Chapter 7
VICTOR
The tension in the warehouse we live in has never been higher, which says a lot.
Even before a high stakes mission or when we were planning out the death of Nikolai Petrov, things weren’t this tense.
Malice and Ransom have almost gotten into arguments enough times that I sent them to opposite ends of the place to cool off a couple of hours ago. Neither of them are angry with each other, just the situation, and since there’s nothing to take it out on right now, they’re lashing out at each other.
I can’t blame them, really.
I feel antsy in a way that I hate. It’s as if there are bugs under my skin, skittering across my nerves and making it impossible to relax as I sit at my desk, watching the feed from Willow’s apartment.
She’s not there, having gone off to do whatever it was her grandmother wanted from her, but it eats at me that I have no idea what’s going on. That I can’t see her when she’s away.
I want to see her all the time. I always want eyes on her, to make sure she’s safe.
The front door slams, and I know that must be Malice coming home. Annoyed with being put in time out, he went out on his own for a bit. I hear him stop to say something to Ransom, but at least this time it doesn’t sound like they’re bickering.
Their voices come closer as Malice stomps up the stairs, and I don’t even bother to get up since I know they’re coming to me anyway.
The two of them have been in my room a lot more often than usual, wanting to see Willow on my screen just as much I as do.
Honestly, I don’t love it.
I work hard to keep my space just so, organized and tidy, everything in its place.
Malice and Ransom don’t mean to, but they usually mess that up, even just in small ways.
One of them will sit on the bed and rumple it.
Pillows will be jostled out of place. Ransom always leaves behind some odd or end that he’s picked up to fiddle with, and Malice just looms in the space, filling it up in a way that’s hard to balance.
But I know they want to keep eyes on Willow, so I don’t tell them to stop.
“Fucking asshole,” Malice snarls as the two of them walk in.
“Who this time?” I ask, turning in my chair.
“Ethan fucking Donovan. I ran into him this morning, and he was all in my face about the fact that he and his shitty little gang managed to cut into our business.”
With everything going on, our ongoing issues with the Donovan gang seemed pretty small in comparison, but clearly since our meeting with them went sour all those weeks ago, they’ve been busy.
“Bold of him to rub it in your face,” I say.
“Right? I could have fucking killed him right then and there.”
“No you couldn’t,” Ransom says. “I mean, you could have, but that would fuck everything up, so you wouldn’t. Plus, it’s not that big a deal. Even though business is down with the chop shop right now, if the plan we made with Willow works out, we’ll be fine. Better than fine.”
He’s right. Blackmailing X is our ticket to getting Willow free of her grandmother and getting Olivia off our backs in general. Without having to run around doing shit for X, we can focus all our energy on growing our business.
Malice seems to know Ransom is right, because he sighs, raking a hand through his hair. It’s almost exactly the same color as mine, but where I keep mine shorter and more neat, his is longer and wilder.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grunts. “I fucking know. I just hate how smug he was.”
“He is a piece of shit,” Ransom agrees, crossing his arms over his chest. “But we have bigger fish to fry.”
Some of the tension eases out of the room, which is a relief. It makes the air a little easier to breathe. I turn back to my computer just in time to hear the ping of an incoming message.
Almost as if the universe is laughing at us, the message is from X.
“Motherfucker,” I hiss under my breath. I start running decryption program that will allow us to read the message, and Malice frowns.
“What is it?”
“Speak of the devil…”
My words trail off, but that’s all it takes for him to catch on.
“Motherfucker,” my twin curses, even louder than I did. “This is fucking bullshit. She can’t do this.”
“Apparently, she can,” I point out. “Because she is. And she knows we won’t tell her no.”
Malice’s tattooed arms flex, and he looks like he’s about to punch something, which makes me wince just thinking about it. I don’t need a hole in my bedroom wall, and even a dent would irritate me to no end.
The decryption takes a while, and although Malice doesn’t put his fist through the wall as we wait, he does start pacing the room like an angry predator in a cage.
“Here we go,” I say once the message has loaded, and the two of them gather around to read it with me.
It’s another job, standard sabotage. Find some info, destroy the evidence. Probably someone who had the misfortune to cross Olivia or her husband when he was alive.
Malice goes back to pacing once we’ve read it all, dragging a hand through his hair.
“This is such garbage,” he spits. “We’re just handing her more stuff to hold over us. More shit she could use to turn us in if we don’t do what she wants. But it’s not like we have a fucking choice, because if we don’t do it, then she’ll turn us in for everything fucking else!”
Ransom sighs. “Yeah. It blows.”
“Agreed,” I say. “But Malice is right. It’s not like we have any wiggle room here. Not with Willow in the mix.”
I scan the email again, and the smug tone of it makes my hackles rise. Olivia knows how boxed in we are, knows that she’s the one with all the power, and that all we can really do is fall in line—and it’s clear that she’s enjoying it.
I’m with Malice. This really does fucking suck.
“I need a goddamn drink,” my twin grumbles.
“Same here,” Ransom agrees. The two of them head back downstairs, but I stay put, not wanting to leave the comforting bank of my computers. Still, I have too much nervous energy to just sit still, so I pull out my weights and do a few reps, trying to burn off some steam.
I count each movement, making sure that both sides are balanced and even as I lift the weights. My form is perfect, and I put all my energy into focusing on that and not the chaotic spiral things have become in our lives.
Once I feel more centered, I go back to my desk and start researching the job we have to do for X.
If we have to do this shit for her, then I want to make sure we have all the information we need, so we’re not just walking in blindly.
She’s set us up on jobs designed to fail before, and although I don’t think she wants to kill us anymore now that she’s using us as leverage against Willow, I don’t trust her enough to count on that.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice movement on the feed from Willow’s apartment a few minutes later, and my heart unclenches as I see her walking into her place.
At least she’s back home where I can keep an eye on her. Safe, if not sound. I glance over periodically while I work, and it’s comforting, in a way. If it wasn’t for everything hanging over our heads, it would be almost… nice.
But it’s easy to pass the day like that, watching Willow putter around her apartment as I work at my keyboard.
I go downstairs for a quick bite around seven, and then head right back upstairs. A few hours later, I watch her crawl into bed, and I glance at my phone on the desk, waiting for her to call. Hoping for it, even. But then I see her put her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking.
She’s crying.
I grab the phone and pull up her number, pressing the button to call her.
There’s a slight sniffle when she answers the phone. “Hi.”
She’s trying to keep the tears out of her voice, but I know they’re there. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “What happened? What did your grandmother want with you?”
“It’s just…” Willow trails off and takes a shaky breath. “It was so fucking terrible.”
“What was?” My stomach tightens into a knot. “What did she make you do?”
“Just the whole thing. I went over there, and Troy was there. They talked about me like I was a car or a cow or something. Talking about how it was a deal between the two of them, like I wasn’t even a person. It just sucked, and he sucks, and now I have to marry him.”
I narrow my eyes, and even though she doesn’t say as much, I can tell she’s not telling me the full story. Something else happened, but she doesn’t want me to know.
Which… makes sense, in a way. Nothing good could have happened over there, and it’s not like we can go kick down Olivia Stanton’s door to make her pay for it. We can’t even go after this Troy fucker without stepping out of line and making things worse.
“Willow…” I don’t even know what to say to comfort her.
“Can we just… talk about something else?” she asks. “I’m just too freaked out and sad about all of this to keep harping on it right now.”
“Of course,” I say, agreeing instantly. I can’t do much to help her, but I can at least do that.
“Thanks. What did you do today?”
Even that’s a tricky subject, considering that her grandmother just gave us another job, but I leave that part out.
“I played babysitter for Malice and Ransom a bit. They spent most of the morning snipping at each other like children, so I had to put them in time out.”
Willow giggles softly, which makes me smile a little. “I can’t imagine Malice in time out.”
“It didn’t last long. He stomped out of the house about five minutes later.”
“That I can picture. What else?”
“I rearranged my room a bit. Well, put it back in order, I guess. Ransom is always leaving little bits and pieces behind, and I chucked them all back in his room.”
“Did you organize them first?”
From anyone else, that comment might seem like a taunt, but when Willow says it, I only hear warm familiarity in her tone.
“No,” I tell her. “I closed the door, and he can deal with it. Did you eat something today?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I made a peanut butter sandwich when I got back. It made me think of you.”
I sit back in my chair, thinking about the first time I made her a sandwich. “Was it good?”
“Mm-hm. How’s your stash holding up? Or did Malice and Ransom raid it again because they were out of their devil peanut butter?”
I chuckle. “I made them buy the big family sized jar, so it hasn’t happened again. I saw Ransom double dip his knife between the peanut butter and the Nutella the other day, and I almost banned him from the kitchen entirely.”
“Eww,” Willow says, and I glance at the screen to see her smiling softly.
There’s a pause, comfortable silence falling between us, then Willow takes a deep breath.
“Can I ask you something?” she murmurs.
“Of course.”
“Well, I was thinking about the times you’ve fed me, you know, and how… how that one time you kissed me. And then you left. I was just wondering why.”
My shoulders tighten, the feeling of ease vanishing as her words spill into my ear. I drag in a deep breath and grit my teeth. “Why I kissed you or why I left?” I ask.
“Both, I guess.”
I don’t want to talk about this at all… but even though I feel awkward and uncomfortable, I want to keep distracting Willow from her fear. And I don’t want to lie to her. So I tell her the truth.
“I kissed you because I wanted to. Because I couldn’t help myself. You were sitting right there, and I just—I needed it. And it was too much for me, apparently.”
“What do you mean, too much?” she asks softly.
“I… came just from kissing you, butterfly.” I draw in another breath, trying to keep my voice measured, controlled. “I’ve seen you with my twin and Ransom. I’ve seen them fuck you until your eyes rolled back in your head and you fell apart completely for them. And I know I could never do that.”
“Victor…”
“My control snaps entirely whenever I so much as touch you,” I tell her. “And I need that control. I can’t… I can’t touch you without losing it, and I can’t deal with that feeling. It’s too much. I’m not like them, and that’s so…”
I trail off, not even sure how to finish that sentence. I can hear the frustration and shame in my voice, and I close my eyes, gripping the phone tight.
Fucked up. I’m so fucked up.