Page 40 of The Reckoning
“Can we get away from her until we figure all of this out?” Arson suggests, his voice casual but his eyes watchful. “She’s just trying to reel you back in.”
I don’t point out that he had to interrupt my moment with Aries, wanting to me to contact her, only now to suggest I ignore her. We don’t have time for more squabbles.
I shake my head, moving toward the bedroom to find fresh clothes now. “It’s not that simple. If I don’t respond, she’ll escalate. Trust me, you don’t want to see what that looks like.”
They follow me around the bedroom, maintaining a careful distance from each other. The truce between them feels tenuous, fragile—a gossamer thread that could snap with one wrong word or careless gesture.
I rummage through the duffel bag of clothes someone brought for me, pulling out clean underwear, jeans, and a soft gray sweater.
I strip out of the clothes I was wearing earlier and quickly tug on fresh underwear. Both men catalog my body as I move in a way that’s so intense it’s almost unsettling. When I’m fully dressed, Aries turns away to find his own fresh clothing. Arson continues to stare, like he’s waiting for a chance to remove every stitch I just layered on. I swallow the urge to let him. I run my fingers through my damp hair, trying to impose some order on the tangled strands. My reflection in the small mirror above abeat-up dresser shows flushed cheeks, bright eyes, swollen lips—all evidence of the past hour’s activities. I look alive in a way I haven’t in years. Maybe ever.
“What’s the plan?” Aries asks, already pulling on his own clothes with efficient movements. “Regarding your mother.”
I sigh, sitting on the edge of the bed as the reality of my situation crashes back over me. The bubble of desire and connection we’d created in the shower bursts, leaving me facing the cold facts of our predicament once more.
“I have to call her,” I say, staring down at the phone in my hand. “If I don’t, she’ll send people looking for me. And they’ll find me, find us. She’s relentless that way.”
“Let her try,” Arson says with quiet menace, leaning against the wall with deceptive casualness. “I’ve hidden from the Hayes family for years. I know how to disappear.”
“It’s not just about hiding,” I explain, looking up at him. “It’s about buying time. We need to figure out what those men want with Aries, why they’re funding your revenge. If my mother creates a manhunt, we’ll be too busy running to find answers.”
Aries nods, buttoning his shirt with precise movements. “She’s right. We need breathing room. A distraction.”
“Exactly,” I agree, relieved that at least one of them understands. “Let me handle my mother. I’ve been managing her my whole life.”
With that, I stand and move toward the door. “I need coffee for this conversation.”
They follow me out to the makeshift kitchen, where someone—Arson, probably—has already started a pot brewing. The smell of it is comforting, a touch of normalcy in our decidedly abnormal situation.
Light filters through the dusty warehouse windows, casting long shadows across the space. I sit at the small table, nursing a cup of coffee, trying to make sense of my impossible situation.Two identical men, both carrying pieces of my heart for different reasons. Both dangerous in their own ways. Both now bound by an arrangement that should feel tawdry but somehow doesn’t.
The phone on the table before me seems to mock my indecision. I’ve been staring at it for twenty minutes, rehearsing what to say, how to sound normal when nothing about my life is normal anymore.
“Just call her,” Aries says from where he leans against the counter, his voice gentle but firm. “The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be.”
“It’s not that simple,” I reply, wrapping both hands around my mug like it might anchor me to reality. “She’ll know something’s wrong. She always does.”
Aries moves closer, his movements more fluid today, less constrained by anger and suspicion. The release of the shower seems to have eased something in him, smoothed some of the jagged edges captivity left behind.
“You don’t have to tell her anything,” he says, pouring himself coffee from the pot on the counter. “Just check in. Buy us some time.”
“Time for what?” Arson asks, eyeing his twin with barely concealed suspicion. Where Aries moves with renewed ease this morning, Arson seems coiled tighter than ever, watching us both with narrowed eyes.
The tension between them has shifted since last night—not gone, never that, but altered into something more complex than simple hatred. Something that contains acknowledgment, if not acceptance.
“Time to figure out our next move,” I say, before they can start circling each other again. “We still don’t know what those men want with Aries, or why they’re funding your revenge, Arson.”
“We know they want Richard’s head,” Arson reminds me, taking a seat at the table across from me. “That part’s clear enough.”
“But why?” I press, leaning forward. “What’s their stake in all this? What do they gain from destroying the Hayes empire?”
Neither twin has an answer for that, the silence stretching uncomfortably between us. I sigh and pick up the phone, knowing I can’t delay the inevitable any longer.
“Just…be quiet while I do this,” I tell them both. “Let me handle my mother.”
They nod in unison, a synchronized movement that would be comical under different circumstances. I take a deep breath and hit the button on my mother’s contact.
She answers on the second ring, her voice sharp with anxiety. “Lilian? Is that you?”
