Chapter 32 Willow
WILLOW
The kitchen shifts into hardcore planning mode from there. Even Ransom leaves the jokes behind, settling in at the kitchen table, his expression intent.
Malice seems to take point, listing out all the things we know about Olivia, unflinching and precise. He doesn’t have any emotion other than anger as he ticks things off—her wealth, her status, the fact that she knows more about all of us than we know about her.
Vic writes it all down, keeping his eyes on the screen in front of him.
The picture it paints is pretty grim, all things considered. Olivia is powerful, and she seems pretty ruthless. She has connections and money and a grudge now, and we’re going to be the only thing she has eyes for until she gets her hands on us.
“We just have to stay ahead of her,” Malice says, leaning back in his chair. “Her shit isn’t limitless. If we let her exhaust her money and her time trying to chase us around, that might give us an edge.”
“She does seem pretty desperate to grow her fortune,” Ransom agrees. “Which means it can’t be in great shape now.”
“It’s not,” I tell them. “All the things I wore to my engagement party were borrowed, which means she’s trying to put on a show of having more money than she does to impress her peers.
But that doesn’t mean she’s broke. Nowhere close to it.
She still has a hell of a lot more resources than we do right now. ”
“It doesn’t change the plan much. We keep one step ahead of her for as long as we can. If she sends people after us, we take care of them. We stay on our toes and watch each other’s backs.”
Malice sounds so sure of himself, so sure of us as a team, and the glowing feeling of realizing that I’m part of their unit now is only overshadowed by the gnawing worry about how this could spiral out of control.
The more people Olivia sends after us, the more bodies the brothers will rack up. That will make it even easier for Olivia to get them locked up forever if she catches us.
Assuming she doesn’t just have them killed to begin with.
“She definitely wants Willow back,” Ransom says, picking at a little hole in the woodgrain of the table. “So her coming after us isn’t just about revenge. It’s practical too. She still needs Willow.”
“Yeah,” I agree, even though it makes me grimace. “She needs me if she wants to expand her estate and tie her legacy to another wealthy family. It’s not like she can auction herself off for marriage. So I still have value to her.”
Vic nods. “That at least means she won’t act rashly. She’s not going to risk taking us out blindly if it means she might kill you along with us.”
A prickle of fear creeps up my spine, and I lift one shoulder. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t put anything past her at this point.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, looking at me intently.
“She… she killed Misty. Because she was an embarrassment to the family. And she killed my real mom too. My dad loved her, but she wasn’t the right kind of person for Olivia’s tastes. So she set our house on fire and killed her. She wanted me to die in that fire too.”
I run my fingertips over my arm, feeling the ridges of scar tissue under the material of my shirt. The scars don’t hurt, they haven’t since I was a little kid, but I feel a phantom heat in them now, as if the flames are there, licking at my skin.
“Shit,” Malice curses. “She really is a fucking monster.”
“She cares about her family name more than anything,” I say.
“And the legacy she believes we’re supposed to have.
But Misty and my mom… they were inconveniences to her.
They were in the way of the perfect future she had laid out.
Stains on the family. She blamed my mom for ‘seducing’ my dad and trying to steal him away from the family. ”
The brothers all share a look, communicating silently in that way they have.
“That sounds familiar,” Ransom mutters. “She really is obsessed with treating her family like property.”
“So it’s clear she’s not going to back down,” Vic murmurs. “She’s not just going to cut her losses with the wedding and move on or give up. She’ll be relentless.”
My stomach churns just thinking about it. Malice makes it sound easy, staying one step ahead of her, keeping out of her grip, but I know it’s not going to be that simple. There’s no way it could be.
“We have to be really, really careful,” I tell them. “If she catches us…”
“You’ll be okay, at least,” Ransom says.
“Define okay.”
He winces and then nods. “Point. She won’t kill you, but…”
“But I might wish I was dead by the time she’s done shackling me into some horrible marriage. And if she hurts you guys, I…” I trail off, not even wanting to finish that thought. It hurts too much to even think about.
“Let’s not dwell on that right now,” Vic says, getting our attention back to the matter at hand. “We need a plan. Multiple plans, honestly.”
“Detroit’s a bust.” Malice crosses his arms, making the tattoos on his biceps shift and stretch. “And anywhere close by is just asking for trouble. We’re gonna have to put a lot of distance between us and this part of the country.”
“Any kind of travel that requires us to have IDs right now is too risky. We don’t know what strings she could pull to find out where we’re going. And she might be expecting us to hop a flight somewhere and get out of here,” Vic says. “So we’re stuck to cars for a bit.”
“But leaving the country might be a good idea,” Ransom adds.
Everyone looks thoughtful at that.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Vic replies. He types a bit on his computer and then glances up at us, the cool light from the screen shining on his face. “Canada isn’t far from here.”
“Maybe too close, though,” Malice argues. “Close enough that she might have friends or connections there.”
Vic hums. “Possibly. Mexico?”
I chew on my lip, trying to remember my geography and just how many states are between us and Mexico right now. “That’s pretty far, isn’t it?” I ask.
“It is, but that’s what we need right now.
Plus, Olivia has dirt on all of us, just like she threatened.
And none of it is vague or speculation. The jobs were for her, so she’s got easy access to evidence connecting us to each of them.
So we can’t rule out her calling on law enforcement to help bring us in. ”
My stomach drops a little, because I didn’t think of that. On the surface, Olivia seems like a respectable, wealthy member of society, and people like that always have better chances of getting what they want from the law.
The conversation keeps circling, the guys discussing who they know along the route to Mexico that might be able to help us, and whether it’s safe to reach out to anyone at all.
Vic pulls up a map on his screen and turns it around so we can all see, charting different paths that can take us to where we want to go. It seems like such a massive distance, and the more they talk, hammering out the details, the more I worry that we’re in over our heads.
Eventually, the day starts to catch up to me, and I can feel the late hour. My eyes slide closed, and I smother a yawn with one hand, blinking blearily as I fight to listen to everything they’re saying.
“It’s getting late,” Ransom says after a few more minutes. “We should get some rest. Especially if we have a shit ton of driving ahead of us.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “You’re fading fast, pretty girl.”
“No,” I mumble, shaking my head. “I’m okay. We need to keep strategizing.”
“We’ve just about done all we can for tonight.”
He gets up and plucks me out of my chair, putting his hands on my shoulders to steer me in the direction of the bedroom. I don’t fight him, my body sagging with exhaustion as my feet shuffle across the floor.
Another chair scrapes back from the table, and when I turn my head, I see Malice getting up too. Without saying anything, he follows the two of us, walking toward the bedroom in silence.
I don’t bother to undress or anything, just crawl into bed, smothering another yawn. Ransom and Malice move to either side of me, the same way they did before, after they laid their claim on me, sandwiching me between them.
It should be claustrophobic, or at the very least uncomfortable, but it feels good to have them there, protecting me.
Soft footsteps echo down the hall, and Vic slips into the room then, flicking off the light.
He settles in a chair in the corner, and I can feel his eyes on us as he makes himself comfortable.
As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I look back, making out the shape of him in the darkness, aching for him to join us.
It’s easier with Ransom and even Malice, the two of them taking what they want and giving me what I need in return. But Vic holds himself apart, keeping his walls up, even though he lets me have glimpses behind them sometimes.
I’ve fallen for him too, the same way I have for his brothers, and I hope he knows that. I hope he understands that I want him just as he is, in any way I can have him, and that I always will.
I just wish he felt like he was a part of this. Because to me, he is. The four of us are a unit, and even though things have moved faster with Malice and Ransom, it’s not complete without Vic.
My eyelids grow heavy, and even though my head is a mess, my thoughts a chaotic spiral, it only takes a few minutes for sleep to drag me under.
I wake with a start sometime later.
My heart is racing, but I can’t remember any of my dreams. Just images and feelings, enough that I know my sleep wasn’t restful by any means. With everything going on, that makes sense.
I still feel exhausted, tiredness and worry weighing on me, but when I try to close my eyes and go back to sleep, I realize it’s not gonna happen. I’m too wired now.
The light coming in through the window is muted and pink-edged, so it has to be just after dawn. Malice and Ransom are still asleep on either side of me, and Vic is scrunched down in his chair, breathing softly.