Page 75 of The Reckoning
“Understatement of the year.” I test my weight on my right leg, finding it functional despite the throbbing pain. “She might just finish what we started when she sees us.”
A ghost of a smile flickers across his battered face. “Worth it, though.”
“I agree.” I’m surprised to find I mean it.
The hatred that’s fueled me for eight years hasn’t vanished—nothing so simple as that—but it’s changed shape, redirected toward the one who truly deserves it.Richard.The architect of our mutual destruction.
Something close to an understanding passes between us.
One mind. One purpose.
Find her. Protect her. Whatever it takes.
“Richard’s next,” Aries says as we limp toward the woods together, our steps falling into identical rhythm despite our injuries. It’s not a question.
“Richard’s next,” I confirm, the promise tasting like blood and something sweeter. Retribution, finally aimed at the right target. “We end him and the empire he built around us.”
“Together,” he adds, the word hanging between us like a bridge over eight years of manufactured hatred.
“Together,” I echo, testing how it feels.
Not comfortable, not yet, but possible.
We move forward, broken but somehow more whole than we’ve been in decades, blood brothers in more ways than one. The night swallows us as we enter the woods, following the path Lilian took. Our girl is out there somewhere.
And for once, the Hayes twins are on the same side.
God help anyone who gets in our way.
“Liliannnn…” I call into the empty quiet of the woods.
I risk a look at my brother.
My fucking brother.It feels good to say that, to accept it.
He just grins and swipes a fresh dribble of blood from his split lip. “Let’s find our girl.”
TWENTY-TWO
ARIES
The forest breathes around me, alive with shadows and secrets. Blood still dries on my knuckles, mine and my brother’s intermingled—violent proof of everything spoken and unspoken. The pain in my ribs is a dull, steady throb, anchoring me to this strange moment of clarity. Arson walks beside me, our steps finally in sync after five years of silence and betrayal.
“She went this way,” I say, tracking the faint disturbance in the underbrush. The rain has washed most of it away, but I don’t need much. I’ve always been able to find her. Like something inside me is tethered to her—magnetic, primal, unwilling to let go.
“Remember, she’s pissed off and probably scared,” Arson says. “She also doesn’t know we’ve worked things out.”
I nod once, jaw tight, that same pull dragging me forward like a leash around my throat.
“Nope, she thinks we’re still trying to kill each other.”
“There’s nothing to say we won’t try to kill each other again in the future.” Arson grins.
He’s right.Even if we’ve dealt with some of our issues, nothing says we won’t collide again. If anything, it’s likely. Weboth know there’s no undoing the past. No erasing the years I spent believing my brother was dead. Years of suffocating guilt. Of rage so hollow it nearly consumed me. There’s still a lot of bad blood and anger that we have to sort through, but there is one thing we can stand together on, and that’s Lilian.
I crouch low, fingers brushing a broken twig, sap still bleeding from the split. My voice drops. “This is fresh.”
Arson kneels beside me, eyes narrowing as he scans the ground. “Look.” He points at a partial footprint pressed into the mud. The small, unmistakable outline of a shoe.
