Chapter 6
WILLOW
My dreams are weird and disjointed, jumping from one thing to the next.
My grandmother stars in all of them, standing like a statue with her ramrod straight posture and that cold look in her eyes. When she smiles, it’s chilling, and no matter where I try to run to, she’s there.
I dream of being back in the hospital, but there are bars on the windows and the door is locked from the outside. It’s in the aftermath of when Ilya kidnapped me, and the police lead Olivia through the door and into my room.
My heart pounds in my chest, panic sweeping through me. Unlike when I met her in real life, this time I know just from looking at her that she’s not a good person.
“Wait!” I call as the police officer starts to leave us alone together. “Don’t leave me with her. She’s a murderer. She’s evil.”
The cop frowns, giving me a look filled with pity, as if he thinks I’ve lost touch with reality.
“She’s your grandmother,” he says, his tone placating and patronizing. “And she wants what’s best for you. She’s never done anything wrong.”
“That’s a lie!” I scream, trying to kick off the sheets. “She killed my mother. She tried to kill me. You have to get her away from me! Please!”
I try to throw myself out of the hospital bed, desperate to get away, only to find that I’m chained to it. Thick steel cuffs are wrapped around my wrists and ankles, and when I try to move, they rattle against the thick bars at the sides of the bed.
“She’s hysterical,” Olivia says to the cop.
Her voice isn’t the cold, brusque tone she used when she told me I’d have to marry Troy, but the kindly one she used in the beginning to lure me in and make me trust her.
“She’s had a terrible ordeal, but what she needs most right now is her family.
I’ll take care of her from here. Don’t worry. ”
The cop nods, and I shake my head, my entire body jerking as I fight to wrench my wrists free of the cuffs. “No, please! Don’t believe her! Help me!”
Olivia comes closer to the bed, and I struggle harder, the clanging of metal on metal filling my ears as the chains rattle and shake.
But there’s nowhere to go.
She’s closing in on me.
Leaning down and—
My eyes snap open, and I drag in a ragged breath. I’m thrashing in my bed, and cold relief fills me when I realize I’m not chained down to it. Instead of scratchy hospital sheets, I’m lying on the soft, Egyptian cotton sheets Olivia picked out for me, which honestly doesn’t feel much better.
My heart is racing, and I feel off balance and jittery from the nightmare.
“Willow?”
I jump at the distant voice in my ear at first, but then realize it’s Victor. The phone is still there, on my pillow, and although morning sunlight is streaming through the window, he stayed on the line all night with me. Just like he said he would.
“Are you alright?” he asks as I press the phone more fully to my ear, and even though his voice sounds mostly neutral, the way it usually does, I can imagine the way he’d be looking at me if he was here.
“I… had a nightmare,” I tell him, dragging my free hand down my face. Having him with me makes me feel better. Even if we’re not in the same room, I know he can hear me and see me, and he’s watching out for me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I shake my head and swallow hard. “No. Did you sleep at all? Or were you hunched over your computer all night?”
He huffs a little laugh, and it makes me smile to imagine the way his own smile would be pulling at his lips.
“A little,” he says. “Not long after you fell asleep.”
That makes me feel even better, thinking that we were connected somehow all night. It might be the closest I’ll ever get to cuddling with Victor.
“How are Malice and Ransom? Malice seemed… really pissed off yesterday.”
“He was really pissed off,” Vic replies. The we all were is unspoken, but I hear it all the same. “And he still is today. He’s slammed every cabinet in the kitchen, it sounds like. Ransom is… out of sorts. He’s in the garage, but I don’t hear him working on anything.”
I can definitely picture that. Malice stomping around like he has a storm cloud of rage over his head. His own localized hurricane, whipping around him and making it dangerous for anyone other than a chosen few to get close to him.
It’s a bit harder to picture Ransom out of sorts, just because he’s usually so cheerful, at least compared to his two brothers, but this is a big, weird situation, so it makes sense that he would feel some kind of way about it.
“They’ll be okay,” Victor is saying, shaking me from my thoughts. “We’re more worried about you, anyway.”
“I’ll be okay too.” I try to make my voice sound convincing. “I’m going to do what I can, and—”
I’m cut off by the sound of the line beeping, a signal that I have another call coming through. When I pull the phone away from my ear to look at the screen, I shudder to see that it’s Olivia.
“I have to go,” I tell Vic hurriedly. “She’s calling me.”
“Okay,” he says, but I can hear the strain in his voice. “Take care, butterfly. Be careful.”
“You too.”
He ends the call on his side, and I answer my grandmother’s, all the comfortable, warm energy I was feeling from speaking with Vic disappearing in less than a second.
“What?” I say, not even bothering to pretend to be polite.
“You will not be answering the phone like that for much longer,” Olivia replies, her voice crisp and businesslike. “You’re lucky I don’t have the time to deal with your disrespect right now, but you will learn to behave like a lady of society. I won’t have you embarrassing me.”
I clench my jaw and breathe in through my nose, trying to settle the angry feeling in my chest. Olivia needs me for this deal, but I can’t say what she’d do to me if I pissed her off too much. Or to the guys, who don’t have the benefit of being needed for her empire to flourish.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “What is it?”
“That’s better, if only just. You need to come to the house today,” she says. “Get dressed, in something appropriate, and come downstairs. Jerome will drive you.”
I want so badly to tell her to go fuck herself. To tell her that she has no power over me and I don’t have to do what she says. But none of that is true. She has all the power, and if I don’t do it, people I care about will suffer.
“Fine, okay,” I mumble.
I don’t really want to gamble with keeping her waiting, and I definitely don’t want Jerome to come up here and have to handle things himself, so I make it quick, pulling on one of the outfits Olivia bought for me a while ago and brushing my hair.
When I get downstairs, Jerome is there at the door waiting. He doesn’t say anything, just leads the way to his car, opening the back door for me. I slide in, and it’s a silent ride to Olivia’s mansion.
My stomach is in knots the whole way, wondering what hell my grandmother plans to drop in my lap today. I can’t imagine this whole awful scenario is ever going to take a turn for the better. Not where she’s concerned, at least.
Of course, when I get to the house and follow one of the staff to the sitting room, Troy is there. My heart lurches, my footsteps stuttering as soon as I catch sight of him.
I knew this was coming, but seeing him in person makes it so much more real than it was before.
He’s sitting on the couch, a drink in his hand, looking like he thinks he’s some kind of king on his throne.
But as soon as our gazes meet, his expression changes.
It goes from neutral, even bored as he listened to whatever Olivia was talking about before I entered, to that lecherous grin that I hate so fucking much.
My fingers curl themselves into fists, and I tuck my hands behind my back, trying to breathe through my disgust and revulsion for this man.
“Ah. My darling fiancée,” he says, drawing the last word out. “There you are.”
I swallow back bile, glaring at him, and don’t respond.
His grin only grows at my obvious reticence.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” he chides. “Your grandmother told me the good news. My bid to marry you has been accepted. We should be celebrating.”
I bite down on my tongue hard, trying to keep the flood of things I want to say from spilling out of my mouth.
But he doesn’t seem to need any verbal response from me one way or another. He rises from his chair and strides over to me. When he reaches me, he makes a slow circle around me, taking me in and inspecting me like I’m a new car he wants to buy or something.
“She knows how to dress herself, at least,” he comments, talking to Olivia like I’m not even present.
“Hair color is good, but it needs to be styled by someone who knows what to do with it.” He fluffs one of my blonde locks with his fingers, and I fight the urge to flinch away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.
“Soft. Nice. Hygiene is good too. You can never tell with people raised on that side of the city, you know? Some of them crawl out of their gutters and think they can just mingle with regular people, no questions asked.”
Rage rises in me, but I still don’t reply. I stare straight ahead, keeping my gaze focused on a flower arrangement in the corner and wishing I could set it on fire with my eyes.
“Of course, her background knocks a couple points off her value,” Troy continues.
“But her pedigree adds much more,” Olivia counters.
Troy nods, his classically handsome features morphing into an easy grin as he flicks a glance toward my grandmother. “Granted.”
He completes his circle and comes to stand in front of me again, reaching out to grip my chin. I jerk away, and he smirks.
“Fiery. I like that. So, I know you’re not a virgin. That ship has sailed and is probably sunk to the bottom of the sea by now, right? But I want to know when it started.”
“What?” I ask, glaring at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”