Chapter 15 Ransom #2
Stella still looks stunned, shaking her head as she clutches her husband’s arm.
She hasn’t shed a single tear though, and it just proves even more strongly that these rich families are mercenary and heartless.
They try to talk down to us, acting like we’re not even worthy of breathing the same air as them.
But at least we take care of our own, for reasons that have nothing to do with money.
And they’re about to find that out.
Alexander doesn’t seem to want to take his chances with Malice, understandably, so he turns on Willow instead. He takes a step forward, eyes narrowed at her.
“You will regret this,” he hisses. “I knew you were going to be a poison as soon as my son brought you up. I thought that perhaps the part of you that had Stanton blood would be enough, but I see the trash won out. I will make your life a living hell for what you’ve done to my family. I’ll ruin you. I’ll destroy you.”
Willow doesn’t so much as flinch back away from him, but I can sense the way she tenses under the onslaught of his vitriol. I wonder if it reminds her of Troy, and it takes everything in me not to lay Alexander flat on his back with a single punch.
Vic steps up this time, his face neutral but his eyes burning. “You should be careful what you say next, Mr. Copeland,” he murmurs.
“Excuse me?” Alexander’s voice rises, and he tamps it down to a strained whisper as he grits out, “Don’t think you can threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat. Not really. More of a warning. You should watch what you say and do.”
“And why is that?”
Vic shrugs. “Because thanks to our connection with his widow, I have access to several of Troy’s protected files. Files that show things I very much doubt the Copeland family would want brought to light.”
Stella narrows her eyes at him, shaking off some of her shock. “Just what are you implying?”
“That your family isn’t as clean as you’d like to pretend you are.
And if you come after Willow or me and my brothers, we’ll reveal that fact to the world,” Vic says.
“I can destroy your reputation in this city with the push of a button. And you’re not going to stop Willow from taking what’s owed to her either. ”
“What do you mean?” Alexander demands, his gaze flying from Vic to Willow. “Nothing is owed to her! Not from us.”
Willow lifts her chin as she faces down her raging in-laws. She looks like a fucking boss-ass bitch in her gold dress, standing strong and tall like a queen, and I can’t tear my gaze away from her.
“Before Troy died, he signed everything over to me,” she tells them.
“I was already legally owed a portion of his estate as his widow, but I guess he wanted to make sure I would be truly taken care of.” Her voice twists a little on those last few words, and I can hear the weight of her trauma behind them.
Then she clears her throat and adds, “So he left everything to me. Including his money and his place on the board of your company.”
There’s near pin-drop silence in our little circle as she lets them take that in, and then Troy’s parents explode.
“Absolutely not!” Stella hisses, practically vibrating with rage. “You must be out of your mind if you think we are going to allow this. You’re nothing! You’re no one, and you have no right to—”
“You will regret this,” Alexander cuts in, a sheen of sweat covering his brow. “You little bitch. I know you’re responsible for this. You and your… men must have killed Troy.”
Malice shakes his head. “We’re just the messengers. We don’t know how it happened. Lots of weird shit goes on in the backwoods. We were never seen around there.”
A grin tugs at my lips, although I don’t let it take over.
Malice’s words are a subtle nod to all the work Vic did making sure that there’s absolutely no evidence connecting us to Troy’s death.
The house was decimated, leaving no fingerprints and nothing more than a pile of ash and bones, and there’s no footage that could possibly tie us to that location.
All the reasons that Troy was so hard to find played into our favor when it came time to end him.
There was no one around to witness his violations of Willow, but that also means there was no one to witness us murdering him.
The Copelands will never be able to link us to Troy’s death, and Malice is making sure they know that.
Alexander is fuming, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
His face is red, and the sheen of sweat on his forehead has turned to beads that are trickling down his temples.
He’s probably never been in a physical fight in his fucking life, but right now he looks like he wants to punch someone in the face.
Stella stares off at the cityscape in the distance, which is clearly visible from our rooftop vantage point.
Her face crumples a little, like it’s finally hitting her that her son is dead and not coming back.
A few wrinkles manage to form despite all the Botox I’m sure she’s been pumped full of, and it makes her look older, probably closer to her actual age.
“Troy…” She makes a little noise, covering her mouth with her hand again. “I can’t believe it. My boy.”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit,” I snap. I move closer to her, suddenly even more pissed off by the first real hint of sadness I’ve seen from her all night.
“Don’t act like he was some innocent little boy who got caught up in the wrong shit.
You raised a fucking monster. Whether you knew who he was on the inside or just turned a blind eye to it, your son was a piece of shit. ”
She looks taken aback, her eyes wide, but I’m not fucking done. All the helpless rage I felt when I watched Willow be snatched away in that Jeep, or when we burst into Troy’s cabin and found her naked on the floor, is surging out of me, finally given a release.
“She’s worth more than all of you,” I growl.
“And it’s about fucking time you realize she’s not someone you can step on.
She’s not your pawn. Now she’s playing on the same level you are, with the same kinds of resources you all like to throw around.
The only difference is, she has the three of us to back her up. ”
Olivia and the Copelands are all staring at us, stunned looks on their faces.
I know they’ll rally soon enough and start trying to find some way out of this corner we’ve boxed them into, but like Alexander said, this isn’t the time or the place.
Hell, they probably won’t even publicly acknowledge that their son is dead tonight, since it would ruin the optics of their party.
So for tonight, there’s nothing they can do except glare at us like they’re trying to burn us alive with just their eyes.
Willow reaches down, giving my hand a squeeze. I can feel the slight tremor in her hand from all the adrenaline that must be coursing through her, but her voice is steady as she speaks again.
“You did this, you know,” she says quietly, addressing her grandmother.
“I never wanted to be part of your world, not once I realized what it was truly like. I asked you—begged you—to let me go, and if you had, I’d be long gone with my men by now.
You never would’ve seen me again. Never would’ve had to deal with me.
But you insisted I become part of your world.
” She takes a breath, and the gold of her dress gleams as it shifts a little.
“So now I am. I have everything Troy once had, and I intend to use it. I’ll see you at the next board meeting. ”
With that, she releases my hand and turns on her heel to leave.
Malice, Vic, and I follow right behind her, more than ready to be done with this place. But before we can get far, Olivia jerks herself out of her frozen state and rushes toward us. She grabs Willow’s arm, yanking her granddaughter around to face her.
“You’ve impressed me,” she says, although it’s definitely not pride glinting in her hazel eyes. “I didn’t know you had it in you to be so devious. So gutsy. But you’ll never survive in this world.”
I move in, putting myself between Olivia and Willow, making her let go of Willow’s arm or risk me doing it for her.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I snap. “I’ve never known anyone like Willow. She’s a goddamned warrior. And if you’d paid enough attention, you would’ve known that too.”
Malice growls under his breath in agreement, and Vic nods.
The three of us close ranks around Willow, blocking her from view of her grandmother as we make our way toward the elevator, and I can tell from the whispered voices around us that despite Olivia’s and the Copelands’ best efforts to keep their masks of polite civility in place, everyone here knows that some shit just went down.
Good. Because we’re just getting started.