Chapter 28 Victor
VICTOR
Malice’s grip is tight on the steering wheel, his foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor of the car like his life depends on it. I’ve taken the front passenger seat, leaving Ransom and Willow in the back.
We hit a turn so fast that the wheels of the car bump over the curb nearby, and I shoot Malice a look before tugging off my mask and pulling out my laptop to get to work.
Olivia is a smart woman, and it’ll only be a matter of minutes before she realizes her security team and Troy’s men weren’t able to contain us.
Then she’ll regroup and shift her focus to tracking us down.
If I can slow that process down a bit, it’ll give us a better chance of getting out of this mess.
“Take a left here,” I tell Malice, guiding him along the best path to get us out of the city without being seen by dozens of security or traffic cameras. I’ll have to wipe a few of them to make sure we’re completely clear, but it should be doable.
Malice yanks off his own mask, shooting a glance at Ransom through the rearview mirror.
“The tracker,” is all he says, but we all know what he means.
We knew this part was going to have to happen, although it should’ve happened under more controlled circumstances, not during a high-speed getaway.
Ransom nods, pulling out the first aid kit that we’ve stashed in the side of the car door. “I’ve gotta get that tracker out of you, angel. And I need to do it fast.”
His tone is apologetic, and when Willow blinks at him, he grabs her wrist, rubbing his thumb over the place where her grandmother had the tracking device inserted under her skin.
“Do it now,” Malice bites out. “The longer Olivia can track us, the harder it’s gonna be to throw her off our trail.”
Ransom grimaces but gets to work, pulling out the equipment he’ll need to do the extraction.
When he uses a scalpel to cut a thin line across the skin at Willow’s wrist, she hisses out a breath, but I know from experience that a blade that sharp doesn’t hurt very much when it pierces your skin.
What truly hurts is everything that comes after, and I wince as memories of my father’s “training sessions” rise up in my mind, momentarily distracting me from my task.
I shake my head and try to refocus, but Willow’s groan of pain as Ransom digs for the tracker makes my stomach clench.
“Okay, it’s out,” he says, his voice soothing. He rolls down the window partway and hurls it out of the car, then returns his attention to Willow. “I’m just gonna do a couple stitches, and you’ll be done. You’re doing so well. You’ve got this.”
More soft, pained noises come from her, and I resist glancing back to check on his handiwork.
I know Ransom is capable of handling this, but I also know it’ll irritate me that his stitches aren’t as even as mine would’ve been.
I wish I could’ve been the one to take care of the tracker extraction, but I’m needed up here.
“Another left into that alley,” I tell Malice. “Then when it dead ends, take a right. We’ll hook onto a side street.”
“Got it.”
“All done.” Ransom sounds relieved, and I hear the rustling sound of him putting something back into the first aid kit. “How does that feel? You alright?”
“No.” Willow’s voice is soft, but it picks up strength and urgency as she speaks. “No, no, no, no, no…”
I glance over my shoulder to see her shaking her head, repeating the words over and over until her breath runs out. But even then, she keeps shaking her head, her mouth moving as tears well in her eyes.
“Hey. Breathe, pretty girl.” My brother bats down the layers of Willow’s dress and scoots in closer to her. “You’re turning blue.”
But I’m not even sure Willow hears him. Her face is flushed, and she rakes her hands through her hair, disturbing the elegant style it was forced into for the occasion.
“No. She’s going to find us,” she babbles brokenly. “She’s going to find us, and then she’s going to make our lives hell. Worse than hell because of how you just—just broke in there and started shooting and…”
She trails off, putting her face in her shaking hands.
“It’s not that serious,” Ransom tries to tell her, and when Willow’s head snaps back up, her eyes are blazing.
“It is that fucking serious! Are you kidding? She has money and power and probably ties to who knows how many people who can hunt us down. You shouldn’t have done it. You should have just—”
This time, she’s cut off by Malice whirling around, almost jerking the damned car off the road as he faces her in the back seat.
“You don’t get to decide what we do or don’t do, Solnyshka,” he snaps, anger in his voice and every line of his body. “We’ll make that fucking decision, thanks very goddamned much.”
The road splits up ahead, and there’s a median between the two sides that Malice is currently barreling straight toward.
“Mal,” I murmur, keeping my voice even. “Could you maybe keep us from dying in a fiery wreck?”
He looks back at the road in time to curse loudly and swerve, veering the car away from imminent danger.
“Thank you. Take the next right. Then straight down that road for six miles.”
Ransom keeps talking to Willow in a low voice, stroking her arm, trying to calm her down.
“Hey, it’s alright. Vic’s going to make sure she can’t find us that easily.
And we can handle whatever she throws at us.
We’re prepared for this. We’ve been through shit like this before, angel. It’s not our first rodeo.”
Willow just shakes her head, her mouth pressed in a thin line. I can see the strain in her, how wound up she is. She keeps twisting her head around to look behind us, like she expects her grandmother to be in a car, chasing us down the highway.
“Malice does have a point though,” Ransom adds. “You went off and did something without talking to us about it first. You lied to us. What the fuck were you thinking? How could you just… go through with the wedding like that? Did you really want to marry that guy?”
We all know she didn’t. Even if she had suddenly decided overnight that she hated all of us—a thought that makes my stomach twist unpleasantly—I know Willow well enough to know that she could never truly fall in love with a man like Troy Copeland.
But I can hear the tinge of hurt in Ransom’s voice as he asks, and I understand it.
Feelings aren’t rational.
I’ve come to understand that more than ever as my own emotions become harder and harder to keep in check.
Willow sucks in a breath and stares down at her lap.
“She… Olivia said that if I went through with the wedding with no more issues, if I did what she wanted and stopped trying to resist or find a way out… she’d let you guys go.
She’d end your deal with X and let you live your lives, free and clear. ”
I blink in surprise as her words register. It’s a good bargaining chip, all things considered, and it means Olivia was paying close attention to the relationship between all of us. Otherwise she wouldn’t have known that tactic would work with Willow.
I turn in my seat to listen to her, my fingers going still on the keyboard of my laptop. It’s unusual for me to have trouble focusing on the task at hand. Usually I can multi-task with ease, but right now, I’m more focused on Willow than anything else.
Part of me wishes I could climb into the back seat with her, to be closer to her and chase some of the pain out of her voice and her eyes.
It hits me hard, the scale of what Willow was willing to do for us. To tie herself—forever—to someone like Troy and a family like his. To be her grandmother’s puppet and bear the weight of her legacy like that. It’s a massive thing, and Willow was going to do it without question.
“Maybe it’s not too late,” Willow blurts, looking between all of us wildly. “Maybe you can take me back. I can, I don’t know, grovel to Olivia and still marry Troy. Then you’ll all be free.”
My throat tightens, and Malice growls with rage beside me.
“No fucking way,” he snarls. “And besides, your goddamned fiancé got shot by Vic. The wedding isn’t fucking happening.”
Willow shrinks back a little, looking even more upset. I know it’s not because she’s mourning Troy, but probably just the worry of what will happen now.
“She’s not going to let this go. She won’t. She’s going to be even more angry that you shot Troy, especially if he’s dead. She needed him for her plans to rebuild her estate, and his family will probably blame her if he died.” Willow’s eyes are wide with fear. “I don’t know what she’ll do.”
Ransom wraps his arms around her and then pulls her into his lap, wedding gown and all. He holds her close, nuzzling against her neck, and I have to swallow past a lump of jealousy.
Not because I don’t want Ransom touching her, but because I wish it was me.
The thought passes through my mind so naturally that it makes me blink in surprise, caught off guard by it. I’ve never been one to crave physical contact. Not since I was a child. I don’t touch anyone that often, not even my brothers.
But ever since Willow came into our lives, she’s thrown everything I thought I knew into disarray, making me question things about myself that I thought would never change. Making me want things that I’ve never wanted before.
I’m not even sure I could handle having Willow on my lap, but I want her there. I want to hold her. I want to be the one whispering soothing things to her and trying to calm her down.
“Vic,” Malice grunts, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Wanna tell me where the fuck I need to go?”
I shake myself mentally, trying to refocus. We have to get out of Detroit without a tail if we want to have any hope of escaping Olivia. And that means I need to keep my head in the game.
I want to protect Willow, and right now, the best way to do that is to get out of this city in one piece.
“Over the bridge,” I tell my twin. “Then cut down the first side street. Slight right.”
Malice guns it once more, following my directions for the next several minutes until we get to where we need to go.
It’s a place on the outskirts of the city where we stashed the second car.
At least we had already planned to leave today, even if we didn’t plan on shooting up a wedding on our way out of town.
We had time to prepare things, to have our escape route planned out and to set the pieces we would need in place.
We all pile out of the first car as soon as it rolls to a stop, and Malice and I work like machines, moving our stuff into the trunk of the second car. After one quick check to make sure we’re not being followed and we haven’t left anything, we hit the road again, leaving Detroit behind.
“Roomier in this car,” Ransom comments after a few minutes, pressed right up against Willow in the back seat again. “I can stretch my legs out.”
He makes a show of stretching out and making a blissed out face, and Willow almost smiles. That makes Ransom grin even wider, as if he’s happy to have gotten something close to a smile out of her.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs, his tone turning more serious. “You know that, right? Whatever happens, we’re in this together. We’re not going to just let her run over us. She might have power and money and connections, but she doesn’t know what she’s up against. Or what we’d do to protect you.”
Willow runs her tongue over her lips and then nods, letting out a shaky breath. “Okay. I… okay.”
He’s so good at that. He always has been, ever since Willow came into our lives. Ransom calms her down, getting her to relax and even smile when it doesn’t seem like she can, and it comes so naturally to him.
I glance down at the computer in my lap, focusing on what comes naturally to me. I go back through the security footage along our route and start scrubbing away any traces of us that I can find.
There isn’t much there, since we took a good path with very few cameras, but the harder it is to track us, the better our odds will be.
But even as my fingers move across the keyboard and my eyes track across the screen, I’m still acutely aware of Willow.
Part of my mind is focused on the task of wiping away all traces of our flight from Detroit, but the other part is focused on the soft sound of her breathing, on the small traces of her floral scent that tease my nostrils, and on the quiet words I hear her whisper to Ransom from time to time.
We have her back now, and we’re not playing by her grandmother’s rules anymore.
This time, no one will ever take her from us again.