Page 49 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

TWENTY-SEVEN

LILIAN

I can’t breathe.

Not because of my blown-out-of-proportion heart condition, but because my mother—the woman who raised me, who tucked me in at night, who held my hand through doctor visits—is pointing a gun at me with murder in her eyes.

Fear constricts my breath, slowly slithering up my spine like a snake.

My mouth goes dry, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

The taste of copper floods my senses—I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it.

My heartbeat thunders in my ears, drowning out everything except my mother’s voice and the click of the safety being released on her gun.

I could cower—no one would blame me right now—but I don’t.

I force myself to stand straight. To not show it.

Not with everything hanging in the balance.

Not with Arson and Aries watching. I’ve spent my entire life being the fragile one, the broken one, the one who needs protection.

Not today. Not now when it matters most.

God, Arson and Aries. How can it end like this?

After everything they’ve been through—the separation, the torture, the years of planning—it can’t all come down to this moment in a crappy college common room with my psychopath mother waving a gun around.

The unfairness of it hits me hard, making my knees want to buckle.

All I can think about is getting them out of here. Both of them. Safe. The thought pounds through me with each heartbeat: get them out, get them out, get them out.

These two men who’ve survived so much already, who’ve clawed their way back from hell—they can’t die here. I won’t let them.

It feels like the room is closing in on me, the walls shrinking with each passing second. The heat from the fireplace is now stifling, sweat beading at my temples, at the nape of my neck, and trickling down between my shoulder blades.

I can smell the acrid tang of my own fear sweat. Time stretches and contracts, seconds feeling like hours as my mother’s finger tenses on the trigger.

Drew steps forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Mrs. Hayes,” he says carefully, “maybe I can help. I have connections with the State Attorney General. We could work something out.”

His voice sounds far away, like he’s speaking underwater.

Everything has taken on a dreamlike quality, reality bending at the edges.

Is this what shock feels like? The edges of my vision blur, darkness creeping in.

I dig my fingernails into my palms, the sharp pain bringing me back to the present.

I can’t check out now. I need to stay alert, stay ready.

My mother’s eyes flick to Drew, dismissive. The look she gives him—like he’s something she found stuck to the bottom of her designer shoe—makes my stomach clench. I’ve seen that look so many times growing up. It’s the look that precedes cruelty.

“Shut up, boy. This doesn’t concern you.” Her voice drips with contempt, each syllable a tiny blade.

“No,” Hector says firmly. “There will be no negotiation.” His voice is steel wrapped in velvet, smooth but unyielding. “You walk out with me, Patricia, and I might let Richard live. For now. That’s the only concession I’m willing to make.”

Mother laughs, the sound brittle and sharp as breaking glass.

It’s a sound I haven’t heard often—her real laugh, not the carefully modulated social titter she uses at charity events. This laugh comes from somewhere dark and twisted, a place I never wanted to know existed inside her.

“Let Richard live? Hilarious of you to think I care what happens to him.” Her gaze shifts to my stepfather, contempt etched into every line of her face.

The mask is completely gone now, revealing the stranger beneath.

“Weak, pathetic Richard. Couldn’t see what was happening right under his nose for years. ”

Richard flinches, the words hitting him with each syllable.

He looks smaller somehow, diminished, as if the truth of what my mother has done has physically shrunk him.

His shoulders curve inward, his eyes hollow.

For the first time, I feel something like pity for him.

He’s as much a victim as any of us, in his way—blind, yes, but deliberately kept that way.

“Patricia,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, “please. Don’t do this.”

It’s strange to hear him beg. Richard Hayes, titan of industry, reduced to pleading.

His voice trembles, thick with grief and betrayal.

I allow myself a reprieve, to see him not as the distant, cold stepfather I’ve known, but as a man whose entire world has just imploded.

Who’s discovered that the last decade of his life was built on lies and manipulation, that the woman he thought he knew was a murderer who killed his first wife.

“Don’t do this?” she repeats, mockery dripping from each syllable. “It’s a bit late for that, wouldn’t you say? Years too late.”

She turns back to me, something shifting in her expression.

The mask slips completely, revealing something I’ve never seen before—pure, undiluted hatred.

This isn’t my mother anymore. This is a stranger wearing her face.

The transformation is so complete, so terrifying, that I have to fight the urge to step back. To run. To hide.

I’m done running. Done hiding. Done being afraid.

“Lilian,” she hisses. “What an ungrateful little bitch you turned out to be, huh?” I open my mouth to speak, but she’s not finished.

“I did all of this for you. To give you the best life possible. A beautiful home, a last name that would open doors for you, and an endless future. I wanted you to have the perfect life, and this is how you repay me?”

Each word is a slap, stinging and sharp.

My throat tightens, emotion threatening to choke me.

Despite everything—despite the lies, the manipulation, the drugging—some childish part of me still craves her approval.

Still wants her to be the mother I thought she was.

The betrayal cuts deeper than I thought possible, reopening wounds I didn’t even know I had.

I swallow hard, forcing the words past the lump in my throat.

“Repay you? How can you act like the victim in all of this? For years, you drugged me and used fabricated medical conditions to keep me in a box, your box. You made me believe I was broken. That I was weak.” My voice comes out stronger than I expected, steadier.

The truth gives me strength I didn’t know I possessed.

“I made you better,” she snaps. “Improved you. Without me, you’d be nothing. Just another timid girl trying to make her way in the world.”

I recoil as if she’s struck me. The casual cruelty, the dismissal of my entire existence outside of her control—it’s breathtaking in its totality. This is the truth of how she sees me—not as a daughter, not as a person, but as a possession. A project. A means to an end.

Time seems to freeze as she raises the gun higher, her aim steadying. Her finger tightens on the trigger, her eyes cold and empty. “None of that matters now, though. If I’m going down, I’m taking my little whore of a daughter with me.”

The words hang in the air for a heartbeat, two. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think. I’m frozen, a rabbit caught in headlights, as I stare down the barrel of the gun. My own mother’s gun, aimed at my heart. I don’t see Aries move, but he does.

One moment, he’s at the edge of the room, and the next, he’s launching himself at my mother like a force of nature, all coiled muscle and barely contained rage.

Everything happens so fast—a blur of motion, a cry of surprise from my mother, the gun swinging wildly, then one, two, gunshots that split the sound in the room with a deafening crack.

What happens next seems to unfold in slow motion.

A massive explosion of flames shoots upward from the fireplace, the force of it knocking everyone backward.

The acrid smell of accelerant fills the air—that bullet hit something it shouldn’t have.

Heat blasts across my face, singeing my eyebrows, as flames race across the carpet with unnatural speed.

And then there’s screaming. God, the screaming.

My mother is engulfed in flames, her perfect silk blouse transformed into a shroud of fire. Aries, too—his arm, his side, patches of flame eating away at his clothes, at his skin.

I lunge forward instinctively, reaching for him, but Arson is there first, grabbing a throw blanket from the couch and beating at the flames on his brother’s body, dragging him toward the door.

“Help her!” I scream, turning toward my mother, but strong arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back.

“No!” Hector shouts in my ear. “It’s too late! We need to get out!”

It’s only then I notice Richard on the floor, no one moving to save him either. Did he get knocked out with the blast?

“But Richard!” I scream, trying to get someone’s attention. But everyone is too busy trying to save themselves.

The room is rapidly filling with thick black smoke as flames climb the curtains and engulf the bookshelves. Everyone races toward the door—Drew, Lee, Sebastian,, Hector’s men. No one moves to help my mother. No one moves to help Richard. No one looks back.

Outside, on the porch, the cold air hits my lungs like a hammer from the inside out after the searing heat inside.

I gasp, choking on smoke, tears streaming down my face.

My throat feels raw, whether from screaming or from the smoke, I can’t tell.

My skin prickles with heat, too close to the flames for too long.

Aries breaks away from Arson, his shirt half burned away, angry red welts already forming on his skin. The burns look painful—blistering, weeping—but he moves as if he doesn’t feel them, driven by some purpose greater than pain. He turns back toward the door, his face a mask of determination.

“Is anyone else in there?” he demands, looking at Lee.