Chapter 21 Willow
WILLOW
Fear lances through me as I shift my gaze between Troy and the three muscled men facing off with him. Malice seems barely restrained, and the other two aren’t much better.
If Troy takes one more step toward me, I know they’ll attack him.
They’re protective and angry, gunning for a fight, and Troy doesn’t have the good sense to see that all the money in the world won’t keep them from ripping him apart right here and now, so he’s likely to do something stupid and push them past their breaking point.
Olivia’s words of warning are still echoing in the back of my mind, and I know that the lives of the three men I care about hang in the balance here. If they attack Troy, Olivia will retaliate, and the fallout will be awful.
“Stop!” I blurt, the word almost ripped out of me in my desperation to keep them safe. “Please, don’t do this. Not here.” I slide around the Voronin brothers so that I can look each of them in the eye, holding my hands out. “It’s not worth it, okay? It’s not. Just let it go.”
Malice drags in a deep breath, and the wildness in his eyes flares for a second before dulling into something a bit less intense.
“Please,” I whisper, willing him to listen. “For me. Don’t do this.”
It feels like trying to talk down a group of feral animals, and my pulse is hammering in my chest, dread building in my gut. But as I murmur quiet words, the three of them finally drop their aggressive stances, although they don’t take their eyes off Troy for a second.
Just as the horrible tension in my shoulders finally starts to drain away, the door opens again.
All five of us glance sharply toward it, and my heart crawls up into my throat as Olivia steps into the room.
My grandmother glances around, taking in Troy’s angry posture and me standing between him and the guys. She’s clearly trying to get a read on the situation, and I want to tell her to just please fuck off and not make this worse.
But I hold my tongue, biting down on my lip so hard I’m surprised I don’t draw blood.
This is all so dangerous. Shit could go bad at any moment, and if it does, there will be no taking it back.
“Troy,” Olivia finally says, addressing him in a cool voice. “You’re ignoring your guests. As this party is partly for you, it would be rude to neglect the people who came out to celebrate with you. We have appearances to keep up.”
Her words are polite on the surface, but I can hear the steel of the command underneath them. She’s used to being obeyed.
“You shouldn’t have invited trash to the party if you’re so worried about appearances,” he snaps back, tugging at the lapels of his jacket to straighten them.
Olivia narrows her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line. I’m not sure if she’s guessed how much Troy knows about her arrangement with the men, but she doesn’t look happy about it.
She jerks her head toward the main room, and after a second, Troy relents. He steps around the three brothers, but before he leaves, he stops and looks at me over his shoulder.
“I’m keeping track of all the things you’ll have to pay for once you’re my wife,” he hisses. “I’m looking forward to giving you every single one of your punishments.”
I shudder at the vicious promise in his words. He doesn’t have to be more explicit than that for me to guess what he means, and the guys can clearly read between the lines as well, because they tense as Troy stalks out of the room.
Olivia ignores the brothers, instead grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the room as well.
It aches like a physical pain to keep being dragged away from the three of them, but I don’t protest. Not when things are already so tense and on edge.
I want to protect them, and this is the best way right now.
On the way out, I catch Ransom’s gaze, and I can see pain and guilt in his eyes. He’s probably blaming himself for this, and I hate that. It’s as much my fault as it is his.
We got reckless and stupid, carried away by our need for each other.
And now we’re all going to pay the price for it.
Olivia is clearly angry about the near fight between the guys and Troy, and her manicured nails dig into my arm as she leads me around the edge of the crowd.
“I’m going to have to do something about them,” she mutters, her tone sharp. “I thought having them here would keep you all in line, but clearly I was wrong. They’re forgetting their place and getting too unruly.”
Worry fills me, but I do my best to keep my expression neutral, not wanting to stir up my grandmother’s ire any further by showing my true feelings in front of her guests.
Thankfully, the rest of the party goes by in a blur. I let Olivia steer me around, and I smile and nod and do what I’m supposed to do until it’s all over.
Troy gives me a big kiss at the end, pulling me close as people clink their silverware against their champagne flutes. As he bends me backward a little, hiding my face from the crowd, he bites my bottom lip, muffling my yelp of pain with his mouth.
His lips find my ear as he murmurs, “Every. Single. One.”
I don’t dare look in the direction of the three brothers, and I’m not even sure if they’re still present when I’m finally ushered out by Olivia. Her car pulls up out front, and as we slip inside, she tells the driver to bring us back to her house.
The ride is tense, and I can’t even enjoy the relief that the party is over. Olivia doesn’t say anything, so neither do I, the two of us sitting in loaded silence until we get back to the house.
She leads me up to the bedroom where I got ready, then sweeps her gaze over me.
“Take all of that off,” she says curtly. “And put it away neatly. It has to go back.”
I blink, about to ask where it has to go back to, but then I realize that it all must be borrowed.
She wanted to put on a show of wealth that she doesn’t actually have.
Of course, she still has more money than most people could ever dream of, but she wants to seem like she’s better off than she is, and this was a part of it.
It must be why she’s so obsessed with rebuilding her estate.
Rather than leaving, Olivia just stands there, watching impatiently, so I start undressing, removing the sparkling earrings and placing them back in the box they came from and then going for the fancy shoes to put them away as well.
Something digs against my skin, and I realize in a flash that if my grandmother keeps watching, she’s going to see the device that Victor gave me. My heart slams against my ribs as my brain scrambles to think of what to do.
I stall, taking off the necklace and bracelet I’m wearing with exaggerated care, making sure to line each piece up in their velvet lined boxes.
Olivia lets out an annoyed breath, but luckily, rather than marching into the room and forcing me to strip faster, she turns and leaves without a word.
My legs wobble with relief, and after pausing for a few heartbeats to make sure she’s really gone, I finish undressing quickly. I hang the dress up and put my street clothes back on, shoving the little device in my pocket.
Olivia still hasn’t come back by the time I’m done, and I chew on my lip for a second, debating with myself. It’s dangerous, but I don’t know when I’ll have another chance. And after the shit that happened tonight, we need leverage over Olivia more than ever.
It has to be now.
I dash down the stairs and head straight to the office, pushing the door open silently.
The portrait of my grandparents and my father rests on the wall where it’s always been, and I make a beeline toward it, replaying the instructions Vic gave me about how to use the device to crack it.
I pull back the painting and follow his directions step by step, my hand shaking as I attach the device to the keypad the way he told me to.
At first, I don’t think it’s working, but then I hear a soft whirring sound.
He told me it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes, but my foot still taps on the floor urgently as I wait, glancing over my shoulder once or twice.
When the door finally clicks open, I have to stifle a tiny sound of triumph.
I yank the door open, prepared to grab whatever documents look most promising and stuff them under my clothes, but as I reach inside, all my hand touches is cool metal.
I blink, peering into the safe.
It’s completely empty.
No. That doesn’t make any sense. I was so sure.
“Well, you must be devastated.”
Olivia’s voice comes from the office doorway, cool and slightly amused. I whirl around to find her standing behind me, still dressed in the outfit she wore to the party.
“Carrie told me you snuck off during your styling this afternoon,” she says.
“I checked my security tapes and realized you were poking around in my office. I know what you’re trying to do, Willow, and it won’t work.
It’s impressive that you managed to get the safe open, but you have to understand, I’m not going to let you win this game. ”
I swallow hard, still not speaking. I’m not sure what she’ll do now. I’m more worried about the brothers than myself, since she needs me if she wants to get her estate back to its former glory, but considering how tonight went at the party, she might choose to lash out at them harder than before.
“Sit down,” Olivia says suddenly, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk.
Her command surprises me, but I do it, settling onto the seat as she moves around the desk and sits on the large, plush office chair.
Lacing her fingers together, she rests her hands on the desk, studying me in silence as a clock on the wall ticks away the seconds. Then she sighs softly.
“I am tired of making threats, Willow,” she tells me. “But perhaps there’s another way to keep you pliant and in line.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my heart skipping a beat.
“Instead of threatening you, I am going to sweeten the deal. If you go through with this wedding, with no more trouble or incidents, I’ll release the Voronin brothers from our deal. They will be free from X. No more jobs, no more blackmail. It will be over.”
I stare at her, stunned, and she keeps talking.
“I underestimated how much you care for each other. And how headstrong and unruly you can be.” She gives me an arch look. “But this is an arrangement where we can both win. I get your true compliance, and they get their true freedom.”
Her words die out, but even though the office falls silent, I swear I can still hear them echoing around us.
She’s basically just offered the guys a ticket out of this mess, the freedom to live their lives without having to worry about doing jobs for X that will inevitably get them killed one day.
Without having to ever think or speak of Olivia again.
Without her threats and manipulations constantly hanging over them.
True freedom.
As long as I actually go through with the wedding.
“I’ll give you a bit of time to consider it,” Olivia tells me, her cool voice breaking into my thoughts.
“But don’t forget what’s at stake if you refuse my offer, Willow.
There are many more jobs that X could send them on, and some of them are quite dangerous.
You can stop all of that, if you choose. It’s up to you.”
She leans back in her chair, her hands still folded on the desk. Her hazel eyes scan my face, and then she gives a small nod, as if satisfied by what she sees there. As if she already knows what my choice is going to be.
And maybe she does.