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)
It’s from tonight, taken from the security feeds, as she stood on the terrace, challenging me. Her eyes are alive with intelligence, her posture straight and uncompromising. Nothing like the fragile invalid her family presents to the world.
Around her photo, I arrange string connections to both Aries and me. A triangle of complications. I won’t kill her. Not yet, anyway. She’s too useful right now. Instead, I’ll draw her in. Let her think she’s uncovering my secrets while I uncover hers. I’ll use her knowledge of Aries against him, and her apparent fascination with me against her.
If she becomes too dangerous, I can always revert to the original plan. Cleanup is just a phone call away.
My fingers trace the outline of her face in the photograph. The only person who’s seen the real me in ten years, even if she doesn’t know what she’s seeing.
“Lilian Hayes,” I murmur to the empty room. “How bad do you want Aries? Bad enough that you would sell your soul to the devil?”
I pick up a red marker and circle her image, adding a question mark beside it. Not a target. Not an asset. Something else entirely. A wild card I never expected to find in this game of revenge.
Lilian
I’ve been staring at the same page of my textbook for an hour now. I can’t focus to save my life, and I’m already at my limit of caffeine for the day so another coffee is out of the equation. I’d love to say my lack of concentration has to do with the fact that I’d rather pluck my own eyes out than do advanced calculus, but that would be a lie.
Math isn’t the problem. It’s Aries.
I can’t stop thinking about the dinner party and his strange behavior. None of it makes sense. How does a person go MIA for months and then return like nothing ever happened?
My cell phone chimes, alerting me to a text message. I peer down at the screen and smile.
Emery: Hello, bestie. I miss you.
Me: I miss you, too.
Emery Lamont. My one and only friend. I wish she was here with me. But of course her stupid overprotective hockey-star brother refused to let her attend Oakmount, instead insisting she go to Ravencrest. Guess it pays to be the captain of the team when you want to keep your sister hostage.
Emery: I think I’m going to die of boredom without you.
Me: Please don’t. Something tells me the Grim Reaper will not let you keep your phone in the afterlife.
Emery: Don’t be dramatic.
All I can do is snicker as I type out my response.
Me: Me? Dramatic? Did you not just see what you said?
Emery: That wasn’t me. That was Patricia.
This time I laugh out loud. Which is weird when you’re in a room all by yourself. Emery sends another message before I can respond to her previous one.
Emery: Give me the tea on the brooding stepbrother. Any updates?
Emery lives vicariously through me when it comes to dating. Her own brother is past the point of overprotective. The guy should see a shrink honestly.
Me: Yes, and no. He finally showed up after ghosting everyone for months.
Emery: *clapping GIF* Tell me more.
Me: Nothing is different, but he did apologize.
Emery: Of course he did. Please tell me that you told him to fly a kite.
Me: No. But I was going to ask your opinion on something…
I’ve been thinking about the idea since it popped into my head on Sunday night, when I watched Aries pull into that warehouse parking lot. Half of me felt like it was wrong to follow him after dinner, to question what he was doing at a seedy warehouse in the middle of nowhere, especially when I had nothing to go on but a stupid gut feeling. Maybe his dad has him doing work there for some reason. Or it could be something else…and my gut plus the way he’s been behaving means I have to figure it out. Not like he’s going to tell me.
Aries wasn’t acting like himself—not at the charity event and not at our family dinner. He said he changed. What I felt wasn’t change. It was something else, something I can’t put into words. More of a feeling than anything else.
The only thing to do now is just ensure he’s okay. Prove to myself he’s my stepbrother, even if it means I’ll lose this new...connection…I feel.
Emery: Earth to Lilian. Are you there?
I consider asking Emery for advice, or spilling my plan to her, but I chicken out before I can finish typing out the response. I don’t want her opinion to sway me. I have to do this.
Me: Still here, contemplating life choices.
Emery: What’s the damn question? If I had balls, they would be blue by now.
Me: See, that’s just it. I forgot it.
Emery: *insert angry emoji* Even in text messages, I know you’re lying.