Chapter 28
TOBY
The fact that we can’t get hold of Willow or Jamie doesn’t sit well with me. We’ve been trying to reach them for almost half an hour as Asher drives us across town. Ian’s text message said our father was back at Thornwood Manor and Willow had just arrived there.
“Ian!” Cole says into his phone. “Is Willow still there? We’re coming over now.” He pauses, his frown deepening as traffic ahead thickens and cars block the upcoming intersection.
Asher is restless behind the wheel, cursing under his breath. “Fucking hell, there’s something wrong here; I know it.”
“Ease up, brother,” I say, trying to calm him, but I’m virtually helpless, too, relegated to the back seat and seething with impatience.
“She left?” Cole groans in frustration. “Did she tell you where she was going? Okay. Okay. Thanks, Ian. We’ve got it from here.
” He pauses again. I can’t hear Ian over the phone, but I’m willing to bet he just asked my brother if everything is alright.
“Everything is fine,” Cole says, “I hope. I’ll call you later. Give Dad our best, please.”
He hangs up and glares darkly. “Willow was headed toward your bike shop in Hoboken. She had a surprise for us, apparently.”
“That’s why she didn’t call us first,” I reply.
Asher scoffs. “She knew Dad was coming back to Thornwood Manor today. She must’ve assumed we’d go over there to see him.”
“She still isn’t picking up,” Cole replies and tries calling her again. “All I’m getting is her voicemail.”
“Fuck this,” Asher hisses and makes a sudden U-turn.
Incoming cars skid and screech to a halt. Honks fill the tense silence as Asher steers the car safely in the opposite lane and speeds up. My heart jumped out of my chest for a hot second.
“Are you okay there, buddy?” I manage, my voice uneven.
Cole is speechless, pale as a sheet of paper, in the passenger seat.
“Yes,” Asher replies. “I just didn’t see the point in going to Thornwood right now. Your shop is in the opposite direction.”
I don’t remember the last time I saw this side of him, raw with worry, darkened gaze, tense shoulders, ready to kill anyone who stands in his way.
Asher always found comfort and focus in the business side of things, in fine clothes and rare watches, in good whiskey and constructive conversation.
Not that he lacks a practical, more brutal side.
He just doesn’t like to unleash it upon the world.
I barely register the minutes that pass until we arrive at my bike shop. Willow’s Prius is parked outside, and for a moment, I breathe a sigh of relief. We jump out of our rental sedan and head to the front entrance first, anxiously looking around.
“Where the hell is she?” Cole asks, increasingly more aggravated.
My relief is short-lived, as I, too, try to call Willow on her cell phone. No answer. Asher heads down the street, then comes back up, shaking his head.
“I don’t see her anywhere,” he says.
“This can’t be right.”
“Jamie was supposed to be with her,” I say and call him instead.
It keeps ringing until the voicemail takes over with his supposedly upbeat but actually slightly snarky message.
“Hi! I can’t be reached right now because I’m doing something awesome with my life, but feel free to leave me a message and tell me about yours! Unless you’re calling about a wedding or a fabulous event, in which case, leave your name and phone number, and I’ll call you right back.”
“Fuck,” I hang up.
“Wait, call him again.” Cole stops by the office door.
The cold winds of January rise, throwing specks of snow in the air.
I call Jamie again, and Cole motions Asher to stay quiet for a moment. Finally, I hear a faint, distant ringing. Voicemail again, so I hang up and redial.
We follow the sound into the gangway leading to the back of my shop. The closer we get, the clearer the picture becomes. Asher sees Jamie first and rushes to his side while I slip the phone back in my pocket and run over.
“Oh fuck,” Cole grumbles as he helps Asher turn Jamie over. He takes off his jacket and wraps it around Jamie’s shoulders.
The poor guy is in and out of consciousness, blood congealed on the back of his head and his lips purple from being out in the cold too long.
“Jamie, can you hear me?” Cole calls out while Asher holds him in a sitting position.
I’m on the phone with emergency services, requesting an ambulance for Jamie and a squad car for us. I name drop Hornby into the conversation to make sure we get reliable fellas on board while we try to figure out what the fuck happened here—and where Willow went.
“Jamie!” Cole taps him lightly across the face.
“Holy shit!” Jamie cries out, snapping into full consciousness, stuttering and shivering. “What the fuck happened? Where am I? Where’s Will?”
“We were going to ask you the same thing. What happened?” I reply.
Jamie needs a moment to gather his senses. My blood boils, my nerves jangle louder in the back of my head. “I… We… We came over. Will wanted to talk to you. She figured we’d find you here.”
“Okay, what happened next?”
“We came around the back. She said she saw someone, probably some delivery guy unloading something,” he says.
I slip into my phone to check out the shop’s CCTV feed. Thank heavens for surveillance apps and cloud storage.
“And we got here and… that’s all I remember. Just… this sharp pain…”
“You’re okay,” Asher tries to soothe him.
“You don’t remember seeing anyone?” Cole insists.
Jamie shakes his head, then winces from the pain. “I’m sorry, no…”
“What did Willow want that it couldn’t wait until later?” Asher wonders aloud, giving Cole and me a curious glance.
“Oh God, where is she?” Jamie is finally catching up, looking around in understandable panic. “She was right in front of me. There was a big black car here, an—”
“An SUV,” I interject, staring in horror at the video recording on my phone from less than half an hour ago. “A black SUV.”
Sirens wail in the distance, getting louder with each passing minute.
I turn the phone around and show it to my brothers and Jamie.
They get a clear view of Perry Jackson waiting on the corner, conking Jamie on the head, and knocking him out.
We see him shoving a gun in Willow’s terrified face before he forces her behind the wheel of that black SUV.
My blood runs cold as I realize what happened and how narrowly we missed it.
“That can’t be.” Asher murmurs, his eyes round with shock. “He didn’t…”
“He did,” Cole says. “He must’ve been following them around, waiting for the right moment to strike.”
Jamie frowns from both pain and fear. “Who is that guy? Is he the bastard who poisoned me? Brett whatever?”
“That’s not his real name,” I tell him.
“Then what is his real name?”
“Perry Jackson,” I reply.
Jamie’s face drops. “Wait, Will told me about him. Sheila’s ex? You weren’t sure that there was a connection based solely on the… ow, my fucking head! Based solely on the snake tattoo. She said you guys were still looking into that.”
“We were until earlier this morning when we got confirmation.” Cole sighs deeply, then looks at me. “It was her. It was Sheila. She’s been behind this the whole time. Nothing else makes sense.”
“Oh God, guys… There’s something you need to know,” Jamie gasps. The sirens get louder, and I hear the ambulance pull up just at the other end of the gangway, its last wail echoing through the air. “She was coming to see you to tell you something.”
“You mentioned that,” I say.
“Something important,” he replies.
“Well, out with it,” Asher snaps.
“She’s pregnant.”
That’s all it took to send the three of us practically flying across the city. Detective Hornby is in charge at the bike shop scene, interviewing Jamie before they take him to the hospital to get him the care he needs.
“She’s pregnant,” I say it out loud, making everything all the more real.
I don’t even know when we got there, but my brothers and I make our way up the steps of Thornwood Manor with lightning snapping at our heels. We walk past Ian and go straight into the tearoom, where Sheila usually lingers after lunch.
It takes every inch of willpower to keep myself in check and not smash everything around me when we only find Terrence and Katrina sipping their tea by the window. Terrence’s bloody nose catches my eye, but Cole beats me to the punch.
“What happened to your face, dipshit?” he asks.
Terrence scowls at him, then whimpers from the pain from the two rolled up bandages stuck up his nose. “Nothing.”
“Willow hit him,” Katrina sighs. “And he refuses to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine. She didn’t break my nose, that bitch.”
I reach him in the blink of an eye and grab him by the collar while his wife screams in horror. I toss him across the room, like he’s no heavier than a straw doll ,and he lands on his side with a pained grunt.
Asher holds Katrina back. “You don’t want to get involved, take it from me.”
“Where’s your mother?” Cole asks Terrence as I threaten to toss him again. I’m not done with his sorry ass yet.
Terrence sees me coming and scrambles backward, pale and sweating and scared out of his mind. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
“Stop him!” Katrina cries out.
“I’m not going to kill him,” I calmly reply. “I’m just going to make him suffer until he tells us what we need to know.”
I’m just about ready to grab him off the floor again when Terrence puts his hands up. “I don’t know where Mom is! She’s not home, okay? She was supposed to be here when they brought Dad home, but she wasn’t. She asked me and Katrina to stick around.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Katrina adds, her eyes filled with tears. “We were supposed to go to Nobu for brunch, but we stayed here. Sheila said she had some business to attend to.”
“Did she say where?” Asher asks.
Terrence shakes his head slowly. “No, she didn’t. What the fuck is wrong with you?” He looks at me with a pained scowl.
“Turns out the guy who poisoned Jamie, who tried to kill Willow, is your mother’s ex-lover,” I reply through gritted teeth. “So you’d better think twice before you do or say anything meant to steer us away from Sheila, because I know for a fact that she had a hand in this entire fucking mess.”
“Wait, I thought it was some waiter—” Terrence tries to say, but I kick him in the leg. “Ouch!”
“It’s Perry Jackson, snake heart tattoo on the wrist.” I pause for the realization to sink in, and I see it spread across his face, turning it the whitest shade of white possible. “That’s right, so think hard, Terrence. Time is of the essence here because Perry has Willow.”
“He what?” Katrina gasps.
I give her a hard look. “I have CCTV footage. He took her at gunpoint. If anything happens to her, you’ll become a widow. That, I can promise you.”
And she believes me. I don’t need to say anymore to drive that point home.
“Listen, I don’t know what my mom did or said—”
Katrina flips out, stomping her feet in a sudden bout of hysteria. “Just tell them the truth. Tell them everything you know, you vain, stupid, spineless bastard! Just tell them!”
“I… I had no idea,” Terrence says, caving in, occasionally stealing a worried glance at his wife. He can’t not see the hatred in her face. It’s imprinted on her features whenever she looks at him, and she can’t disguise it anymore. I suppose this is the last straw for her in a long line of straws.
“I mean, I knew Mom was up to something. She had this issue with Willow since before we broke up. I don’t know why, she just hates Willow.”
“Sheila doesn’t just hate Willow. There’s a reason somewhere in that sick fucking mind of hers!
” Katrina snaps, then pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration.
“Good lord, Daddy did warn me. He told me, ‘Be careful, Katie, honey, I don’t like that boy. He still has his umbilical cord, and his mother’s wearing it around that bony neck of hers. ’ I didn’t believe him.”
“Jesus,” Terrence gasps.
I hit his ankle with the tip of my boot. “Think, Terrence. Just think. Willow’s life is at stake. I’m not playing. None of us is.”
It’s not just Willow’s life. There’s another growing in her womb, a life we created, a life we should be able to bring into the world. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m letting a sick monster and her ex take that away from us. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m letting them take Willow away from us.
“Sheila is behind this. Perry has no reason whatsoever to do this to Willow, but Sheila does,” Cole adds.
“She hates Willow,” Terrence concedes, “for her figure, for the way she carries herself, for the way she built her career, her success.”
Katrina scoffs and crosses her arms. “That woman is awful.”
“She’s still my mom,” Terrence mumbles, then gasps and lifts his hands when I move to hit him again.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, I swear!
Mom was cooking something up. She was determined to make Willow suffer, but she wouldn’t tell me more.
I kept asking, and she kept saying it was no longer my concern.
She got Willow out of my life. I’m a married man, so I’m supposed to move on with my life. ”
Cole shakes his head, and it’s clear to me that we’re not leaving until we get some answers, the right answers.
“Where can we find Sheila when she doesn’t want to be found?” he asks Terrence. “There has to be a place somewhere in this fucking city.”
Terrence thinks about it for a moment, realization flickering in his green, scared eyes as he looks up at me. “Our old place,” he mumbles. “Mom was going to sell it, but then she met your dad and decided to keep it. She just liked to go there sometimes.”
“The old Madison mansion,” I reply.
He nods once. “Yes, in North Hampton.”
I’m not surprised. Sheila has many secrets of her own, and I’ve always wondered where she might go to hide anything she didn’t want found—including herself during the more dire times.
I can almost see her retreating to North Hampton in the back of a black cab, sunglasses and scarf on, as she tries to keep a low profile while sneaking out there.
“Are you sure my mom had something to do with this?” Terrence asks, then clears his throat. “I mean, it’s a little extreme.”
“Yet it happened,” I bluntly reply. “Just pray we get to Willow in time.”
It’s a promise, not a threat.
Terrence had an inkling that something was about to go wrong, but in his animosity toward us and Willow, he chose to keep quiet. I have no mercy for anyone who had a hand in causing my love any form of suffering.
Because that’s what Willow has become.
My love. Our love.
The love of our lives, of all the lives we’ve lived before, and all the lives to follow.