Chapter 17 Willow
WILLOW
The next morning, I wake up in a cold sweat.
My heart is pounding, and my jaw is clenched hard from the effort of trying not to scream. The details of the nightmare are already starting to trickle away, but there’s a sick feeling of dread in my stomach that tells me what it was about anyway.
I lie on my back, glaring up at the ceiling, letting frustration wash away the helpless feeling.
It’s not much better, but I’m just so tired of these fucking dreams about Troy.
I’m tired of having to relive what happened to me when he held me captive, and even if I can’t remember everything about the nightmares, the real life memories are still vivid enough to fill in the blanks.
Even after standing up to Olivia and making the choices to take my life back, I’m still weighed down by this shit, and it’s exhausting.
“Hey.”
I jump a little, turning my head to see Ransom staring at me in the dim light of the hotel room. His face is soft with sleep, and it’s clear he knows I was having a nightmare.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
He shakes his head, reaching out to tuck a piece of sweat dampened hair behind my ear. “I’d rather be awake so I can make sure you’re okay than sleep while you’re suffering. I was about to wake you up if you didn’t come out of it yourself.”
I swallow hard, trying not to feel guilty about my shit keeping Ransom awake. I know he means what he says, that he’d rather be there for me, but part of me wishes it didn’t have to be like that.
“Fucked up from nightmares and covered in sweat this early in the morning,” I mutter ruefully. “This isn’t very queen-like, is it?”
Ransom grins, shaking his head again. “Only to people who don’t know what a real queen looks like. You’re more regal than ever, angel.”
I don’t know how he can say that, but he seems sincere, so I just roll with it. I know I’m not going to get back to sleep now, not after being woken up like that, but before I can roll over to see what time it is, Vic’s alarm goes off on the other side of the room.
“Fuckin’—shut it off,” Malice grumbles, his face buried in his pillow. “Goddammit.”
Vic silences the alarm, sitting up and stretching. “It goes off at the same time every fucking morning, Malice. Stop whining.”
“You stop…” Whatever else Malice was going to say is lost to the depths of the pillow as he trails off.
Vic is the first one out of bed, like he usually is in the mornings. I know he’s been trying to stick to his normal routine as best he can, up early and getting right to work after making coffee in the little machine provided by the hotel.
It’s harder when he’s sharing a room with his brothers, since they tend to grumble about being woken up.
There’s a heavy thud, and then Vic curses. “Dammit! Ransom, for the hundredth damned time, stop leaving your shoes in the middle of the floor. There’s a place for shoes, and it’s not right in front of the bed. You’re not even sleeping in this bed.”
He mutters more words under his breath as he aligns the shoes neatly under the fall of the bed skirt.
“It’s not that big a deal, Vic,” Malice says, finally sitting up and scrubbing a hand through his dark hair.
“That’s what you said about the towel on the bathroom floor,” Vic mutters darkly.
“I left it there for one second,” Malice argues back.
“And that’s one second too long.”
Ransom chuckles. “He’s got you there, Mal. See, Vic? I bet my shoe thing doesn’t seem so bad compared to a wet towel.”
Malice grunts unintelligibly, and Vic just rolls his eyes and strides toward the bathroom the way he does every morning. He always likes to get in there before his brothers can mess up all of his organizational systems.
“You won’t have to deal with our shit for that much longer,” Ransom says, stretching as he swings himself out of bed. “You can have your own room soon and micromanage it to your heart’s content.”
Vic stops in the bathroom doorway, making a face at that. “As much as I want to be rid of your mess, I don’t want to miss sleeping with Willow.”
His words are straightforward and honest, and I grin, touched by how he says it.
We’ve come such a long way from him not even wanting me around. Back then, I never would’ve thought he’d be willing to put up with Ransom’s shoes and Malice’s towels and the mess of four people sharing a small room, just to get the chance to sleep next to me.
But here we are, and it doesn’t feel strange to see Vic want that anymore. Knowing how far he’s come—how far we’ve come together—gives me hope that maybe I can get to a better place too. No matter how hard it is.
Vic had years of trauma holding him back, and he’s managed to change and grow, so surely I can too.
A natural order has sprung up in the time since I’ve been here with the brothers.
Vic always goes to the bathroom first, and Malice puts the coffee on, filling the little room with the scent of the dark roast blend all three of them can agree on.
Once Vic is done, I go in, brushing my teeth and hair, washing my face, getting dressed. Then Ransom, then Malice.
Vic arranges things for housekeeping, and we sip coffee and get ready for whatever will be happening that day.
Today is a bit different though, because instead of making a plan to go out or do recon or whatever, we start packing up all our stuff.
As part of our plan to stand up to Olivia, I’m essentially taking over Troy’s life. All the things we forced him to sign over to me are mine now, and I’m claiming them.
Thanks to Vic’s help, I have access to his family’s company, access to his money and assets, and even access to his properties. So now it’s time to start taking advantage of that. Instead of the four of us living out of this dingy hotel, we’ll be moving into Troy’s penthouse in the city.
My penthouse now, I guess.
With his access to Troy’s laptop, Vic has gotten all the info about the penthouse, and he filled us in on it.
It wasn’t Troy’s main house, just somewhere he stayed when he happened to need a place to crash in the heart of the city.
The house where he spent most of his time is in a wealthy, residential neighborhood, but even though it’s bigger than the penthouse, there’s no way I could live there.
It would feel too much like Troy. Too much like the place he kept me captive in out there in the woods.
It doesn’t take us long to pack, since none of us have much. We’ve had to abandon everything and run more than once, and I can’t help the twinge of pain in my heart as I realize that pretty much all of our worldly belongings are in this small hotel room.
When we finally pile into the car with everything packed tightly in the trunk, Vic gives us the rundown once more.
“It should be fully furnished,” he says, looking back from his usual spot in the front passenger seat. “As far as I can tell, Troy bought it furnished, so unless he threw everything out, we should have what we need.”
“Hopefully that means it won’t be too hard to settle in.” Ransom grimaces, leaning back in the seat beside me. “I don’t want to even think about how Troy would decorate a place on his own.”
“Probably all pretentious shit. Ugly ass art pieces and shitty furniture,” Malice grunts. “Fuckers like him have no taste.”
The building itself is industrial and cold looking. It stretches up several stories, barely looking any different than the office buildings that loom on the skyline in the heart of the city.
There’s a doorman who watches us with curious eyes as we walk into the building and head for the elevator, but when we put in the code to be let in and then up, he doesn’t say anything.
We go all the way up to the fifteenth floor, stepping out of the mirrored elevator onto a completely quiet hall.
Troy actually owned the top two stories of the building, so the floor below ours is currently unoccupied.
The penthouse is the only residence on the top floor, and the plush carpet muffles our footsteps as we make our way to the door.
“Here you go, angel.” Ransom hands me the key they took before they burned Troy’s cabin down. “You want to do the honors?”
I take the key from him and twist it in the lock, and the door swings open, granting us entrance to the penthouse.
The inside matches the outside, for the most part.
The appliances are all shiny and silver, gleaming almost like new in the overhead lights. There’s a marble island separating the living room from the kitchen, with leather covered barstools pushed up to it.
“Big kitchen, at least. I bet Vic is already planning all the meals he’s gonna make in here,” Ransom teases.
“And deciding which cabinets I’m going to claim before the two of you can destroy them,” Vic mutters back, making me grin.
In the living room, a long leather couch takes up most of the space. There’s a thick white rug under the glass-topped coffee table, and the couch is pointed toward a massive flat screen TV built into the wall.
We walk the whole place together, checking it out and poking our heads into each room.
There are two bathrooms, both fully decked out with elaborate showers and double sinks.
One has a huge tub as well, sitting right under the window that runs the length of the wall.
There are four bedrooms—three normal sized, and one massive one, which one of the bathrooms is attached to.
Once we’ve done a sweep of the whole place, the guys split up, each of them taking a section.
There aren’t a lot of Troy’s personal belongings here, making it clear that he truly didn’t spend a lot of time living here. It’s a relief knowing this isn’t a place where we’re going to have to deal with lingering traces of him, and the guys take it one step further, even.
They go around with big garbage bags, filling them up with everything that was Troy’s personally. His clothes from the closet and dresser, his toiletries, anything that could remind me of him.