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)
“One step at a time,” Arson cautions, though I can see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “First, we need to regroup with Aries and figure out our next move.”
I nod, settling back into my seat as the city skyline appears on the horizon. A week. Seven days to unravel a lifetime of lies. To find a father who’s been nothing but a ghost in my life. To discover what makes me valuable enough that my mother would secure legal control over my body.
“What are you thinking?” Arson asks, glancing at me briefly before returning his attention to the road.
“I’m thinking,” I say slowly, “that I’m tired of being a pawn in everyone else’s game. It’s time I started playing by my own rules.”
A small, approving smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Now you’re talking like a Hayes.”
“No,” I correct him, something fierce and unfamiliar rising in my chest. “I’m talking like me. Like Lilian. And it’s about time everyone heard what I have to say.”
The sun dips lower on the horizon as we drive, casting the world in shades of gold and shadow. Ahead lies uncertainty, danger, and the daunting task of uncovering truths long buried. But for the first time in my life, I’m not facing it as the fragile girl everyone has always believed me to be.
I’m facing it as myself—whoever that turns out to be.
FIFTEEN
ARIES
The warehouse door bangs open, the sound echoing off concrete walls like a gunshot. My heart lurches inside my chest as they enter—Arson first, his body coiled tight like a predator ready to strike. The tailored clothes—my clothes—hang on him wrong, like a costume that can’t quite hide the animal beneath.
But it’s Lilian’s body language that makes my blood run cold. She follows him, one step behind, her face drained of color, eyes vacant and hollow. She looks like a corpse walking—something vital ripped out of her, leaving just the shell.
“What the fuck happened?” I demand, moving toward them before I can stop myself. My hands itch to touch her, to check for injuries, to pull her against me, but I hold back. The memory of finding her in his bed, in his arms, claws at my insides like a living thing.
“Patricia happened,” Arson spits, his voice scraped raw with rage. “And that fucking butcher Winters.”
“I’m fine,” Lilian says, though the lie is so obvious it’s almost painful to hear. Her voice is flat, dead. “Just…tired.”
“Bullshit,” I counter, studying her face. Something’s changed in her—something harder, sharper, like glass that’s been shattered and put back together wrong. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”
Arson yanks off his jacket—my jacket—and hurls it onto a chair with enough force to make it slide. “They’ve got a medical power of attorney. Signed on her eighteenth birthday. Gives Patricia complete fucking control over her healthcare decisions.”
“What?” The word rips from my throat. “How the hell is that possible?”
“She buried it in the trust fund paperwork,” Lilian explains, collapsing onto the couch like her legs can’t hold her anymore. She looks small, fragile, crushed by the weight of betrayal. “The inheritance from my father. I signed without reading. Stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid,” I say automatically, feeling protective fury rise in my chest. “Trusting. There’s a difference.”
Arson makes a sound like a dog choking on something bitter. “In the Hayes family? Fuck no, there isn’t.”
I ignore him, focusing on Lilian, on the way her hands tremble slightly as she tucks her hair behind her ear. “What else? What do they want?”
“They’ve scheduled some ‘procedure’ for next Friday,” she says, pressing her fingers against her temples like she’s trying to keep her skull from splitting open. “Won’t tell me exactly what it is, just that it’s supposedly going to fix my heart condition permanently.”
“You don’t believe them.”
Not a question. I know her well enough—the set of her jaw, the slight narrowing of her eyes—to see the skepticism burning beneath the exhaustion.
“The doctor let something slip,” Arson interjects, stalking back and forth like a tiger in a cage too small. His footsteps echo off the concrete, marking time like a metronome counting down to disaster. “Said something about ‘donors’ being ready, then caught himself. Went white as a sheet when he realized what he’d said.”
A chill slithers down my spine, cold and sick. “No, I took it as donors to the research, money donors, to fund whatever they are trying to create, using Lilian as the guinea pig.”
“We need to find out more,” Lilian says, her voice stronger now, edged with determination that cuts through her exhaustion. “But whatever it is, they’re planning to do it with or without my consent. The power of attorney makes sure of that.”
The implications sink in slowly, each one more grotesque than the last. Medical procedures. Donations. Legal control over her body. It sounds like something from a horror movie, not the family I grew up in. Yet even as the thought forms, I know it’s naive. I’ve spent the last few months chained in a concrete cell, courtesy of my own twin brother. Nothing should surprise me anymore.