Chapter 52
FIFTY-TWO
HAYAMI
PRESENT
We stare at each other before our heads swivel to where the sound of the ringtone is coming from.
It’s Willa’s work phone.
“Shit,” I say as Fenrir strides over to the mobile sitting on the bedside table. Panic swells in my chest.
This isn’t a social call, one of her friends checking in. This is her work phone, so there can only be a handful of people calling her and expecting her to answer.
Fenrir picks it up, and we stare at the name on the screen.
Markus.
“What do we do?” I ask, my voice quivering.
He takes a deep breath. “We answer it.”
He presses Answer and places the phone to his ear. My stomach coils in on itself as I lean in to hear what’s being said.
“Hello.” He doesn’t flinch, and I’m amazed by how calm and cool he appears.
“Fenrir?” Markus asks, then doesn’t give him time to answer before he says, “Where’s Willa?”
“She’s in the shower,” he replies, glancing at the open door where the shower stands empty.
“Okay,” Markus says. I can taste the tension in the air, feel it humming down the phone line, and I pray that Markus remains oblivious, because right now, we are fucked. “Well, as soon as she gets out, tell her to call me.”
“Of course.” He angles his thumb over the End Call button, but Markus’s voice carries through the air.
“Everything okay up there?”
“Yeah,” Fenrir says, and I mime my hand churning, trying to silently tell Fenrir to give Markus something, anything to break the strangeness that’s coating this call. Fenrir rolls his eyes at me, then says, “Besides the weather.”
“The forecast looks pretty bad. You guys holding up all right?”
“Yeah. Other than being bored.”
“And Hayami?” Markus enquires.
“She’s fine.”
“Good. Mr Devall is getting a little restless about the weather.”
“If anything, it’s doing us a favour,” Fenrir explains. “The roads are impassable. There’s no way anyone is getting anywhere near this house without a snowplough.”
“As soon as the snow stops, Mr Devall will send a plough out to clear the road up to the house. He’s already been on the phone with the company to remind them that it needs to be done as a matter of urgency.
” A bit of static crackles down the line, and I see Fenrir contemplating this.
“Get Willa to call me as soon as she’s out of the shower. ”
“Will do.” This time, Fenrir doesn’t hesitate. He ends the call and throws the phone onto the bed as if it’s about to explode.
I run my hands through my hair as he stares at the device.
“Why do you think he wants to talk to her? Do you think it’s something to do with Marta?” My brain is racing with possible reasons why Markus would want to talk to Willa.
“It might be about her maternity leave. Speaking of which, Marta’s had the baby.”
“What? When?” I throw my hands in the air.
“She messaged in the early hours,” he says.
“And you’re only telling me now? It’s nearly dawn.”
“I was going to tell you when you woke up, but then things got a little sidetracked. If you check your phone, I’m sure she messaged you.”
Stepping away from him, I grab my phone that slipped under the covers and see the unopened message on my screen.
Opening it, I’m faced with a photo of a tiny baby and a message from Willa.
Relief washes over me. Willa was there with Marta when she gave birth to their child.
Willa got to see her son come into this world.
Despite the bullshit we’re currently dealing with, I remind myself that this is the one good thing to have come out of all this.
I did the right thing in sending her away. I repeat this mantra, trying to convince myself that it’s true.
I reply quickly, sending my congratulations and best wishes, forgetting for a few seconds the shitstorm that Fenrir and I are heading for, and I don’t just mean the weather.
After hitting Send, I throw my phone back onto the bed.
“What are we going to do?” I ask as I watch Fenrir chew on his bottom lip. “Markus is expecting Willa to call him. What happens when she doesn’t call back?”
“I don’t know.” He begins to pace a small square of the room.
“We could call her, ask her to call Markus back,” I suggest.
“But it’d be from her personal phone, not the work number.”
“We could ask her to say that she’s lost it,” I offer.
“In the space of twenty minutes? Besides, there are trackers on all our phones. Markus knows this, and so does Willa. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to tell him that she lost her work phone.
No, there’s no way around the phone situation.
” His face is stoic, though I feel like the stress is radiating from my skin, fooling no one that I’m really starting to panic now.
“Shit. Shit! What the fuck do we do?”
He stops pacing as if he’s come to a decision.
“We don’t do anything… yet. We wait for him to call us back,” he says calmly.
“That doesn’t solve our problem.” I’m spiralling, overrun with thoughts of Willa being hunted down by my father’s men, discovered in the maternity ward, and then Fenrir being held accountable for a decision I made.
“No, but it buys us some time.”
I slump onto the bed, averting my eyes from Fenrir and the mess I’ve thrown him into.
“We could tell Markus that, before the storm, Marta went into labour, so I sent her to the hospital. I’m sure he would understand.”
Fenrir glares at me, and I know, even as I said the words, that Markus would understand, because Markus is a man, a human being with emotions and feelings and empathy.
But my father is not. My father would only see the disobedience, the insubordination, the defiance, and the deception.
“What the fuck have I done?” I place my head in my hands.
Thick arms envelop me.
“Hey, stop this. You did the right thing. Willa was there when Marta gave birth. She was there with her wife and got to watch her baby being born.”
“Yeah, and I’ve put a goddamn price on her head and yours. When my father finds out what I did, it won’t just be me who pays.”
His grip tightens. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Hayami.”
I pull back, staring into his eyes.
“I mean it. I’ll protect you until my very last breath.”
Silence drenches the room until the wind whips at the windows and rushes down the chimney, reminding us of the storm that’s raging outside.