13. Aries
Aries
T he cell door comes crashing open, filling the darkness with light. I pop one eye open and regret it immediately. Too bright. Before I can fully wake up, I’m being hauled out of bed by my shirt and then slammed against the nearest wall. Air seeps from my lungs upon impact.
After months of this, you’d think I would be used to the pain, but I’m not.
“What did you tell her?” My own face hovers inches from mine, twin to twin, mirror to mirror, except for the rage distorting his features. “What the fuck did you say to her?”
What is he talking about?
I blink, trying to orient myself. Arson rarely enters my cell, preferring to taunt me from the doorway. Maintaining physical distance as if proximity might reveal the differences between us. “What are you talking about?” I manage, my voice rough from disuse.
Days blend in this windowless cell; my only measure of time is his irregular visits. Clearly, my response isn’t good enough, as his grip on me tightens. The fabric of the T-shirt cuts into my throat as he twists it in his fist.
“Don’t play stupid with me. Lilian. She was here.”
Oh god. Panic presses in from all sides of my brain. Lilian? Here? Impossible. There is no way she found this place, no way…then it hits me. The dream I had. What if it wasn’t a dream? What if she was really here?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie, fighting to keep my expression neutral despite my fear. “No one’s been here except you.”
Arson studies me for a moment, his eyes narrowed. Without warning, he releases me and takes a step back. I slide down the wall, my legs too weak to support me after days of confinement and minimal food.
“Even after all these years, you aren’t any better at lying than when we were kids.” He pulls out a phone from his back pocket, tapping the screen before turning it toward me. “Security footage. I just reviewed it.”
The grainy black-and-white video shows a small figure at the viewing window. Lilian’s unmistakable profile is illuminated by the faint glow of her phone. The time stamp shows it was less than an hour ago. The angle is strange, capturing her from above and behind.
Arson squats down to my level, balanced on the balls of his feet. “It’s a shame I missed her by minutes. She’s good. Sneaky little thing.”
It takes a moment for my sluggish brain to piece it all together. Lilian was here. She knows I’m being held captive, she knows about Arson, and that… fuck me . That puts her in danger. Grave danger.
“What do you want me to say? I don’t know how she figured you out. Maybe you aren’t as good at playing me as you think.”
Arson zooms in on the footage, showing Lilian’s hand pressed against the glass, mine matching it from inside. “She recognized you.” His finger slides across the screen, advancing the video. “And this? This is communication.”
The footage shows us clearly mouthing words to each other, though the angle makes it impossible to read our lips.
“What did you tell her?” Arson’s voice lowers, becoming almost conversational, the calm before violence.
“I didn’t tell her anything.” The lie is bitter on my tongue.
If I reveal what Lilian means to me, how much I care for her, and what I’m willing to sacrifice for her, Arson will use her as a weapon against me. I can’t let that happen. I already fucked up once when he asked me if she was a virgin, and I reacted emotionally.
“Liar,” he growls, and his fist connects with my jaw so quickly I don’t have the time to defend myself or duck. My head snaps sideways, the taste of copper flooding my mouth. It’s not the first time he’s hit me since my captivity began, but there’s a new ferocity behind this punch.
“Try again,” he orders, shaking out his hand. “This time, don’t lie.”
I spit blood onto the concrete. “To run. To get away from you.”
“And did you tell her who I am?” He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“Yes.”
His grip tightens painfully. “Did you tell her everything?”
“No,” I admit. “Just your name and that you’re my brother.”
“What else?”
A rush of anger fills my veins, and I can’t help myself. This moment has been coming for a while now. I grin at him. “How does it feel to want something you can’t have?”
As expected, he hauls off and punches me again. My face throbs, but I smile as more blood fills my mouth. “Don’t tell me. I don’t really give a fuck. I’ll get it out of her.”
No. Fuck.
“All I told her was that you were dangerous.”
Arson releases me with a disgusted sound, standing to pace the small cell. For the first time since my capture, I take a moment to look at him—not just with the shock of seeing my reflection come to life, but as someone I once knew who’s become a stranger.
We’re identical, yet at this moment, no one could mistake us for the same person.
His body is harder than mine, whipcord muscle built from a different kind of life. Scars I don’t have mark his forearms, neck, and disappear beneath his shirt. His hair, though styled like mine when he’s playing me, is now pushed back carelessly, revealing a faint line across his temple that I don’t recognize. Another scar.
All those things can be used to mark differences between us, but it’s in his eyes that I see the greatest difference. We share the same hazel color, but in the depths of his gaze is something I’ve never seen in my own eyes: a void, bottomless and hungry. Not emotionless, but containing too many emotions crushed together until they’ve formed something dense and dangerous, like coal compressed into diamond.
“Why the fuck are you staring at me?” he snaps, pausing in front of me.
“I’m still surprised you’re here. I never thought you would be free, never thought I would see you again,” I blurt.
The words have been building since I first saw his face after being taken.
“They couldn’t keep me confined to that place. I wasn’t ever meant to be there, anyway.”
I don’t miss the intentional dig. He took the blame that night in my place, and I stood by and let him. I didn’t speak up, didn’t try to stop them.
“They had a funeral for you. Told everyone you died in the institution. Brain aneurysm. It was a closed casket. We were sixteen.”
I remember the day so vividly because even though it was nothing more than a ruse, a way to make Arson disappear forever without the risk of anyone asking questions, it felt real, like he really was dead.
Arson laughs, and it sounds like breaking glass. “I’m not surprised. They would do anything to make certain their secrets are never brought to light. Always putting the Hayes family image first.” Barely contained rage simmers just beneath his mask.
There’s a hollow ache in my chest as I mourn his loss a second time.
When we were kids, he couldn’t sleep without me in the same room. He even cried when I broke my arm after falling out of the big oak tree, like my pain was his own. Those memories feel like a million miles away now.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” I blink the past away.
“Like you give a fuck.”
“I don’t know. I was just remembering the past, when we were kids. We were inseparable. You even cried when I broke my arm.”
“That version of me was weak and naive. It died the night they took me, and no one, not even you, said a word. I didn’t understand or see the danger that lay ahead. I won’t be so stupid this time.”
“What did they do to you?” I ask because I truly want to know.
His expression darkens like ominous storm clouds rolling in. “Don’t. Don’t you dare fucking pretend you care about what they did to me. Not after believing their lies for ten years. Not after living the fucking life you did. The time to give a shit was back then, not now. Not when it’s time to pay for your sins. You never looked for me. Never questioned them.” He crouches suddenly, bringing our faces level again. “You just took my place and enjoyed all the privileges that should have been mine.”
“I didn’t take your place,” I argue, though the lie tastes like ash. “They separated us because?—”
“Because of the accident?” Arson interjects. “You mean the one you caused?”
The memory hits like a physical blow.
Age fourteen, the boathouse, that stupid dare. I was showing off, playing with Father’s emergency flares. It all happened so fast. It was never supposed to end like that, and I froze. I took the coward’s way out, and Arson stepped forward, taking the blame.
“I was going to tell them,” I say weakly. “But Patricia?—”
“Suggested a convenient solution.” His voice drops lower, more dangerous. “Lock away the troublesome twin. The one who didn’t quite fit the mold. The one who made people... uncomfortable. Perfect opportunity to solve two problems at once.”
I shake my head, but the motion feels inadequate against the weight of his accusations.
“Every single day, they strapped me down,” he continues, rolling up his sleeve to reveal track marks. “Filled me with chemicals until I couldn’t remember my own name. Kept me in darkness for days. Starved me. Made me fight for the most basic of things. All because you couldn’t own up to your mistake.”
Each word is a punch to the gut.
I remember the weeks after—Patricia orchestrating everything, Father’s stern warnings to never mention the incident or my disturbed brother again. The family photos were altered or replaced. My guilt got buried under layers of privilege and denial before Father dragged me to see him that one final time.
“They said you were dangerous,” I whisper. “That the accident revealed underlying psychopathic tendencies.”
“Did they mention how convenient that diagnosis was? How easily it explained away any inconvenient truths I might tell?” He leans closer, his breath hot against my face. “I’m your twin brother. You knew the truth.” He shakes his head. “Worst of all, you never visited. Never wrote. Never showed you gave a shit.”
“I thought?—”
“Thought what?” He cuts me off. “That I was crazy. Dangerous. Better locked away. I guess that would seem easier than admitting you were the one who should have been punished.”
I can’t make myself meet his gaze. He’s right . I sacrificed him to save myself. The golden child was preserved at the cost of the spare.
“Was it worth it, Brother?” Arson asks, his voice almost gentle. “Ten years of freedom bought with my imprisonment?”
The worst part is, until this moment, it had been. I’d buried the guilt so deep I almost forgot it existed. Almost convinced myself he deserved what happened to him.
“So this is your plan? To kidnap me and pump me full of chemicals?” I ask, dreading the answer.
His smile is a cruel thing. “Not quite. My plan is a little different. Instead of going straight for the jugular, I’m going to drag it out a bit. Show you exactly what ten years in hell feels like. Make you understand what it’s like to be isolated, make you watch your precious life crumble all around you while you stand watching. I’m going to be the psychopath they created because that’s all I’ll ever be.”
The threat hangs between us, and all I can think about is Lilian, who’s now caught in the crossfire of my decades-old cowardice.
“You want to destroy the family?” I force a shrug, ignoring the ache in my shoulders. “Go ahead. Burn it all down. I’ve been trying to distance myself from their corruption anyway.”
It’s partially true. I’ve spent the past year untangling myself from Father’s shadier business dealings, refusing to take the executive position he’d groomed me for. But the casual dismissal is calculated, an attempt to defuse Arson’s revenge by seeming indifferent to its target.
“Really?” Arson circles me slowly, predator assessing prey. “The golden child doesn’t care if I expose Richard’s embezzlement? Patricia’s connection to those mysterious charity fund disappearances?”
I maintain my facade of disinterest in him, though my pulse quickens. “Do what you want. They deserve whatever wrath you can bring down on them.”
“Hmm.” He stops in front of me, head tilted. “And sweet Lilian?”
The name slides from his tongue like poison dipped in honey. My chest tightens.
“What about her?”
“What if she gets...destroyed in the process?” His smile widens as he awaits my reaction. “She’s technically a Hayes now. You’ve already shown your attachment to her. She seems so fragile. Tell me…is that heart condition of hers real or just another family manipulation? I suppose it doesn’t matter. Anything could kill a weak heart.”
My carefully constructed indifference shatters. I lunge forward before I can stop myself, weakness forgotten in a surge of protective rage. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”
Arson sidesteps my attack easily, letting me stumble to my knees. His laughter echoes off the concrete walls.
“There it is,” he says, satisfaction dripping from every word. “The crack in your armor. Little Lilian—the only innocent one in the family. The one person you actually care about.”
“She has nothing to do with what happened,” I spit out, struggling to stand. “She wasn’t even part of the family then.”
“No, but she’s part of it now.” He squats down beside me, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “And I saw how she looked at me, thinking I was you. All that longing and repressed desire. Were you even aware of how much she wants you? Or did you know and enjoy keeping her at arm’s length, torturing her with what she could never have?”
I swing at him, a wild punch born of desperation. He catches my fist easily.
“I’m going to take everything from you,” he says softly. “Starting with her. And the best part? She’ll thank me for it.”
“Leave her alone,” I growl. “She’s innocent.”
“No one in this family is innocent.” He releases my hand, standing. “Except maybe me, before you let them lock me up and toss away the key. Are you going to be able to turn a blind eye to what happens to her?”
“I’ll tell her everything,” I threaten, pushing myself up despite the dizziness. “About the boathouse. About what I did. How I let you take the blame.”
“No, you won’t.” Arson’s confidence infuriates me. “Because then she’d know what you really are—a coward who sacrificed his own brother to save himself. Is that the version of you she’s been pining after all these years?”
The truth of it hits harder than any physical blow. I’ve kept Lilian at a distance, not just because she’s my stepsister, but because I know how rotten I am at the core. I carry the guilt of what happened every day with me. What if I did something to her, too? Tainted her goodness with my terrible self.
“She deserves better than either of us,” I say.
“Finally, something we agree on.” He pulls out his phone, showing me a photo taken at what must be a recent social event. Lilian is wearing a pale blue dress, looking ethereal and untouchable. “But unlike you, I’m not afraid to give her what she wants.”
A look of dark possession flashes in his eyes. A new kind of fear grips me—not of what he’ll do to hurt her, but of how he might twist her feelings and use them against her.
“She has nothing to do with any of this,” I snap, taking a stumbling step forward. “Nor is she a pawn in your game.”
“No?” His eyebrow raises. “Tell me, what is she to you, Brother? Because from where I stand, you’ve been playing with her emotions for years. Keeping her close enough to torture her with hope, but far enough away to maintain your pristine image.” He pauses for a long moment and then continues. “Even as twins there’s always been a subtle difference between us. You’ve always played it safe, colored inside the lines. But me, I’ve always been the odd one out. Never good enough, never smart enough. But there’s one thing I better at that you, and that’s taking what I want. Revenge? Got it. Your friends? Got ’em. The girl you’ve always wanted but have been too much of a coward to claim. Soon to be mine.”
He scrolls through more photos of Lilian—studying in the library, walking across campus, candid moments that suggest extensive surveillance.
“Sweet Lilian, the girl who sees through my disguise but can’t see through yours. Imagine how she’ll feel when she learns the truth about her perfect stepbrother.”
I lunge at him again, driven by something beyond rational thought. “Touch her and I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” He deflects my attack effortlessly, sending me sprawling across the concrete. “Tell someone? No one’s looking for you, Brother. They all think I’m you, and I’m playing the role perfectly. Even sweet Lilian will come around once she realizes which twin actually deserves her devotion.”
The implication in his words—the possessive undertone when he speaks of her—makes my blood run cold.
“She’ll never?—”
“Never what? Fall for the monster instead of the golden boy?” His smile is razor sharp. “We’ll see about that. After all, she’s already sneaking around warehouses to find me.”
“She came looking for me,” I correct him, tasting blood in my mouth. “Because she knew something was wrong.”
“No, she came because she saw through my performance. Because something about me drew her in more than your careful distance ever did.” Arson moves toward the door, pausing to look back at me. “She’s smart, your Lilian. Observant. She noticed all the little ways I’m different from you. But instead of running to the police or her parents, she followed me. Interesting choice, don’t you think?”
The implication turns my stomach. “She’s trying to help me.”
“Is she?” He leans against the doorframe, studying me. “Or is she intrigued by the version of you that finally showed her attention? The one who danced with her, touched her, made her feel something besides rejection?”
I struggle to my feet, using the wall for support. “You’re delusional if you think?—”
“I think she’s tired of your noble distance and moral high ground.” His voice drops lower. “I think she’s ready for someone who isn’t afraid to want her back. And I think watching you suffer while I take the one thing you actually care about will be far more satisfying than any quick revenge.”
“Don’t,” I manage, hating how it sounds like begging. “Destroy me if you want. Expose what happened at the boathouse. Tell everyone what a pathetic piece of shit I am, but leave her out of it.”
“It’s too late for that.” He straightens, adjusting his clothes—preparing to step back into his role as me. “The way you beg for her protection is admirable. I wish you would’ve given a fuck about me the same way you give a fuck about her, but I guess blood means shit. Now, all of you will suffer the consequences.”
“Don’t hurt her because you hate me.”
“Hate? I don’t hate you, Brother. I despise you,” he snarls. “And I’m going to prove it. You might feel guilty for the part you played in my silent death, but that’s not good enough for me. That doesn’t satisfy me. I want your pain, your tears, your fear, and worries. And it appears the only thing you care about more than yourself is her. By the time I’m done with her, you’ll wish it was you I was hurting. Because I’m going to make it hurt, Aries, and the best part is that I’m going to make you watch.”
“Arson—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Enjoy your solitude. I have a date with destiny.” His smile is pure malice. “Or should I say with Lilian?”
The door slams shut, and I’m left with nothing but the silence and my thoughts. I slide down the wall, legs giving out as the full weight of what I’ve done presses down on me.
Ten years ago, I let them lock away my brother to save myself. Now Lilian will pay the price for my cowardice. Because I kept her at arm’s length, trying to protect her from my guilt, I’ve made her vulnerable to something far worse—Arson’s calculated seduction.
And the most terrifying part? Some small, shameful part of me wonders if he’s right. If my careful distance has only pushed her toward the very danger I tried to protect her from.
I’ve never pretended to be a good man. Keeping away from Lilian might be the one decent thing I’ve done in my life, and now it will get her hurt. Fuck. I have to find a way to stop him. I clench my hands into fists and bang on the door. As expected, no one answers.
My anger only escalates, and I rush to the cot, flipping it and then the half-eaten tray of food. The contents splatter against the wall, but nothing stops the ache in my chest and the fear in my veins. I have to get out of here. I have to save that brat from herself.
Again.