Page 45 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

TWENTY-FIVE

LILIAN

T he Mill House common room feels too small for all the tension it’s currently holding.

No, I can’t let them take me home. Who knows what they will do to me. I cough once, drop to my knee, forcing the guard to release my arm. I risk a glance, and he looks panicked. Good. I cough again. “I need...I need my inhaler.” It takes nothing to wheeze out a breath.

To fake what I’ve been forced to endure for years.

“I can’t...breathe. Just give me a minute.

” I move toward the fireplace as though I need a little air.

What I really need is space to think. Richard paces by the fireplace like a caged animal while my mother drops to the edge of the leather sofa, not a wrinkle in her cream silk blouse despite the morning’s chaos.

The guards at least look worried. One minute, I was asleep between Arson and Aries, safe and warm and wanted. The next, I was being dragged from bed, Richard Hayes’s security goons handling me like I’m made of glass while my mother watched with cold, calculating eyes.

And Aries, standing in that doorway like a statue, his face a perfect mask of nothing.

I refuse to believe it. Refuse to accept that after everything—after the forest, after our promises, after what we shared—he would just hand us over like this. There has to be another explanation. A plan I’m not seeing yet.

From somewhere upstairs, I hear a floorboard creak.

Drew, Lee, and Sebastian are up there, hiding.

I’d caught a glimpse of Sebastian’s wide eyes peering over the banister when they first marched us downstairs before one of Richard’s security guys had spotted him and he’d ducked back into hiding.

I hope they stay put. The last thing we need is for more people to be caught in this mess.

Luckily, they got rid of the usual groups of people who move in and out of here.

I shift to the fireplace and flick the switch to warm up the cold room, my gaze darting to the staircase, wondering if our friends are listening, piecing together fragments of a story they couldn’t possibly understand.

How strange this must seem to them—Richard Hayes himself storming into the Mill House at dawn, security team in tow, demanding to see his son.

Arson shifts like he might bolt, but I know he wouldn’t leave me here. His hands are zip-tied in front of him, and he looks disheveled but defiant. He’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes, rumpled from sleep.

Our eyes meet across the room, and I see it there—the same certainty I feel. This isn’t over. Whatever game is being played, we’re not the only ones with cards left.

“Sit,” Richard orders, and I watch as Arson nods to the chair across from him and then takes the other. The guards take up positions outside, blocking the exit.

“Where’s Aries?” I ask, unable to keep the edge from my voice.

“He’ll join us shortly,” Richard says dismissively. “First, we need to discuss the documents you stole.”

My heart skips a beat. Of course that’s what this is about. The evidence. The paper trail of all their crimes.

“I didn’t steal anything,” I say, the lie coming easily. “They were already stolen. I just found them.”

Mother makes a sound of disapproval. “Semantics, Lilian. Where are they now?”

I shrug, feigning a nonchalance I don’t feel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Richard’s jaw tightens. “Don’t play games with me, young lady. Aries told us everything. About the files you found in the attic. About how you’ve been helping Arson with his…vendetta.”

I press a hand to my chest dramatically, letting my breathing hitch just enough to be noticeable. “I need my inhaler,” I say, voice deliberately faint. “I can’t breathe.”

The effect is immediate. Mother’s expression shifts from irritation to concern—not for me, but for her perfect, fragile charity case. Let me play it up a bit more.

“Where is it?” she asks, already moving toward me. “In your purse?”

I shake my head, forcing my breathing to become more labored. “Up…upstairs. In Aries’s room.”

Mother glances at Richard, who nods curtly. “Go get it. We can’t have her collapsing on us.”

Perfect. Just what I was hoping for.

As soon as she’s gone up the stairs, I let my breathing ease, sitting up straighter. Richard’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

“You’re faking,” he says flatly.

I smile thinly. “Years of practice.”

Arson watches me with newfound appreciation, the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Clever girl.”

Richard slams his fist against the mantel. The fire crackling below him is a jaunty contrast to the anger simmering off him. “Enough! I want those files, Lilian. Now. Before this escalates further.”

“Or what?” I challenge, feeling bolder now that Mother isn’t here to maintain the pretense of my frailty. “You’ll lock me away, too? Add me to your collection of inconvenient family members? I know that’s not what you want. Please. Listen to me…to us.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Richard growls, and for the first time, I glimpse the monster beneath the polished businessman exterior. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. And if getting you the help you need means things go back to normal…well, I’m happy to do just that.”

“Oh, I think I know perfectly well what you are capable of,” I reply, my voice steadier than I feel.

“I’ve read the files, Richard. All of them.

The experimental treatments. The payoffs to doctors and judges.

The other children you helped ‘treat’ to neutralize business rivals.

But it was never your grand plan to begin with—it was all her.

You can still do some semblance of the right thing here. ”

Something flickers in his eyes—uncertainty, maybe even fear. Good. He should be afraid.

“You’re bluffing,” he says, but there’s less conviction in his voice now.

“Am I?” I raise an eyebrow. “Ask Arson. He was there. He saw what you did. To him and to others. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay for that, but I’m starting to realize she might be worse than you.”

Richard’s gaze shifts to his son, and something passes between them—decades of hatred compressed into a single look.

“You always were too smart for your own good. A trait you and your mother share.” Richard says to Arson, almost conversationally. “The difference between the two of you is that at least she knew how to get out of her own way.”

There it is. The opening we’ve been waiting for.

“Funny you should mention her,” Arson says, leaning forward despite his bound hands. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that day at the boathouse. About how convenient her death was for you.”

Richard’s face pales slightly. “What are you talking about? Convenient?”

“Mother was a champion swimmer in high school,” Arson continues, his voice deceptively calm. “Did you know that, Lilian? State champion three years running. Yet somehow she drowned in a boathouse barely ten feet deep. No current. No reason she couldn’t have surfaced.”

I didn’t know this. He’d told me about his mother’s death but never any of the background details pertaining to the police records.

“It was an accident,” Richard says stiffly. “She hit her head when she dove in to save Sophia.”

“That’s what was assumed, but did she?” Arson tilts his head, studying his father like he’s a particularly interesting specimen under a microscope.

“The autopsy report said otherwise. No head trauma. Just…drowning. Almost like she couldn’t swim.

Almost like something was preventing her from saving herself.

When I hunted for the doctor who had done the autopsy, I discovered he’d passed away not long after the incident. He either has really bad luck or…”

The room grows unbearably tense, the accusation hanging in the air, its soft smoke from the fireplace filtering it.

I barely dare to breathe, watching Richard’s face carefully for any reaction that might confirm what Arson is suggesting.

I’m surprised to see genuine pain wash over Richard’s features, his composure cracking for the first time.

“How dare you,” he whispers, voice raw with emotion. “How dare you suggest I had anything to do with your mother’s death? I loved my wife more than anything in this world.”

Before Arson or I can respond, my mother returns with my inhaler. She pauses on the threshold, clearly sensing the tension in the room.

“What’s going on?” she asks, eyes darting between us.

“Nothing,” Richard says shortly. “Just more wild accusations.”

Mother approaches cautiously, holding out the inhaler. I take it, wondering if I should continue the charade or drop it entirely. Arson makes the decision for me.

“We were just discussing my mother’s untimely death,” he says pleasantly, as if commenting on the weather. “Specifically, whether someone might have slipped her something that made it impossible for her to swim that day.”

Mother freezes, her hand still outstretched, and something flickers across her face—not surprise, not shock, but something more calculating. Knowledge. She knows something.

“That’s absurd,” she says finally, but her voice lacks conviction. “It was a tragic accident. Nothing more.”

Arson watches her closely, missing nothing. “You know, don’t you, Patricia? You know what happened to her.”

“I know you’re disturbed,” she replies coldly. “I know you’re trying to distract us from the real issue—the confidential medical files you and Lilian stole.”

It’s too late. I’ve seen it now too—that flicker of awareness, of complicity. Mother knows exactly what Arson is talking about, and she’s terrified.

Richard is staring at my mother, something shifting in his expression. “Patricia?” he says, and there’s a question in the single word that makes my skin crawl. “What is he talking about?”

“Nothing,” she insists, but her voice has lost its usual smooth control. “He’s manipulating you, Richard. Don’t let him deflect from the problem at hand.”