.

The Facility. Where Richard Hayes discarded his defective son and pretended I never existed.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I escaped one prison only to build another, becoming exactly what I hated most.

I lean against the wall, the coldness of the concrete seeping through my shirt. My mind drifts back to Lilian—to the look in her eyes when she first discovered the truth about me. Not fear, like I expected. Not disgust. But understanding. Recognition.

She saw me. The real me beneath the lies and the hatred and the carefully constructed persona. And instead of running, she offered to help.

Now she’s paying the price for her kindness—her innocence.

My fingers hover over the keypad. The number is seared into my memory—ten digits connecting me to men whose real names I don’t even know. Men who provided the funds, the resources, the untraceable supplies that started me on my path to revenge.

Men who have now taken Lilian. Another wave of guilt rolls through me.

I press the numbers methodically, each digit bringing me closer to a conversation I never wanted to have. The phone rings once, twice. On the third ring, it connects.

“Mr. Hayes.” The voice is professional, detached. Like we’re discussing a business merger instead of a kidnapping. “We’ve been expecting your call.”

I recognize the voice immediately—the older of the two men, the one who always takes the lead in our meetings. The one whose eyes never quite match his pleasant smile.

“Where is she?” I demand, skipping the pleasantries.

“Safe.” A pause. “For now.”

The implication hangs in the air between us. I grip the phone tighter, knuckles white with strain.

“This wasn’t part of our arrangement,” I say, forcing calm into my tone.

“Neither was your deviation from the established timeline.” The voice remains even, unperturbed. “You were quite specific about your plans for the Hayes family. Your sudden... hesitation has caused us some concern.”

I pace the length of the corridor, past empty storage rooms and the cell where I kept Aries. Each step echoes, a metronomic reminder of my failure.

“I haven’t hesitated,” I lie. “I’ve been gathering more evidence. Making sure the destruction is complete. And with Lilian at my side, it will be even more thorough; she’s been invaluable in helping me with this.”

It’s bullshit, and we both know it. The truth is, something changed when Lilian entered the equation. When she looked at me and didn’t see a monster, but someone worth saving. When she offered me an alternative to the path of destruction I’ve been on for years.

“Is that what you call it?” Amusement colors his tone. “Our surveillance suggests otherwise. It appears Ms. Hayes has become something of a...distraction.”

The casual mention of surveillance sends a chill down my spine. Of course, they’ve been watching. Monitoring. These men don’t fork over millions without keeping tabs on their investment.

“She’s useful,” I counter. “She has access to information I need. Information about her mother’s goals.

About Richard’s activities. About the web of corruption and deceit that makes up the Hayes empire.

Information that could bring them all down more effectively than my blunt-force trauma approach.

Plus, she can still get inside all the Hayes assets without suspicion. ”

“And your brother? Is he ‘useful’ as well? Because our understanding was that he would be eliminated permanently.”

My jaw clenches at the mention of Aries.

The original plan was simple: assume his identity long enough to access the Hayes empire, destroy Richard from the inside, then disappear, leaving my brother to face the fallout.

A fate worse than death for the golden boy—disgrace, ruin, imprisonment.

But only after I exacted my revenge on him physically and mentally.

“Complications arose,” I say tersely.

“Indeed.” The word drips with disapproval. “Complications that threaten to compromise everything we’ve worked toward.”

I glance back down the corridor. Through the open door, I can see Aries and Drew huddled over the security monitors, reviewing footage and searching for clues. Working together like old times, no doubt. The familiar bitterness rises in my throat.

For eight years, I’ve lived in the shadow of the brother who got everything while I got nothing. The one who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth while I choked on institutional food. The one who forgot I existed until I forced my way back into the narrative.

“I’ll handle my brother,” I say, digging my nails into my palm. “Just tell me what you want in exchange for the girl.”

“What we’ve always wanted, Mr. Hayes. Results.”

“I need more than that. I need specifics.”

A soft chuckle filters through the line. “Very well. We want the destruction of Richard Hayes. Not just his reputation or his company. Him. Personally. Publicly.”

The demand doesn’t surprise me. It’s been the endgame all along—Richard’s complete and total ruination. But something in the tone, the emphasis on “personally” and “publicly,” sends a chill down my spine.

“You want me to kill him,” I state flatly.

The thought has crossed my mind a thousand times. In my darkest moments in the facility, I fantasized about wrapping my hands around Richard Hayes’s throat and watching the life drain from his eyes. About making him feel even a fraction of the helplessness and terror I felt growing up.

But fantasy and reality are entirely different beasts.

“We want justice,” the voice corrects smoothly. “The method is your choice. But it must be done, and it must be done within forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours?” I repeat incredulously. “That’s not enough time to?—”

“It’s all the time Miss Hayes has, I’m afraid.”

My blood runs cold. “If you hurt her?—”

“That depends entirely on you.” The voice hardens. “Richard Hayes destroyed many lives, Mr. Hayes, including yours. We simply require that the debt be paid. In full.”

I pace the corridor, mind racing through scenarios and contingencies. Forty-eight hours to kill Richard Hayes. The man is rarely without security and is seldom seen in public without witnesses. His office has more surveillance than Fort Knox. His home is a fortress.

But he’s still my father. The man whose blood runs through my veins, whether I like it or not. The man who looked at his twins and decided one was worth keeping and one was worth discarding.

I’ve hated him for so long that hatred has become my identity. My purpose. But thinking about actually killing him— pulling a trigger, plunging a knife, watching him die—sends a wave of nausea through me.

Yet for Lilian...

“Let me speak to her,” I demand. “Prove she’s alive.”

A pause. “Very well.”

There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, murmured voices too low to make out. Then?—

“Arson?” Lilian’s voice, tight with fear but strong. She’s still fighting. “Don’t?—”

More shuffling and a muffled sound that might be a hand over her mouth. At that moment, I catch the tremor in her voice, the edge of panic she’s trying so hard to control. It makes something in my chest twist painfully.

“Satisfied?” the man asks, returning to the line.

“No,” I growl. “Put her back on.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment. Miss Hayes is being moved to a more... secure location.”

Secure location. The clinical euphemism makes my skin crawl. I’ve been in “secure locations” before. Places where screams don’t carry. Where people can disappear without a trace.

“I want to speak to her again. Properly.”

He sighs as if I’m being unreasonable. “You’re in no position to make demands, Mr. Hayes.”

“Neither are you,” I counter, desperation making me reckless. “You need me to finish this. To take down Richard. That’s why you invested in me in the first place.”

The silence that follows is more threatening than any words could be. I’ve overplayed my hand and shown weakness. These men don’t respond well to that.

“Perhaps,” the voice concedes finally. “But you seem to have forgotten who holds the power here.”

There’s more background noise—a door opening, footsteps. Then, suddenly, a sharp scream cuts through me like a blade.

“ARSON!”

Lilian’s voice, raw with pain or fear or both, before it’s abruptly silenced.

Something inside me snaps. All the carefully constructed walls, the calculated planning, the cold logic I’ve prided myself on—it all crumbles in an instant, replaced by something primal and vicious.

“LILIAN!” I shout, white-hot rage surging through me. “What the fuck did you just do to her?”

I slam my fist into the concrete wall, skin splitting across my knuckles. The pain barely registers through my fury.

“A demonstration,” the voice says calmly, “of what will continue to happen should you fail to meet our deadline.”

Images flash through my mind—Lilian hurt, bleeding, terrified. Lilian with her quiet strength and her damn moral compass. Lilian, who saw something in me worth saving when all I saw was destruction.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” I snarl, feral and unhinged. “All of you. If she’s harmed?—”

“Focus, Mr. Hayes.” The voice cuts through my threats. “Richard Hayes. His head. Forty-eight hours. Or the girl dies. It’s that simple.”

The line goes dead before I can respond, leaving me clutching the phone, shaking with a rage I haven’t felt since those early days after my escape. The primal, all-consuming fury that drove me to this point in the first place.

Blood drips from my split knuckles onto the concrete floor, each drop a reminder of what’s at stake. Of what they’ve taken from me.

I turn to find Aries standing in the doorway, face pale. He heard everything.

“What did they do to her?” he demands, voice barely above a whisper.

I shake my head, unable to form words through the red haze of my anger. The phone creaks in my grip as the plastic bites into my palm. Drew appears behind Aries, expression grim.

“They want Richard,” I finally manage, each word forced through clenched teeth. “Dead. Within forty-eight hours.”

Aries’s face hardens, something cold and dangerous settling in his eyes. A mirror of my own hatred, reflected at me.

“Then that’s what they’ll get,” he says simply.

For the first time in over two decades, we’re in perfect, terrible agreement.

I look down at my bloodied hand, then back at my twin—the brother I’ve spent years plotting to destroy. Now we’re allies, bound by a common purpose: save Lilian, kill our father.

The warehouse feels different now. Not a tomb or a prison, but a war room. And for the first time since I began this crusade of vengeance, I’m not alone in it.

It should feel like victory. Instead, it tastes like ash.

I meet Aries’s eyes, open my texts, and send back my terms. They can take them, or I’ll be storming their location until every person is dead.

One week.

I get Lilian back because we need her, and you give me one week to destroy them all.

Dots appear as they read and respond.

Done. There will be no second chances.

I have a week to kill Richard. And we’ll go pick up Lilian now. So help me if they’ve hurt her. Nothing will stop me from killing every fucking one of them, backers or not. No matter what it costs me. She’s mine, and I’ll protect her with my life.

An address follows the previous text, and I’m racing out the door with Aries and Drew on my heels.