Page 46 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

Aries appears in the doorway, slightly out of breath, eyes wild as they scan the room and land on me. “What did I miss?” he asks, trying for casualness but missing by a mile.

“Perfect timing,” Arson says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Did you know Patrica had something to do with our mother’s drowning?”

Aries’s gaze sharpens and focuses on Mother with new intensity. “What?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Mother says quickly—too quickly. “He’s trying to manipulate you, Aries. To drive a wedge between us.”

Richard takes a step toward her, his expression hardening. “Patricia, what is going on? It’s clear you know something about my wife’s death?”

“Richard, please,” she says, reaching for his arm. “You can’t possibly believe?—”

He shrugs off her touch. “Tell me!!”

I’ve never seen my mother cornered before. She’s always so composed, so in control. That image is long gone with four pairs of eyes drilling into her.

Like a rope, she’s unraveling at the edges. There is no escaping the truth.

“It was a long time ago,” she says finally, straightening her spine. “Ancient history. We have more pressing matters to deal with right now.”

“It’s not ancient history, not to me,” Richard says, his voice deadly quiet. “Not when it comes to my wife.”

There’s a muffled thump that can be heard from upstairs, followed by urgent whispers. Mother’s head snaps up, her eyes narrowing. “Who else is here?” she demands.

“Just some of Aries’s old dormmates,” I say quickly. “It’s a public campus, you know.”

Aries moves farther into the room, positioning himself between Mother and the staircase. “Let’s focus on what matters. Patricia, what were you saying about our mother’s death?”

“I wasn’t saying anything,” she snaps. “I have nothing to say. It was an accident. Stop accusing me of something that I had nothing to do with.”

“The autopsy report says otherwise,” Arson counters. “No head trauma. No indication of anything, not that the boat hit her when she went into the water. Just…drowning. A champion swimmer who somehow couldn’t save herself in ten feet of water?”

Richard’s face has gone ashen. “She…she hit her head…yes.” It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself now.

“Right, and who was the first person to come and find you, Father?”

The room goes so still I can hear the old grandfather clock ticking in the hallway.

Richard turns slowly to face my mother, his expression a mixture of dawning horror and disbelief.

“Patricia.” Her name is barely audible. “You were there that day. You said you went looking for her before she went down to the boathouse.”

Mother’s mask slips completely, revealing something cold and calculating.

“Goodness. Fine. She was going to ruin everything,” she says, her voice oddly detached. “She found the files, Richard. The trial data. The side effects Hayes Pharma was covering up. We had an argument, and she told me she was going to go public with the information.”

The color drains from Richard’s face. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying your precious wife was going to destroy everything we built,” Mother continues, her voice taking on a fervent quality that makes my skin crawl. “So I did what needed to be done.”

“You killed her,” Arson says, the words hanging in the air like a physical presence.

Mother doesn’t deny it. “I protected our interests. Our future. She was going to take the boys, Richard. Take them away from us.”

“From us?” Richard repeats, his voice hollow with disbelief. “She was my wife. The boys were our sons. There was no us , Patricia.”

“There would have been,” she insists, a desperate edge creeping into her voice. “Once she was gone. We could be together. Build the company. Raise the boys as our own.”

“Jesus Christ,” Richard whispers, staggering back as if physically struck. “You’re insane…you killed her because you wanted what she had?”

“I did it for you,” Mother says, reaching for him again. “For us. For Hayes Enterprises. She was going to ruin everything.”

Richard recoils from her touch like it burns. “How?” he demands, voice cracking. “How did you do it?”

“It was easy,” she says, and the casualness of her tone sends ice through my veins.

“A little something in her tea before she went down to the boathouse. Something from the lab. It causes temporary paralysis of the limbs. All I had to do was follow her down and wait for it to take effect. Even I couldn’t have planned that she’d jump into the water, or that the kids would be down there.

I really didn’t do anything. She did it all herself. ”

The room goes deathly quiet. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t process the cold calculation in my mother’s voice. This woman raised me. Tucked me in at night. Held my hand during doctor’s appointments. All while hiding a monster beneath her perfect facade.

“You watched her drown,” Arson says, his voice eerily calm. “Your friend. The mother of the children you claimed to love, but that’s not the worst. The worst part is, you let us watch her drown. You let her kids watch her die.”

“It was a necessary evil,” she repeats, but there’s a frantic quality to her now, her usual composure fracturing under the weight of her confession. “I figured the trauma would keep you in line. I couldn’t risk any of you destroying things further.”

“You’re mad!” Richard pulls his cell phone from his pocket. “I…I can’t—I need to?—”

Mother whips a small handgun out of a purse on her hip, stopping his movements. “I think we need to have a more private conversation,” she says smoothly, her composure fully restored.

“Where did you get that?” Richard asks, staring at the gun with disbelief.

“I’ve always had it,” she replies with a small shrug. “A woman in my position needs protection. Now, where were we?”

“You were confessing to murder,” Arson says coldly. “To drowning our mother.”

Mother’s lips curve into a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I wasn’t confessing. I was…hypothesizing. And this conversation is over.”

She levels the gun at Richard. “You’ve disappointed me, Richard. After everything I’ve done for you. For this family.”

“Patricia,” he says, voice low with pain and anger. “Put the gun down. More death isn’t going to solve anything.”

“It solves the immediate problem,” she replies, gaze flicking between all of us.

“It gives us time to think, to plan our next move. Don’t act the martyr.

We’ve worked together on any number of projects over the years.

If I go down, then I’ll conveniently start talking, and you’ll be just as guilty in all of it as I am.

Maybe more so, since it was your money that set it all up. ”

Arson flexes his hands as he snaps his zip ties, one loop hanging broken off the other, his expression dangerously calm. No one notices.

“There is no next move,” he says. “The sham is over. You already confessed. The only place you’re going is a mental hospital.”

“Confessed?” Mother tilts her head slightly. “I don’t recall confessing to anything. I merely suggested a scenario. Explored a possibility.”

“We all heard you,” I say, fury building inside me. “You admitted to drugging her.”

“Did I?” Her voice is light, almost amused. “How would that sound to an outsider, I wonder? The troubled twin with delusions of persecution, his codependent stepsister with her own mental health issues, both making wild accusations against a respected philanthropist?”

Richard makes a move toward her. “This is madness, Patricia. Please, you can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this.”

“Get away with what?” she asks innocently. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve only tried to protect my family—including my disturbed stepson, who clearly needs to return to proper care.”

I want to interject, to speak up for Arson, but there’s no point. It’s clear that she is past sanity. The calculated look in her eyes terrifies me. She’s already spinning a new narrative, already plotting how to turn this situation to her advantage.

“No one will believe you,” Aries says, moving to stand beside his brother. “Not this time.”

“Won’t they?” Mother smiles, the expression never reaching her eyes. “The Hayes family is one of the most respected in the country. Hayes Enterprises employs thousands. And I’ve spent years building my reputation as a champion for children with mental health issues.”

She gestures with the gun toward Arson. “Who would they believe? Me, or the young man who spent years in psychiatric care? The young man who apparently escaped, assumed his brother’s identity, and has been living a dangerous delusion?”

A knock on the hall interrupts us. Mother’s eyes narrow, then she calls out in a voice suddenly tremulous with emotion, “Who is there?”

Drew pokes his head down, followed by Lee and Sebastian. They take in the scene—Richard looking shell-shocked, Arson coiled like a snake, Mother standing near the door, me frozen in place—and stop dead in their tracks.

“What the—” Drew starts, but Mother cuts him off.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” she says, her voice transformed, thick with tears and worry. “There’s been a terrible situation. My stepson Arson has been making wild accusations.”

The boys stare at her, then at us, clearly trying to make sense of the tableau.

“What’s going on?” Sebastian asks, his gaze lingering on Arson ready to pounce.

“My stepson Arson”—she gestures toward him with the gun, making the boys flinch—“has been struggling with some serious delusions. He became aggressive, and I had to take precautions to protect my family.”

It’s masterful, the way she shifts the narrative. The way she becomes the concerned mother, the protective wife, the reluctant defender—all in the space of seconds.

“That’s not what happened,” I say, finding my voice at last. “She’s lying. She confessed to murdering their mother. To locking Arson away for years. To?—”

“Lilian, sweetheart,” Mother interrupts, her voice dripping with concern, “you’re confused. The stress has triggered an episode. You know how fragile your condition is.”

Drew’s eyes dart between us, his eyebrows raised, uncertainty etched into his features, but there’s a shrewdness there too.

There’s no way he couldn’t have been listening?

“Aries?” he asks, looking at his friend for clarification.

But I can see the calculation in his eyes there too.

He knows damn well what’s happening here.

But before Aries can answer, Mother speaks again, her voice carrying just the right note of command. “Boys, we need to call the police. We need to get Arson proper help before he hurts someone.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Arson says, his voice tight with controlled fury. “She’s manipulating you. She’s been manipulating all of us for years.”

Sebastian takes a small step forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Mrs. Hayes, maybe you should put the gun down so we can talk about this?”

“The gun stays with me,” she says, her smile tight but determined. “Until Arson is properly restrained. He’s dangerous when he’s like this.”

Lee looks from Mother to Richard, then back again. “I’m calling the police,” he says firmly, pulling out his phone. Then he makes meaningful eye contact with Aries and steps aside.

Mother doesn’t try to stop him. Instead, she smiles faintly, as if everything is proceeding exactly as she planned. “Good. We need to get this situation under control.”

The way she says it—so confident, so certain—sends a chill down my spine. Because even now, with everything falling apart around her, she’s thinking ahead. Planning. Manipulating.

“Right,” Sebastian agrees. “We’ll get everything under control, don’t worry.”

“While we wait,” she continues smoothly, “perhaps you boys could help Richard to the sofa? He’s had quite a shock.”

Drew and Lee move toward Richard, who looks both pained and bewildered at the sudden shift in dynamics. As they settle him on the couch, Mother maintains her position by the door, gun held casually but deliberately visible.

“And Arson,” she says, her voice hardening slightly, “why don’t you sit down, too? Over there.” She gestures to a chair well away from any of us, isolated.

He doesn’t move. “No.”

Mother’s smile tightens. “Always so difficult. So…contrary. Even as a child, you resisted every attempt to help you.”

“Help me?” Arson laughs, the sound sharp and bitter. “Is that what you call it? Locking me away for years? Torturing me with experimental drugs and treatments?”

“You see?” Mother says to Drew and the others, as if Arson has just proven her point. “These paranoid delusions. It’s heartbreaking, really. We tried for so long to get him proper treatment.”

Lee finishes his call, looking uneasy. “Security is on their way. The ambulance, too.”

“Thank you,” Mother says warmly, as if he’s done her a great favor. “You boys have been so helpful. Such good friends to Aries.”

The way she says it—separating Aries from Arson, reinforcing the division—is subtle but unmistakable. She’s already building her narrative, brick by careful brick.

“Mrs. Hayes,” Drew says cautiously, “what exactly happened here? Before we came in?”

“A terrible misunderstanding,” she replies without missing a beat. “Arson has been... unstable since his escape from the treatment facility. He’s been impersonating Aries, living his life, even stealing his clothes and identity.”

The ease with which she lies is breathtaking. The conviction in her voice, the sorrow in her eyes—all of it perfectly calibrated to evoke sympathy, to create doubt.

“That’s bullshit,” Aries says flatly. Finally breaking his silence. “She’s lying. About all of it.”

“I’m sorry,”Richard says softly. “For everything. For not seeing. For not knowing.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Sorry doesn’t erase ten years of Arson’s torture.

Sorry doesn’t undo a lifetime of manipulation and control.

Sorry doesn’t bring back the mother his sons lost. The pain in his eyes is real.

The shock and betrayal. Whatever he did or didn’t know, the revelation of his wife’s murder at Patricia’s hands has broken something fundamental in him.

“She had us all fooled,” I say finally, offering what little comfort I can. “All of us.”

He sighs, and I settle back, waiting for the inevitable. Until something I don’t expect happens. It’s not the police who walks in—it’s Arson’s backers. My kidnappers.

“Hello, Patricia. Still spinning lies, I see,” the older man says.