Page 32 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

Lilian makes a small sound, something between sympathy and pain. Her other hand comes up to my face, her thumb brushing away moisture I hadn’t realized was there.

“By the time Richard and the others arrived, it was too late. Sophia was unconscious but breathing. My mother was—” I can’t say it, even now. “Gone.”

“Arson,” Lilian whispers, and just my name in her voice nearly breaks me.

“Aries was still up on that fucking beam,” I continue, the words bitter as bile. “Still hadn’t moved. Just watching everything happen below him like it was a movie, like it wasn’t real.”

I pull my hand away from hers, needing the distance, needing the anger to get through this next part.

“Richard took one look at the situation and made a decision. Protect the heir. Protect the golden child.” I laugh, the sound harsh and humorless. “He told everyone I pushed Sophia. That I caused the accident that killed my mother when she tried to save the girl.”

Lilian’s eyes widen in shock. “But that’s not?—”

“True? No. But it was convenient.” I stand, unable to remain still any longer, pacing the small confines of the room. “Aries was the one they wanted. The perfect son. The worthy heir. I was just…extra. Disposable.”

“So they sent you away,” Lilian says, realization dawning. “To the Facility. Aries didn’t say anything to try to protect you?”

I shrug. It wouldn’t have mattered. “Not right away. First came the psychological evaluations. The medications. The concerned discussions about my ‘violent tendencies’ and ‘unstable behavior.’ Richard made sure there was a paper trail, a documented history of problems.”

The memories of those months after the accident are almost worse than the accident itself—the way everyone looked at me, the whispers, the sudden fear in eyes that had previously held only indifference.

“Aries might have told the truth, but it did nothing to help me. He just went along with Richard’s version of events, nodding when asked if I’d been acting strangely, if I’d threatened Sophia, if I’d been jealous of the attention she was giving him.”

“Maybe he believed it,” Lilian suggests gently. “Trauma can do strange things to memory, especially in children.”

I stop pacing to stare at her incredulously. “Are you defending him?”

“No,” she says quickly. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. He was a coward then, and he’s a coward now.

” I resume my agitated movement, unable to contain the energy coursing through me.

“By the time I was sent to the Facility, everyone believed the official story. Even Aries, probably. It’s amazing what the mind can do to protect itself from guilt. ”

“What about Sophia?” Lilian asks. “Didn’t she remember what happened?”

“Traumatic brain injury,” I reply flatly. “Convenient memory loss. And her family was well-compensated for their silence. A new vacation home in the Hamptons. Private school for Sophia and her brother. Amazing how money can buy people’s morality.”

Lilian is quiet for a moment, processing everything I’ve told her. When she speaks again, her voice is careful, measured. “And all these years, you’ve never told anyone the truth?”

“Who would believe me? The troubled twin? The violent one? The crazy one they had to lock away for everyone’s safety?” The bitterness in my voice could corrode metal. “Besides, what would be the point? My mother would still be dead. Nothing would change.”

“Justice would change,” Lilian says softly. “The truth would change.”

“Truth,” I scoff. “The Hayes family wouldn’t recognize the truth if it slapped them in their perfect faces.”

“I’m a Hayes,” she reminds me. “And I want the truth. All of it.”

I stop pacing, really looking at her for the first time since this conversation began.

She’s still damp from her shower, dressed in borrowed clothes that are too big for her small frame, hair curling as it dries.

She looks vulnerable, exhausted, pushed to her limits by revelations about her own life.

Yet there’s a steel in her gaze that I recognize—the same determination that’s kept me going all these years and fueled my revenge when nothing else could.

“The truth is ugly,” I warn her. “It doesn’t set you free. It just gives you new chains to carry.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she replies, rising to stand before me. “I’m tired of living in the dark, Arson. Tired of other people deciding what I get to know about my own life.”

Before I can respond, a movement in the doorway catches my attention. Aries stands there, face pale, eyes wide with shock. How long has he been listening? How much has he heard?

“Aries,” Lilian says, surprise evident in her voice. “You’re back.”

He doesn’t answer her, doesn’t even look at her. His gaze is fixed on me, a storm of emotions I can’t—or won’t—decipher churning in eyes identical to my own.

“Is it true?” he finally asks, his voice barely above a whisper. Something like confusion on his face. “Is that what really happened?”

I meet his stare unflinchingly, all the rage and resentment of years bubbling just beneath my skin. “You tell me, Brother. You were there.”

He flinches as if I’ve struck him, one hand reaching out to steady himself against the doorframe. “I don’t—I can’t?—”

“Remember?” I finish for him, contempt dripping from the word. “How convenient for you.”

“Arson,” Lilian says, a warning in her tone. “Don’t.”

I’m beyond warnings, beyond caution. Seeing him standing there, still playing the victim when he’s been the architect of my destruction from the beginning, ignites something in me that can’t be contained.

“You let me take the blame,” I say, each word precise and cutting. “You let them lock me away. You let them convince the world—convince me—that I was broken. Dangerous. Unworthy of freedom or family or basic fucking human dignity.”

“I didn’t know,” he whispers, but there’s doubt in his voice, cracks forming in the narrative he’s built around himself.

“Bullshit,” I spit. “You knew. Maybe not at first. Maybe not consciously. But part of you has always known the truth.”

Lilian moves between us, hands raised as if she can physically hold back the tide of rage and recrimination. “This isn’t helping,” she says firmly. “We need to focus on the present, on what’s happening now.”

“Oh, I’m focused,” I assure her, never taking my eyes off my brother.

“I’m very focused. On getting you safely through whatever Patricia has planned.

On destroying Richard and everything he’s built.

And when all that’s done”—I take a step toward Aries, satisfaction flickering through me when he instinctively backs away—“you and I have a score to settle, Brother.”

For a moment, we stand frozen in tableau—me, vibrating with barely contained violence; Lilian, caught between us like she’s always been; Aries, face drained of color, finally confronting the truth he’s denied for so long.

Without a word, he turns and walks away. No defense. No denial. No acknowledgment of what his cowardice cost me. Just the sound of his footsteps, fading down the hallway like the gutless retreat it is.

“Arson,” Lilian says quietly, her hand coming to rest on my arm. “He’s been through a lot too.”

“I don’t think I care about making things easier for him.

” I laugh, the sound harsh and grating even to my own ears.

“I spent years in that place, Lilian. Years of ‘treatments’ and ‘therapy’ and being told that I was fundamentally broken. That I’d killed my own mother.

That I deserved everything that happened to me. ”

She doesn’t flinch away from my anger, doesn’t retreat like most people would. Instead, she steps closer, fearless in a way that continually surprises me.

“I know,” she says simply. “And it was wrong. All of it was wrong. But Aries isn’t Richard. He was a child, too.”

“He was a coward,” I correct her. “And he still is. Running away instead of facing what he did.”

“Maybe,” she concedes. “Or maybe he’s just as damaged as you are, but in a different way.”

I want to argue, to rage against the implication that my brother has suffered anything comparable to what I’ve endured.

But the fight suddenly drains out of me, leaving only exhaustion in its wake.

The memories, the confrontation, the constant vigilance required to keep my anger in check—it all takes a toll.

“Just…give me some space,” I say, turning back to the desk, to the research that now seems insignificant compared to the ghosts I’ve just unleashed. “I need to keep working.”

She hesitates, clearly reluctant to leave me alone with my demons. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I don’t look at her, focusing instead on the screen, on the image of my mother standing next to Patricia, both of them unaware of the tragedies waiting just a few years ahead. “Please.”

After a moment, I hear her soft footsteps retreating, followed by the gentle click of the door closing behind her. Only then do I allow myself to sink back into the chair, bury my face in my hands, and feel the full weight of memories I’ve spent years trying to outrun.

The boathouse. The beam. The fall. My mother’s face beneath the water. Richard’s cold calculation as he decided which son to save and which to sacrifice. The Facility, with its white walls and expressionless doctors and medications that turned the world gray.

And through it all, Aries. Always Aries. The twin who got everything while I got nothing. The one who caused our mother’s death and walked away without a scratch while I paid the price for his actions.

The one who, even now, can’t face the truth of what he did.

When this is over, when Lilian is safe and Richard is destroyed, I’ll have my reckoning with my brother.

Not for revenge—I’m beyond that now. Instead, I want justice and the truth.

For my mother, who deserved so much better than to die saving someone else’s child from her son’s recklessness.

For Elizabeth Hayes, who loved both her sons, even the one everyone else deemed disposable.