Chapter 33 Malice
MALICE
We load the car back up with the shit we took out of it for the night, and I stand on the porch, watching as Vic rearranges everything to best fit inside the trunk. He grabs his laptop bag and stashes it in the front seat, but everything else goes in the trunk.
I run down a list in my head, making sure we haven’t missed anything, thinking of the next steps we need to take once we get out of here.
Something about needing a concrete plan snaps me into what Ransom calls my ‘task master business mode’, but whatever. Someone’s gotta make sure we get where we need to go and don’t get caught up in other shit.
The instinct to protect the few people in this shit world that I love is fucking strong. It was there for our mom before she died, and it’s still there for my brothers. So strong that I went to prison to protect them, and that I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Now that urge has expanded to protect Willow.
I watch her walk back into the house after passing the box of food provisions, and I track her movements, following the bright blonde glint of her hair before she ducks back inside.
Just thinking about yesterday, about her standing at that altar, about to marry some fucker who would have used and abused her, makes fury boil in my blood.
I wish I’d been the one to kill Troy. It wasn’t part of the plan, but if he was going to die, I wish I could have done it.
At least he’s gone. At least he can never put his grimy fucking hands on Willow again.
Her grandmother can get fucked too if she thinks she’s going to get Willow back. She’s ours, I’m gonna keep her safe no matter what it takes.
“Hurry up,” I call, my voice carrying down to where Ransom and Vic are having a quiet argument about packing the car. “We don’t have time for your fucking bickering.”
They both look at me, then Vic plucks the bag out of Ransom’s hand to slot it in place.
Ransom rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. He gives me a sardonic salute and then heads back into the house. When he and Willow don’t appear after a few seconds, I go inside myself, glaring at them until they march their way back to the car.
“He’s in a mood,” Ransom whispers to Willow, loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah, the mood to keep everyone from getting caught by a fucking crazy bitch with too much damned money and an ego trip,” I grunt. “Just call me the asshole, I guess.”
“We’re going, we’re going,” Willow replies, smiling a little. It’s strained, and she looks like she didn’t get enough sleep last night, but she’s moving.
I do one final sweep of the house to make sure we haven’t left anything we need behind, and then walk the perimeter with a bottle of accelerant, splashing it liberally over the sides of the house.
I toss the bottle in through the front door and then light a match, touching it to the trail of liquid on the porch.
It goes up immediately, and I jog to the car, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Everyone else is already buckled in, and Willow sighs softly as she watches the house catch fire and start to burn. It goes up quickly, and this far away from civilization, it’ll be down to ashes before anyone makes it out here to see what’s going on.
“It was a nice house,” Willow murmurs. “It’s a shame you had to burn it down.”
“Easier to cover our tracks this way,” I tell her, starting the car and pulling back onto the gravel driveway. “Any DNA evidence we might’ve left behind is gonna burn with the house.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I get it.”
I speed down the driveway and then pull out onto the road just as smoke starts to billow from the house. Not stopping to watch it go up, I get us going, glancing over at Vic in the passenger seat.
Usually the two of us would switch off driving, but right now, I need Vic on nav duty, letting me know the best route to get out of here without being detected. He already has his laptop open, a map pulled up on the screen.
“Just head back toward the highway,” he says. “There’s a back road we can take.”
I nod and start driving that way.
Ransom is in the back with Willow, and that seems best for everyone.
Even though she’s trying to seem like she’s not freaking out, I know she’s probably stressed as hell about all of this.
Ransom has a calming effect on her, and that’s good right now.
It used to make me jealous, how easily he could talk to her and get her to relax, but now I’m grateful for it.
I can trust that Willow is in good hands with my brother.
We drive south, putting miles between us and the burning wreck of the farmhouse. Once we get about fifty miles away from it, my focus shifts to our next step.
“We need to get some money,” I announce, and Vic nods.
Willow purses her lips, looking worried. “What does that mean, ‘get money’? How are you going to get it? If you withdraw cash from an ATM, then there’ll be a record of that, won’t there?”
Ransom and I exchange glances in the mirror, and he grins before turning his attention to Willow.
“You’re right about that, pretty girl. If we went to an ATM, it would be pretty easy to trace, so we won’t do that. Malice was referring to getting money that doesn’t strictly belong to us.”
She breathes in sharply. “You mean stealing.”
“That’s one way to put it, yeah.”
“But won’t that be dangerous?”
“You mean more dangerous than being hunted by your bitch of a grandmother?” I ask dryly, one hand resting low on the wheel as I glance over my shoulder.
“We’ve done this before,” Vic tells her. “We know how to pick an easy target.”
“Yeah, but…” She shakes her head, still seeming skeptical.
I suppress a smile, moving to change lanes as Vic tells me to take the upcoming exit.
Sometimes Willow still seems so shocked to have fallen in with a bunch of criminals.
But Ransom is right. What we have in mind isn’t something we’ve done recently, since the chop shop was doing a good business before Donovan and his gang decided to fuck with us, but we’ve done it before.
“What do you think?” I ask, glancing over at my twin.
“Convenience store is easiest,” he says.
“Anything bigger than that will be an issue. Small-ish town, probably. Let me see what we’re near.
” He starts typing again, still talking as he does.
“Small enough to not have too many cops. and probably slow ones at that, not used to being called out for robberies, but big enough that we won’t stand out too much as strangers. ”
“Agreed. Anything too small, and everyone knows everyone, which will make it too hard to blend in.”
“Exactly. Take a right up here.”
I turn on my blinker. “Find us a place to stay tonight too. Somewhere out of the way.”
“I’m on it.”
After a quick stop to gas up the car and buy Willow some clothes that will actually fit her—along with some shoes that aren’t the heels she walked down the aisle in—we drive for a good few hours before Vic guides me to a decent sized town.
“Okay, first things first,” I say as I exit the highway. “We’ll find someplace to drop Willow off, and then we should—”
“Wait, what?” she interrupts. “What do you mean, drop me off? You’re leaving me?”
“Just long enough to do what we need to do,” Ransom soothes. “It’ll be better if you’re not there.”
“I can help!” she insists. “We’re supposed to be sticking together. I can help you.”
“No,” I say firmly. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, and we have our shit on point. We have a system, and we’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Solnyshka. We gotta keep you out of this shit as much as possible. If we get caught, you can keep running.”
The look on her face is so mutinous that it makes me want to drag her into the front seat and kiss the fuck out of her, just to turn that spark into a full-blown flame. But she finally stops arguing, folding her arms and frowning out the window.
I keep driving, finding a little diner off the interstate where we can drop her off.
Ransom pulls a ball cap out of his bag and puts it on her head, covering the bright golden locks of her hair.
“You’ll be okay,” he says. “Just keep your head down and don’t draw any attention to yourself. We’ll be back as soon as we can.” He pulls her into a kiss, and she goes willingly, even though it’s clear she’s still pissed.
After she slides out of the car, she turns back and peers through the open door at all of us.
“Be safe,” she says sternly. “Be careful.”
“Take your own advice,” I shoot back, then watch as she turns and heads into the diner.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, and something in me screams to snatch her back and not let her walk away from us. I can tell my brothers feel the same way, both of them looking unsettled and displeased about being separated from her.
“Let’s get this done quick,” Ransom mutters. “I don’t want to leave her here longer than we have to.”
“A-fucking-men,” I grunt, and get us moving again.
Vic’s already picked out a target for us, so we drive across town to the spot and scope it out. It’s midsize, mostly a gas station, but with a little convenience store attached to it.
“Less likely to do regular deposits,” he explains. “And probably staffed by bored kids who won’t put up a fight.”
“Perfect.” I nod, then glance between my two brothers.
“Usual plan. We work as a team. I’ll handle the money.
Vic, you handle the clerk. Ransom, you go to the back and see if you can find more cash waiting to be deposited, or anything else of value.
We’ll wait until there’s no one else inside to minimize the risk. ”
The place isn’t busy, so it only takes about twenty minutes before all of the pumps are clear. A minute or two after that, someone walks out the front door of the convenience store, and Vic nods. “I think that was the last customer inside.”
We all pull our ski masks on, leaving the car parked down the road.
The shop is quiet, and the bell on the door jangles as we enter and fan out. The clerk, a bored looking guy in his twenties, looks up as we stride in. He barely even seems to notice us at first, but then he does a double take at the sight of our masked faces.
“What the hell?” he demands.
Ransom shoots out the security camera that’s attached to the wall behind the counter, and Vic raises his gun, aiming it right at the clerk’s face as the guy blanches.
“No sudden moves,” Vic says, his voice passive and detached. “We’re not here to hurt you. Open the register and give us all the cash you can put your hands on.”
Ransom gives me a look, and I nod, watching as he peels away from the two of us and moves for the back. Luckily, this kind of place doesn’t seem to be well-staffed or heavily trafficked, so there’s probably no one waiting back there to fuck up the plan.
And if there is, Ransom knows how to handle himself.
The clerk raises both hands, eyes wide as saucers. “Don’t hurt me, okay? I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
“Just do what he fucking said,” I snap.
“Okay, okay.” He pops the register open and starts shoveling cash onto the counter, his hands shaking.
I pull a bag from my pocket and slide the bills into it, keeping an eye on the clerk as I do. Vic keeps the gun trained on him, never wavering.
“Is that it?” he asks, when the flow of cash has stopped.
The clerk nods. “Yeah, man. That’s it. That’s all that’s in the register, I swear. You can check.”
Vic glances at me and nods.
A few seconds later, Ransom comes back, holding up a deposit bag. Vic wasn’t kidding about them not getting to the bank often, then.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the clerk moving, and I snap my head around, pinning him with a glare as he moves to grab for his phone. Vic steps forward, pressing his gun to the clerk’s temple.
“You just said you don’t get paid enough for this shit,” he says calmly. “Let’s not make it so you have to pay with your life.”
“Okay,” the clerk says, raising his hand as sweat trickles down his brow. “Okay, fuck.”
“We’re done here,” I tell my brothers. Then I step forward and then reach over the counter, grabbing the clerk by the shirt and hauling him over it. He yelps, babbling in his panic, and I drag him to the back through the Employees Only door.
“Please!” he begs, pure panic breaking across his face now. “Please don’t kill me. I—I can give you all the money on me. I’ve got a few bucks in my wallet. Just—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I grunt at him. “I don’t want your money.”
Keeping a hand on the guy, I yank open a utility closet and find a roll of duct tape.
That’ll work.
I quickly tape up the clerk’s ankles and wrists, winding it around and around so there’s no way he’ll work himself free easily. Then I add a strip over his mouth, cutting off his muffled noises.
It’ll buy us some time to get out, and eventually someone will find him.
Once that’s done, I leave him bound on the floor of the back office and head back to the front to find Ransom shoving bags of chips and cookies into his bag.
I roll my eyes and gesture for my brothers to follow me.
On the way out, Vic finds a sign on the door that says ‘Back in 15’ and flips it around so that it shows from the outside.
“There. That buys us at least fifteen minutes,” he murmurs, and we pile back into the car and peel out.
“That was easy. It’s about damn time something went smoothly,” Ransom comments, prying open a bag of chips as we get back on the main road to go pick up Willow. “I feel like we were definitely owed a win.”
I don’t believe in that shit, in fate or being owed by the universe or whatever, but he has a point. If anyone is owed a break from things being a shit show, it’s Willow, and what we did will help us keep her out of her grandma’s clutches.
It’s an uneventful drive back to the diner, and we all pile out to head in and get her. I scan the tables when we step in, my gaze skimming over everyone who’s not my Solnyshka. It takes a second for me to find her, and when I do, I frown.
She’s hunched down in a booth in the back, and there’s some fucking guy leaning over her, obviously hitting on her.
That motherfucker.
Rage rises up in me, and I clench my hands into fists, about to step in… but before I can move, Vic storms past me, striding with purpose toward the corner Willow is sitting in.