Chapter 3 Victor
VICTOR
I grit my teeth in the back of the car, grateful at least that Ransom is driving.
He’s the one who hot-wired the first car we found as we were walking, and he smiled his way past the border patrol as we crossed back onto US soil.
Getting back across the border was easier, since we already had our fake IDs, and the authorities aren’t watching for us to be coming from Mexico.
Thank fuck.
I shift in place, and my side aches at the movement, throbbing for a solid minute before it settles down.
We raided a vet’s office for medical supplies after Ransom got us a car.
The stitches are the best Malice could do, especially considering the urgency of the situation and the fact that the car was moving at the time, and they’re fine.
It still grates on me, knowing that they’re uneven. It bothers me more than the pain, honestly, but I’m able to push that aside to focus on the matter at hand.
Ransom and Malice are both in the front of the new car we stole when we ditched the first one somewhere around the Texas state line.
I can hear them talking in low voices. Malice sounds agitated, another reason why he’s not allowed to drive right now.
The last thing we need is to get pulled over because he’s driving with his temper.
Ransom is feeling just as frustrated and fucked up as the rest of us about Willow being gone, but at least he can obey the traffic laws while doing it.
While they talk, I use my laptop, doing what I do best. I’m supposed to be healing as best I can, but I’ve never been good at being idle, even where there’s no crisis. Plus, the longer we go without knowing where Troy took Willow, the harder it’ll be to find her.
So I search.
We’ve been able to track him to a degree, using small sightings on security cameras. We have enough to know that he brought Willow back to Detroit, but finding out where the fuck he took her to from there has been the hard part.
I’ve searched the cameras around his house and his condo in the heart of the city, but there hasn’t been any movement at either of those locations at all.
Which means he’s got her somewhere else.
It’s smart, all things considered. Bringing her back to one of his known properties would be fairly conspicuous.
But him being smart just makes our job harder.
Something feral scratches at the inside of my ribs when I think about how long Troy has had Willow. It’s been just over thirty hours now, but a lot can happen in that time. Especially with someone like Troy fucking Copeland.
My chest aches, and I find myself tapping my fingers on the edge of my computer, reverting back to my old coping mechanisms. I can feel myself spiraling a little, and I hate it. If I let myself, I could imagine all the horrible fucking things Troy might be doing to Willow.
He probably won’t have killed her, because that would defeat the purpose of all of this, but there are things that can make a person wish they were dead. I know that fact better than most people, and I don’t have any delusions that he’s going to treat her softly just because he wants to marry her.
But letting those dark thoughts overtake my mind isn’t going to help me find Willow, so I take a deep breath, forcing myself to refocus on what I’m doing.
We have a trail of breadcrumbs leading from Mexico back to Detroit, and I go over them again, trying to pick up some hint of where Troy took Willow.
There are a few sightings of him moving through the city, but other than that, I’m drawing a blank. It’s like he took her totally off the grid or something, and the thought of that makes my skin prickle with irritation and fear.
If we can’t find her…
No.
No, I can’t afford to think like that. Troy isn’t a criminal mastermind.
He’s a rich, spoiled idiot who didn’t like being told no.
There’s something out there that’s going to help me figure out where he took Willow.
I just have to find it. For now, she’s hidden away wherever that is, and she needs me to keep digging until I find her.
I narrow my focus even more, scrolling back through all the sightings I could piece together. I open a notepad on the side of my screen and start jotting down all the points that connect these places together, anything that could form a trail that might lead to Willow.
The muttered conversation between my brothers in the front seat fades into background noise, no more than static in the back of my head as I work. This has always been my role among the three of us. It’s what I do best, and the stakes of my success have never been higher than they are now.
I don’t look up again until I hear Ransom curse bitterly from the front seat, the sound loud enough to jar me from my thoughts.
“What—”
But the question dies on my lips as I glance around and see where we are.
I hadn’t even noticed that we’d made it back to the city, back to our old turf. It feels like it’s been months since we left it, even though it hasn’t been anywhere close to that long, and the sight of our warehouse—our home for years—as a burnt out ruin makes my breath stall.
Malice and Ransom have finally switched who’s driving, and my twin’s fingers grip the steering wheel tighter. Beside him, Ransom’s jaw is tight as we slowly drive by the building that was once ours.
The original structure is gone, burnt down to the foundation. Chunks of blackened wood and stone have been piled up to one side, as if someone started trying to clear away the mess but gave up halfway through.
More likely, someone in the area called the city to complain about it being an eyesore, but it was low on the list of priorities.
Either way, the home we made for ourselves—the place where we operated our business, the place where Willow came into our lives—is gone.
When Olivia first sent us the video of it, none of us cared all that much.
It was more important that we were all together and alive, and we’d made our peace with leaving our old life behind.
Now the sight of it hits me like a wrecking ball. It’s just another reminder of everything that was taken from us.
Because of Troy.
Because of Olivia.
Malice clears his throat and speeds up a bit, putting some distance between us and the wreck of the warehouse.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, voice gruff and firm. “We said goodbye to it already, and it doesn’t change anything now. We’ll get a hotel or something and keep a low profile. We just need a place to make a home base until we find Willow.”
“Right,” Ransom agrees, although he sounds less sure about it.
“Right,” I murmur.
We head for a hotel off the beaten path on the outskirts of Detroit, someplace fairly shitty. Those are always the kind of places we hole up in when we need to stay off the radar. If it has beds and internet, that’s good enough for our purposes.
This place has a sign outside advertising both free wi-fi and free continental breakfast in the morning, which I know from experience will likely just be those tiny boxes of cereal and some room temperature milk. Maybe a few pieces of fruit that are questionable at best.
“I’ll get us checked in,” Ransom says, sliding out of the car before heading inside to talk to the man behind the front desk. Malice and I follow a few minutes later, my twin hefting the backpack containing my laptop higher on his shoulder.
“Three room keys then?” the man is asking, glancing between the three of us. He looks half wary, half like he doesn’t give a shit, and Malice and I stay quiet so as not to upset the balance of that.
“That would be great, thanks,” Ransom says, putting on his bright ‘people moving’ smile, although it definitely doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Okay. You’re in two-oh-seven,” the front desk guy tells us, speaking mostly to Ransom. “Stairs are just down the hall there. Breakfast is from seven to whenever we run out or remember to start putting stuff away.”
Ransom gives him a little nod and thanks him for his help, and the three of us move off down the hall toward the stairs.
“You two get settled,” Ransom tells us in a low voice. “I’m going to go find us some food. And some clothes. We haven’t eaten in too long.”
I’m sure he’s right, but I barely register being hungry or thirsty or tired. Aside from my wound twinging, a low burn of pain when I walk or twist a certain way, I’m not really aware of any of those more human needs. My mind is just focused on the tasks ahead.
“Be careful,” Malice replies. He grips Ransom’s shoulder for a second, sharing a look with him before the two of us head up the stairs to the second floor.
Our room is serviceable, with two full size beds in the center, a TV, and a little desk and chair in the corner.
I set myself up there, pulling out my laptop and plugging it in with all of the other things I need for this.
Malice stalks to the window and draws the curtains closed, then walks the perimeter of the room to check it out.
Before I can lower myself onto the desk chair, he stops me.
“You should take a shower or something,” he says, his dark gray eyes meeting mine.
“If this is your way of telling me I stink, I’ll go ahead and let you know that you and Ransom aren’t much better. We’ve been in a car for over twenty-four hours,” I mutter.
Malice huffs a breath, not budging. “You’ve still got dried blood on you. You didn’t even take time to clean up after being shot.”
I realize with a jolt that he’s right. It didn’t even occur to me to care about that, and it’s one of the first things I would have done if the situation was normal.
When I pull my jacket away from my shirt, it’s still soaked through with blood, stiff and crackling from where it’s dried.
I lift my shirt, examining my wound for the first time since Malice patched me up.
My side is mostly clean, but blood is crusted in the stitches, and it probably needs to be disinfected.
I grimace, reacting viscerally to the sight.