Page 94 of The Reckoning
Hector’s gaze shifts to me, something like respect flashing in his eyes. “David Marlowe. Lilian’s father. Patricia made sure he was out of the picture. Freed herself up to join with Richard.”
The fireplace pops loudly once, twice.
The sudden sound makes everyone jump, except Patricia and Hector. Their eyes remain locked in silent combat, decades of hatred compressed into a single, unblinking stare.
“You’re lying,” Patricia hisses, but there’s panic edging into her voice now. The gun wavers slightly in her grip before steadying again. “David died in an accident. A car crash.”
“Did he?” Hector’s voice is soft, dangerous. “Just like Elizabethaccidentallydrowned? Just like Arsonneededto be institutionalized? Just like Lilianhappenedto develop a heart condition that required medication that kept her compliant?”
Each accusation lands like a physical blow, the truth of each impossible to deny. The pattern is too clear, too consistent to be a coincidence.
“You killed my father?” Lilian whispers, the words barely audible over the crackling of the fireplace.
For the first time since I’ve known her, I see genuine fear in Lilian’s eyes.
Not just anger, not just betrayal, but fear—raw and primal. She’s looking at her mother like she doesn’t know her at all. Then again, why the fuck would she? The woman standing before us isn’t the careful, composed Patricia Hayes, philanthropist and devoted mother she plays. This is someone else entirely. Someone who’s been hiding in plain sight for decades.
Patricia’s expression hardens, all pretense of the concerned mother finally dropping away. The transition is chilling to witness—the mask of humanity slipping to reveal something cold and reptilian beneath.
“I did what was necessary,” she says coldly.
The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. There’s something inhuman in Patricia’s eyes now, something calculating and merciless that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I’ve seen that look before—in the eyes of the doctors at the institution who saw me not as a person but as a subject.
A problem to be solved. An inconvenience to be eliminated.
“Tell me, Patricia,” Hector says, taking another step forward, ignoring the weapon entirely. His shoes press into the worn carpet, deliberate and unhurried. “Are you going to shoot me? Add one more body to your count?”
The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on. Patricia’s eyes dart from Hector to Richard to Lilian, calculating her odds, her escape routes. I can almost see the wheels turning behind her eyes, weighing options, assessing threats. She’s backed into a corner, literally and figuratively, but cornered animals are the most dangerous kind.
“You know,” she says, swinging the gun toward Lilian, “I think I’ll start with the person who decided not to listen. The one who brought this all down around us.”
My muscles coil, ready to spring, but I force myself to remain still. One wrong move and Lilian gets a bullet. The distance between us is too great, the gun too steady in Patricia’s hand. I’d never reach her in time. The knowledge burns in my gut, acid and bile rising in my throat.
“I wouldn’t,” Hector says calmly. “That’s the only shot you’ll get off before someone takes you down.”
He gestures around the room—at me, at Aries, at Drew and his friends, at his own men by the door, all of us coiled and ready to spring the moment she gives us an opening. The odds are overwhelmingly against her, and Patricia knows it. I see it in the slight widening of her eyes, the barely perceptible tightening of her jaw.
She backs herself further into the corner, desperation edging into her movements. The firelight casts her shadow long and distorted against the wall, a monstrous silhouette that better matches the true nature of the woman than her carefully maintained appearance.
Without warning, she fires a shot into the ceiling, the sound deafening in the small room. Plaster rains down like snow, dustmotes dancing in the air. Everyone skitters back. The acrid smell of gunpowder mingles with the woodsmoke, creating a choking miasma that stings my eyes and burns my lungs.
“Fine,” she says, lowering the gun back to point in Lilian’s direction. Her voice is steadier now, her initial panic giving way to a cold, pragmatic acceptance of her situation. “Then we negotiate. How do I get out of this alive? With my money?”
Hector laughs, the sound devoid of any real humor. It echoes off the walls of the common room, hollow and bitter. “There is nothing you can give me that would make me let you walk out of here, Patricia. Nothing.”
“I have offshore accounts,” she says quickly, words tumbling over each other in her haste. “Millions. Information about Hayes Enterprises that could be worth even more to the right people.” Her desperation is palpable now, sweat beading on her upper lip despite her otherwise immaculate appearance. The façade is crumbling, revealing the terrified woman beneath. But there’s something else there, too—a cunning that makes me wary. Patricia Hayes doesn’t beg. Doesn’t plead. This is another manipulation, another fucking angle she’s playing.
“Do you really think I care about your money?” Hector asks, disgust evident in his voice. “What level of insane do you have to be to think you can buy your way out of this? You can just kill someone, and trade justice for cash.”
“Everyone has a price,” Patricia insists, desperation creeping into her voice.
Her eyes dart around the room, searching for an ally, but she won’t find one here. Not in this room. Even Richard won’t look at her, his gaze fixed on the floor, shoulders slumped in defeat or disgust or both.
“Not everyone,” I say, my voice low and controlled despite the rage boiling inside me. Every instinct screams to lunge at her, to end this now, but I stay rooted in place.
Too much at stake. Too many variables. Too many ways this could go wrong.
Patricia’s eyes find mine, and for a moment I see something like recognition there. A mirror image of my own hatred, my own capacity for violence. We understand each other, Patricia and I. Both of us are willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want. The difference is, what I want is justice. What she wants is survival, at any cost.
