Chapter 34 Willow
WILLOW
“What’s the matter, honey?” The man in the trucker hat leans closer, his voice a lazy drawl.
His beer gut is pressed against the side of my booth, and I can feel him leering at me even as I keep my gaze firmly fixed on the table in front of me.
“You looked so lonely over here, I thought you’d like a little company. ”
“No, thanks,” I mutter, debating whether it would be worth it to push past him and get up.
But if I leave the diner, the guys won’t be able to find me after they finish their job, so all I could really do is move to another booth. And I know this asshole will probably just follow me.
Undeterred by my obvious disinterest, the man reaches out, tugging a lock of my hair that’s escaped from the hat between his fingers.
“You know, I always did wonder if blondes were more fun,” he says with a sleazy grin. “Want to help me find out?”
“Don’t fucking touch her, you son of a bitch.”
The voice behind us is hoarse and furious, and it’s the only warning the man gets before his hand is yanked away. His eyes widen as he stares at Vic, who’s practically vibrating with rage.
“Vic!” I blurt, shocked, but it’s like he can’t even hear me.
He’s entirely focused on the trucker, his blue eyes flashing. The normally smooth lines of his face are contorted with fury, a vein pulsing in his temple as his nostrils flare.
“Someone should have taught you to keep your hands to yourself,” he snarls. “It would have saved you a lot of pain.”
“What the hell are you—”
The trucker never gets to finish that thought.
Vic slams his hand down on the table with a bang, then reaches for the metal container in the middle of the table that holds utensils and condiments. He hefts a steak knife and moves like lightning, stabbing it down through the guy’s hand and into the table.
“Fuuuuuck!”
Instinctively, the man tries to pull away, and his curse turns into a howl of pain when it hits him that he’s stuck. His face drains of all color, turning a chalky white, and he stares at the hand pinned to the table like a bug as if he can’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing.
His scream of agony was enough to catch the attention of everyone else in the diner, and they all look over to see what the commotion is all about. A waitress drops her tray with a shriek, and the trucker lets out another agonized groan.
“Shit,” Malice bites out. He strides over and grabs Vic, dragging him away from the guy, who’s sobbing in pain now. “Let’s go. Solnyshka, come on.”
I scramble to follow them, my heart racing.
Even though I saw what happened, it’s hard to wrap my mind around the suddenness and violence of the attack. Vic just fucking went nuts on that guy.
Everyone stares as we leave the diner and get in the car, and Malice practically shoves Vic into the passenger side, slamming the door and getting in behind the wheel so that we can peel out. I barely have time to buckle my seatbelt as Malice drives, making a beeline for the highway.
“Keep watch for cops,” he says over his shoulder, and Ransom nods, checking every so often to make sure that no one is on our tail.
“Clear so far,” he calls out, but Malice doesn’t slow down.
We drive until we’re outside the limits of the town, several miles of highway stretching out behind us, and then Malice turns to Vic in the front seat. “Where am I going?” he asks.
Vic doesn’t respond. His jaw is clenched, and his fingers tap a steady rhythm on his thighs, a sure sign that he’s going through something.
“Vic!” Malice snaps.
“Not now,” is all Vic says, and Malice snarls.
“I’ve got it,” Ransom interrupts. He grabs the laptop from the front seat and takes over. “Exit twenty three, Mal.”
With Ransom navigating, Malice seems okay to leave Vic alone for the moment, but the atmosphere in the car is tense. Ransom confirms that it’s a couple more hours to where Vic picked out for us to stay the night, and he focuses on figuring out the best route to get there.
Luckily, it seems like Vic did a lot of the ground work already, so it’s just a matter of following the path he laid out and telling Malice where to go.
The car is mostly silent, which just makes it even more uncomfortable.
Every so often, Malice will prompt Ransom for another direction, or Ransom will offer info about what’s coming up next, but even that’s done in short, to-the-point sentences.
Vic just keeps drumming his fingers on his leg, the rhythm steady and constant. He gazes out the window, and if I couldn’t see him blinking in the reflection, I would think he was almost completely out of it after what happened.
About an hour in, I remember that we stopped in that town for a reason and chance breaking the silence.
“Did… did you guys get the money you needed?” My voice feels loud in the otherwise quiet car, and I make a face.
“Yeah,” Malice answers, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “No problems.”
“In and out job,” Ransom agrees.
“And you weren’t seen or anything?”
“We cut the cameras,” Ransom says. “And we were masked. There shouldn’t be anything that can tie us to the robbery.”
“Cops might connect it to the ‘incident’ in the diner though,” Malice throws out. “And we weren’t masked there. We’ll have to keep our heads down.”
That makes my stomach flip over with worry, and once again, I have to wonder what the hell Vic was thinking.
The truth is, he probably wasn’t thinking, just acting on pure instinct and rage, but that’s always been more Malice’s thing than his.
Vic is usually the one cleaning up the messes that come from Malice’s outbursts.
I chew on my lip for a while as we drive, until Ransom offers me some cookies from a bag, and I take a pack, more to have something to do with my hands than because I really want them.
“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs to me, and I give him a smile that I know looks forced.
The truth is, neither of us know what’s going to happen or what’s going on with Vic, and the more unknowns that stack up, the harder it gets to keep our heads above water.
Finally, we arrive at another empty, out of the way house, and Malice says this is where we’ll stop for the night.
I glance around, checking out the location. It’s not quite as remote as the other place we stayed, but it’s clear there’s no one around. All of the houses we drove past in the area seemed empty, and that helps me breathe a little easier as we pile out of the car.
“I think most of these places got foreclosed on,” Ransom explains as we make our way to the back door. “Not great for the people who lived here, but pretty good for us.”
Usually, Vic is the one who picks locks when needed, but he’s still spaced out, following along behind us almost robotically. So Ransom kneels down in front of the door and handles it—maybe not as swiftly as Vic would have, but the door swings open after a few tries and a bit of cursing.
“Wait here,” Malice grunts to me. He nods at Ransom, and the two of them do a sweep of the house to make sure things are secured.
Vic finally breaks out of his stasis enough to get his laptop out and set up his mini command center in the kitchen, but he still looks like he’s going on autopilot, his expression completely shuttered.
It’s a complete contrast to the look on his face in the diner. His expression then was all emotion, raw anger written across every line of his features.
He’s never been that expressive before, or that… possessive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him react that way about anything, not even when he killed Carl for trying to blackmail me. It was like every ounce of his usual cool detachment was stripped away, leaving only pure feeling in its wake.
It was a bit terrifying, if I’m honest. But at the same time, there was definitely a part of me that liked it.
Because all of that emotion was for me.
Because some asshole who couldn’t take no for an answer put his hand on me, and Vic didn’t like it.
More than anything, I want to talk to him about it. To check in and make sure he’s okay. But I can feel the waves of tension coming off him despite the blank look on his face, as if he’s barely keeping himself from unraveling.
His brothers are giving him a wide berth too, watching him with wary expressions when they reconvene in the front room, declaring the house safe for the night.
“I’m gonna shower,” Vic mutters, stepping away from the rest of us and heading down the hall.
Malice and Ransom stay where they are and watch him go, and for a second, I do too. But as I watch Victor slip into the bedroom, something breaks open inside me.
I just… can’t.
I can’t let him walk away from me right now.
I can’t let this get swept under the rug.
I don’t want him to go shower off all the agitation and then come back to us when he’s shoved it all back inside, ready to pretend it didn’t happen.
So I follow him, stepping into the attached bathroom on the far side of the bedroom and closing the door. It’s not a large space, just enough for a shower, sink, and toilet, and there’s nowhere for Vic to hide in here.
He’s been ignoring me since the diner, but now he can’t. Not when I’m this close.
He goes stiff as soon as the door closes, then slowly turns to face me. His eyes dart between my face, the floor, and the wall off to the side, like he can’t decide which is the safest place to look.
“Vic,” I say gently. “We have to talk about it.”
“About what?” He shakes his head, and I can tell he’s forcing himself to be blank. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Uh, I think there is. What the hell happened in that diner?”
He looks at me for a second and then away again. “You were there. It was nothing.”
Those are two very different sentences, because I was there, and it was definitely not nothing.
“You stabbed a man,” I tell him, as if he needs the reminder. “You pinned his hand to the table with a steak knife.”
Vic’s fingers curl into fists at his sides, and he shakes his head.
I can see the tension in his muscles and the line of his jaw, as if he’s working desperately to master himself.
The edges of his control have been frayed, and are probably fraying even more right now, but I can’t back down. Not this time.
“Why?” I urge. “What made you snap like that?”
Vic makes a noise in his throat, and before I can react, he’s pushing past me, yanking open the bathroom door. He walks into the bedroom, but I follow him doggedly, my heart thudding in my chest.
He has his back to me, and I step around in front of him. I want to put my hand on his chest, but I stop myself, although I do move a little closer as I tilt my head up to meet his gaze.
“Listen to me,” I tell him. “Please. I’m not mad, Vic. I just want to understand. What happened?”
“He touched you,” Vic finally grates out. “And I… lost control. Like I always do when it comes to you. I can’t control myself with you. That’s why last night, I didn’t—”
He breaks off, closing his eyes.
I stare up at him for a second, confused, but then it dawns on me.
“Why you didn’t come up,” I whisper. “Why you didn’t come upstairs while Malice was fucking me.”
“Yes.” Vic’s eyes open, the blue of his irises churning. “I used to be able push it all away, to keep things locked down. But now… it’s like a door I can’t close. And every time I open it a little wider, it gets even harder to push it shut.”
Movement in the doorway catches my attention, and I glance over to see Malice and Ransom stepping into the room, probably summoned by our voices. I know they’re both likely as worried about Vic as I am, but they don’t tell me to stop or leave him alone, so I keep my attention focused on him.
“Is that what happened in the diner?” I ask.
“Yes.” Vic taps his fingers against his thigh.
“I saw his hand on your hair, and all of a sudden, I was moving. I didn’t even think about it.
All I knew was that I wanted to kill him for touching you.
” He draws in a ragged breath. “It’s never been like that.
Even when my father was hurting me, even when Malice got taken away, even when our mother died, I had control.
I’ve always been able to hold myself apart from my emotions and be rational. But not when it comes to you.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” I whisper.
“Yes,” he rasps. “Yes. I have to be in control. I need to be.”
There’s something almost like desperation in his voice, and I know he’s not exaggerating. Maintaining strict order in his life seems like it’s all that keeps Vic together sometimes, and I understand enough about him to know that it was forged in the trauma he experienced growing up.
But I’m also afraid that he’s going to tear himself apart if he keeps struggling so hard against his emotions. He’ll bottle them up until they explode out of him like they did at the diner, making him feel even more out of control than ever.
I stare up at his handsome, anguished features, wishing so badly that I could make this easier for him. That I could help him somehow.
“What if…” I lick my lips, searching his face. “What if you could be in control? Even with me.”
He huffs a breath. “That’s not possible, butterfly. I’ve tried.”
“But you’ve never been in complete control,” I say. “Where every single thing that happened between us was up to you.”
His brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
“You could tie me up,” I offer, my pulse speeding up a bit. “Then you’d be in control of everything. Anything that happened would be completely up to you. You could touch me however you want, wherever you want. All of it would be your choice, under your control.”