Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
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.