Page 19 of The Reckoning
Richard talks, and I listen, and all the while my skin crawls with revulsion at being in his presence. At pretending to be the son he kept while carrying the scars of being the sonhe discarded. At playing along with whatever new cage he’s building for Lilian under the guise of medical care.
They want to trap her, just like they trapped us. The twins. The defective one and the perfect one. Specimens to be studied, controlled, and utilized for any purpose that serves the Hayes legacy.
Not this time. Not her.
The meeting drags on for another hour, an eternity of pretending to be someone I’m not while sitting across from the monster who made me. By the time Richard finally dismisses me, the strain of maintaining the facade has left me raw, exposed, and barely containing the rage simmering just beneath the surface.
I leave the office with the appropriate farewell, the appropriate deference. The perfect son, off to do the family bidding.
The elevator doors close behind me, and finally—finally—I can exhale. Can drop the mask, if only for the brief descent back to the parking garage.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Drew. I answer without speaking.
“We have her.” Drew’s voice is tense but triumphant. “Banged up a little from the fight when they took her, and her fight when they tied her down, and…” He pauses with a slight chuckle. “The fight when she tried to get free.”
Relief crashes through me with such force that my knees nearly buckle. “Let me talk to her.”
“Not possible right now. I’m on the car’s phone, and she’s in the back with Aries. We are heading to the safehouse right now. Sorry to say it’s another shithole warehouse. Now I would love to chitchat, but I gotta make a couple more calls.”
Ice replaces relief, instant and absolute. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we got her out,” Drew snaps. “But we might want to get her checked by a doctor.”
“Address,” I demand, voice dropping to a dangerous register. “Now.”
He hesitates, then rattles off an address.
“If she’s not alive when I get there,” I say, each word a blade, “neither are you.”
I end the call before he can respond, already calculating the fastest route from The Tower to the address. Richard’s words echo in my mind as I stride toward the car. A new treatment protocol. Promising results. Participation options.
All code for control, for manipulation, for turning Lilian into another Hayes experiment.
Over my dead body.
Or more likely, over Richard’s.
The thought brings a grim smile to my face as I slide behind the wheel. Perhaps my original plan wasn’t so far off after all. Possibly Richard Hayes will get exactly what he deserves.
A son returned from the grave to collect on two decades of debt.
SIX
ARIES
This particular warehouse smells like dust, and I swear to God if I never have to see the inside of a warehouse again it will be too fucking soon. I lean against the concrete wall, arms crossed, watching the steady rise and fall of Lilian’s chest through the open doorway.
She’s been unconscious for hours now, lying still on the bed Drew set up for her. It’s almost morning, not that I’ll be able to sleep until she opens her eyes and looks at me. At this point, I just want her to be awake. Hell, I’ll even take a slap across the face for being an asshole. Anything to let me know she’s okay.
Three fucking hours since we pulled her out of that corporate prison after Arson’s backers took her, and I saw the bruises on her wrists and the red mark on her temple. Seeing her like that caused something inside my chest to crack open and start bleeding.
Drew paces near the windows, checking his phone every thirty seconds like he’s expecting the cavalry to arrive. His nervous energy grates against my already frayed nerves, but not as much as the other presence in this godforsaken place.
Arson.
He stands rigid in the corner of the room like a statue carved from rage and desperation. He hasn’t moved from that spot since we brought her here, hasn’t taken his eyes off Lilian’s prone form. The intensity radiating from him is almost visible, a heat shimmer of barely contained violence.
It’s unsettling how much I see myself in him, especially when he’s consumed by emotion. The same clenched jaw, the same white-knuckled fists. Where I’ve learned to internalize, to control, he wears his obsession like armor.
