Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“Who are you?” she asks in my fantasy, her hand replacing mine.
“The brother they tried to bury,” I growl, and then explode, coming with a shuddering gasp, pain and release intertwined as always.
For a moment, the clarity of release is all I can feel, then reality comes crashing back into me. This fixation is dangerous. She’s dangerous.
To the plan. To my focus. To whatever’s left of my sanity.
With a tissue, I clean myself up. How could I be so weak? Ten years of plotting revenge gone to waste. How pathetic am I? Jerking off like a teenager over the first woman who sees me? The ball band has left angry red marks, tiny punctures where the spikes dug in. Good. The pain clears my head, burns away the fog of desire clouding my judgment.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror shows a face identical to Aries’s, except for the hardness in my eyes. The doctors called it flat affect—a common symptom in psychopaths. That’s their label for me. Patient 4721. Antisocial personality disorder with psychopathic tendencies. Dangerous. Untreatable. Better locked away forever.
They never understood that it wasn’t a disorder. It was armor. The only way to survive the cruelest of the cruel is to become one of them. They made me this way.
“Focus,” I tell my reflection.
This isn’t about Lilian. Yes, her appearance in all of this is unexpected, but getting rid of her is easy enough.
Feeling a little calmer, I return to my planning table, this time with clinical detachment. Lilian Hayes. Age twenty. Congenital heart defect—ventricular septal anomaly with pulmonary valve stenosis, according to the medical files I hacked. Not immediately life-threatening if properly managed, which explains how she’s survived this long. Like always, there’s more to it.
The family uses her condition for sympathy and social currency. That’s the Hayes way—exploit everything and everyone. Even their fragile daughter.
I study the surveillance photos with new eyes. Her posture at events—always slightly stooped, playing up the weakness. Weird. I’ve seen her move when she thinks no one’s watching. There’s strength there. Endurance. While Lilian’s heart disorder might have been a problem at one point and time, it’s definitely not as bad as they make it out to be.
Turns out Lilian and I are not so different. Both pawns in the Hayes family’s games. Both pretending to be something we’re not. Even this newfound information doesn’t change that she’s a threat. She recognized me once, so she’ll do it again. If she exposes me before I’m ready, everything falls apart. Ten years of planning wasted.
Options scroll through my mind like a tactical assessment:
1.Eliminate her. Clean. Simple. Effective. The thought doesn’t seem as beneficial as potentially using her, though.
2.Discredit her. Make any accusations seem like the delusions of a sick girl. Possible, but messy. Requires more time than I have.
3.Isolate her. Keep her away from anyone she might talk to until my plan is complete. Doable, but adds complications.
4.Seduce her. Use her attraction to Aries against her, make her complicit. Keep her close. Monitor her.
The last option lingers, appealing in ways that have nothing to do with strategy. Dangerous thinking. I need to be ruthless here. Sentiment is what got me locked up in the first place, that misplaced loyalty to a brother who stood by and watched them take me away. Who didn’t even fucking try. Who never visited or wrote letters. I won’t make that mistake again.
Lilian Hayes needs to be removed from the equation. One way or another.
I reach for the burner phone, and navigate to the contacts. My finger hovers over the contact labeled Cleanup. One call, and professional fixers will make sure Lilian Hayes never interferes with anything again.
Quick. Efficient. Final.
I stare at the screen.
Do it. Push the fucking button. Call them.
Anger rips through me, followed by disgust.
I can’t do it.
Fucking Christ. I put the phone down. This isn’t like me. I’ve never had trouble eliminating obstacles. That orderly who caught me stealing pharmaceuticals at the institution? Died by accident from faulty electrical wiring. The doctor who recognized symptoms of my medication tampering? Anonymous tip about his cocaine habit to the medical board.
Clean. Calculated. Necessary.
If it’s always been so easy, then why does the thought of silencing Lilian feel wrong?
Because she saw you. Not Aries. You. Even if she hasn’t realized it yet.
I pace the length of my quarters, wrestling with options. There’s a third path, neither elimination nor seduction. Control. Keep her close enough to monitor but distant enough to manage. Use her insight rather than silence it.
My brother’s reaction when I mentioned her was revealing. Protective. Concerned. He cares about her more than my surveillance suggested. That makes her valuable leverage.
Decision made, I move to the planning wall. Methodically, I rearrange the photos, creating a new section. Lilian Hayes is no longer peripheral. She’s central now—not just to hurting Aries but to understanding him, to perfecting my portrayal of him. I pin her photo in the center of the new arrangement. Unlike the clinical surveillance shots of others, this one captures something different.