Chapter 12 Willow
WILLOW
Something cracks open in my chest as Victor’s words wash over me.
It makes my chest ache, deep and throbbing, the raw honesty of his confession hitting me hard. But at the same time, it also soothes some of the pain I’ve been carrying in my heart. Like a balm against the darkness that’s been threatening to drown me ever since I woke up in Troy’s hold.
I missed all of the Voronin brothers so much, and as much as I tried to reassure myself that I was going to see them again and that they would come for me, I had no way of knowing if that was true or not. It’s like it’s hitting me all over again that they did come.
They spent days locked in this room, searching for any sign of where I was.
They fought their way through Troy’s guards and took him out.
And they saved me.
Tears run down my cheeks, spilling over and sliding down my face, but I don’t reach up to brush them away. Instead, I reach out for Vic, taking his hand. Our fingers lace together like they were made to interlace just like this, and I lean forward, needing to be closer to him.
Vic leans in as well, and we meet in the middle, our foreheads resting together. I wish I could do more in this moment. I wish I could kiss him or hold him or crawl onto his lap and ride him slow and deep—anything to show how deeply his words are affecting me right now.
But Vic doesn’t seem upset that this is all I can offer right now. He doesn’t seem like he feels the lack. His bright blue eyes are shining, and there’s a small, breathtaking smile on his face as he keeps talking, his voice low and insistent.
“I mean it, butterfly,” he murmurs. “You saved me. Did you know that? You changed me. And at first, I was so angry about it. Change was never a good thing, and I liked my well-worn routines and the way I had my life ordered. In my mind, everything that was different was your fault at first, and it made me so uncomfortable. But then you became so important to me. With every conversation, every time you let me in, every time you made me feel like I could matter to you… you showed me that things could be different. There was a part of myself that I never believed existed, and you showed me that it did.”
I let out a shuddery breath, wrapped up in his words. “It was always there,” I tell him. “At least, I hoped it was.”
Vic laughs quietly. Then his expression turns more serious, and I feel his soft sigh ghost against my lips.
“I always knew I was going to be the odd person out,” he murmurs.
“Malice was going to fuck and fight his way through life the way he wanted to, and Ransom was going to find someone to settle down with eventually, because he’s like that.
And I was just going to… be there. Behind a screen, keeping the world at arm’s length. ”
It makes me sad to hear him talk about himself like that, but I do have to admit that when I first met him, it seemed like that was what he wanted. To be alone with his computer, handling things behind the scenes and not letting anyone but his brothers get close.
“Would you have been happy like that?” I ask him, my voice low.
He’s quiet for a moment, breathing in slowly while he gathers his thoughts.
“I thought I could be,” he admits after a while. “I thought that was what I wanted. Or at least, I thought I would be content like that. No one ever made me want anything different. Until you. You made me feel things that I’d never felt before for anyone.”
“I still say I’m not that special,” I mumble.
“You are though.” He squeezes my hand. “No one else has ever gotten close, butterfly. No one else has ever made me want before. I saw how easy things were between you and my brothers, and I was so sure that it was never going to be like that for us. That I would want you—need you—and never be able to cross the gap. Never be able to even touch you the way I wanted to, without it being a horrible thing that made you realize how broken I am.”
“You’re not—”
He smiles, cutting me off as his thumb rubs gently over my knuckles. “I know that now. Thanks to you. Because you saw me, and you never once shied away. You kept trying, even when I didn’t give you a reason to.”
“The thought of being close to you was reason enough,” I whisper.
“I just wanted that so badly. You made me feel like I wasn’t alone, even in the times I felt most lost and afraid.
” More tears well in my eyes, and I blink a few times, letting them fall.
“Every time we talked, even in the early days when it was just by text, I felt better. You filled up a part of my heart that had always been empty, and the more full it got, the more I felt the bad shit being chipped away. I just wanted more and more of that.”
He swallows, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, his blue eyes find mine as if he never wants to look anywhere else.
“I wanted to be that for you,” he says softly. “I wanted to help, even though I never felt like I knew how.”
“You did. You helped so much.”
I pause, holding on to this moment as a bubble seems to surround us on the bed.
Part of me wants to pull back so that I can look him in the eyes more easily, but another, bigger part of me can’t stand the idea of losing this connection with him right now.
So I stay right where I am, letting the warmth of his palm and the light pressure of his forehead against mine ground me.
“I love you, Vic,” I say, blinking again because I don’t want my freely flowing tears to obscure my view of his beautiful eyes.
“I love you so much. I love that you let me in and let me see you—even the parts of you that you thought would scare me away. I love that you trust me to push you a little. I love that you work so hard to make sure we’re all safe, and that you never stop trying.
I love your organizational systems, and that we both feel the same way about peanut butter. ”
That last bit makes him chuckle, and he closes his eyes again, like he’s savoring my words.
“I should have known right then that there was no way I could keep myself from falling for you,” he says, something warm and fond in his voice. “I’ve never bonded over peanut butter with anyone else before.”
“Of course not. Because your brothers are both crunchy peanut butter loving heathens,” I murmur back, and he laughs again.
It’s funny that we’re barely touching, only our foreheads and our linked fingers, but this moment feels even deeper than the first time we had sex. It’s so intimate, like we’re baring our souls to each other and they’re reaching out to touch as well.
“You saved me too,” I whisper to him after a beat of silence.
“When I was… when Troy had me, I just kept thinking of all of you. Thinking about how Malice said I was strong and how Ransom told me I could do anything and how you made me feel grounded. It kept me sane in there, when everything was so bad.”
Vic’s fingers spasm a little around mine, and there’s something deep and unreadable in his eyes.
“What did you think about?” he asks.
“I had such clear images of you counting and measuring your breathing. When I was trying not to panic or go insane in there, I would do that. It made me feel closer to you, and it kept my head clear.”
I don’t go into more detail than that. The last thing I want right now is to start thinking about being locked in that little crawl space under the floor in Troy’s house.
My heart rate speeds up just thinking about it, and as if he knows, Vic squeezes my hand again.
His thumb resumes its slow and steady movement over the backs of my knuckles, and the touch is soothing, grounding me in this moment.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and breathe in Vic’s familiar scent, reminding myself all over again that I’m safe now. He has me.
“I hate that you needed to use any of the coping tools I use.”
Vic’s voice is heavy, and for a second, I can so clearly pick up on the fact that he and Malice are twins. Malice keeps his rage closer to the surface, but Vic has it in him too—and they’ll both gladly unleash it on anyone who hurts someone they love.
“I’m glad we could be there for you,” he adds. “Even when we weren’t there physically. We’re always going to be there for you. I hope you know that. No matter what it takes.”
“I know.”
The certainty of it is soothing. Almost everyone I’ve ever had in my life has let me down in the end, abandoning me or betraying me to serve their own ends.
But the Voronin brothers will never do that.
The bond we share is deeper than that, and it feels good to have one thing in my life that I can trust implicitly.
We stay like that for a moment longer, just breathing each other in, soaking up the closeness. It feels like we’re breathing in tandem, our hearts on the same rhythm. Like we’re so in sync that nothing in the world could break us apart.
Even when we finally move away from each other, straightening up and letting go of each other’s hands, that connection remains, tethering us like an invisible cord.
“Are you done eating?” Vic asks, glancing down at the food.
“Yeah.” I smile. “I’m good.”
He nods, gathering up the trash from the meal and making a face at the pile that his brothers left on their bed.
“You should get some more rest,” he tells me. “You’re still recovering.”
The minute he says it, I can feel how tired I still am.
My body aches, and there’s a headache forming behind my eyes—the kind I get when I’m too worn out.
My whole body feels like overcooked pasta, floppy and barely able to support itself.
But I think about how I woke up after that nightmare, feeling like I didn’t know where I was, so on edge and afraid.
That probably wore me out more than anything else, and I don’t want to go back to that.
“I don’t really feel like sleeping,” I mutter, not quite meeting Vic’s gaze.