Chapter 25 Victor
VICTOR
Watching the fear spread across Willow’s face makes anger rise up in me. I can feel it, hot and sharp, bubbling in my stomach and spreading through my body.
I usually have a much better handle on things like this, but where Willow and her safety are concerned, it’s hard not to get pissed off. Especially about something like this.
There’s still a lot of baggage that I carry around because of my piece of shit father.
Because of the way he treated me—used me.
And seeing Willow used in a similar way makes my blood boil.
Olivia treats her like a means to an end, an object.
Something she would willingly destroy to get what she wants.
Like a chess piece to be sacrificed when it’s no longer useful on the board.
There’s pain in Willow’s eyes as she puts down her phone. She looks shell-shocked, like she can’t quite believe that her grandmother is willing to put a hit out on her, to outright have her assassinated to get what she wants.
For so long when we were on the run, there was at least some comfort in knowing that Olivia wanted Willow alive.
But that’s no longer the case.
“I don’t—” She breaks off, swallowing. “I should’ve seen this coming. She killed Misty. She either killed my birth mother or paid someone to start the fire. And now she’s going to try to kill me too.”
“She fucking won’t,” Malice says fiercely. He steps in and grabs Willow’s arm, taking her phone from her. He puts it down on the table beside the door with more force than necessary and pulls her close. “Do you hear me? She’s not gonna fucking touch you.”
“I… she already tried. She already got so close. If it wasn’t for Ransom being there today, then whoever was in that car would’ve succeeded in shooting me.”
“Yeah, and I’ll be there the next time too. And the next. Or my brothers will.” Ransom’s voice is hard. “No one’s going to get a clear shot at you, angel. Ever. It’s not gonna happen.”
She nods, but I can tell she’s not really hearing what they’re saying. She’s caught in her own head, thinking about Olivia’s words and what happened this afternoon.
“If I give her what she wants and sign everything over to her, it won’t be over,” she mutters, her voice thick.
“All I’ll have done is give up every resource I have, and I guarantee she won’t truly stop trying to come after me.
Or she’ll leave me alone and go after you three instead.
It’s not a real offer. I can’t win. Either way, no matter what I do, she’s not going to stop until I’m dead. ”
I step in closer, reaching out to touch her shoulder lightly. It makes her jump, but she at least looks up at me.
“She’s told us her plan now,” I say, keeping my voice low. “So we know what to be on the look out for. She’s not going to be able to harm a hair on your head. I promise.”
If our words are reaching Willow, they don’t seem to be providing any comfort.
She shakes her head, pulling away from us, wrapping her arms around herself.
There’s an almost wild look in her eyes, and I can see that she’s spiraling a little, the shock of what happened giving way to anxiety and fear.
“How?” she demands, her voice thready. “How can you even promise that?”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘how’?” Malice growls. “You think we can’t keep you safe?”
“It’s not about that! It’s not about you keeping me safe.
It’s about Olivia. She’s always one step ahead!
Even when we have the upper hand, she manages to tip the scales in her favor.
Nothing we’ve done has stopped her. Maybe we’ve slowed her down some, we’ve put some bumps in the road for her, but she’s unstoppable. ”
Malice shakes his head, his dark hair glinting. “No. No one is unstoppable.”
“Then how do we stop her?” Willow cries. “Because nothing we’ve tried has worked. She just keeps coming back and hitting harder every time. First she wanted me to get married, then she forced me to marry Troy, and now she wants me dead! You can’t rescue me from being dead!”
Her voice rings out in the penthouse, and we all kind of stop short at the note of panic in her voice. Ransom looks stricken, as if he doesn’t even want to think about Willow being dead, and I know how he feels. Just hearing her say the words felt like a knife to my chest.
Malice balls his hands into fists and shakes his head, his jaw tight.
“Well, there’s one way to make sure she stops for good. She’s copying your playbook, so now we copy hers right back. We take her out.”
That seems to cut through Willow’s panic, at least for a moment. She stares at Malice, her face paling a little. “What, you mean… kill her?”
My twin meets her gaze steadily, not backing down. “You said yourself that nothing else we’ve tried has worked. So why the fuck shouldn’t we kill her?”
“I…” Willow shakes her head.
I can see the conflict in her face, and it hits me right in the chest. It’s beautiful, how even after everything that’s happened to her, everything she’s seen, she’s still such a good person.
A person who wouldn’t choose to kill someone even to save her own skin.
Unfortunately, sometimes that’s the only option, which my brothers and I know well.
“She doesn’t deserve your mercy,” Ransom points out, his tone more serious than I’ve heard in a while. “She’s perfectly willing to kill you or have someone else do it for her. She’s a monster, Willow. Don’t forget that.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I can’t. But… I don’t know if I can kill her.”
“You won’t have to,” Malice assures her. “You don’t have to get any blood on your hands. We’ll do it. We’d be fucking happy to do it. After all this bitch has done, she deserves a slow, painful death.”
Willow shakes her head again, still looking like she’s processing all of this. It has to be a lot for her, to move from the idea of ruining Olivia financially to outright killing her. But she did have a point that Olivia keeps raising the stakes. So we have to be willing to do the same.
We have to go all in.
Gloves off.
Fighting dirty.
Willow licks her lips, looking down at her hands.
“How would you even do it, anyway? I know you said it would be dangerous to attack her, and it’s not like she walks around unprotected.
She has security with her all the time. And now that she’s made her threat, she’s probably going to beef up the security she already has.
Do you really think you can take her on? ”
Malice bristles, looking almost offended, as if Willow is doubting us. But I know it’s not about that. She’s worried about us.
“We wouldn’t just run in, guns blazing,” I promise her. “We would need a plan.”
“A damned good one too,” Ransom admits, shoving a hand through his hair. “Even in a weakened state, Olivia is well-connected and well-protected.”
“There are ways past both of those issues,” I remind him. “We didn’t go after her when Willow was with Troy because if we’d been arrested or killed, Willow would’ve been stuck with Troy, with no one left to find her. But the stakes are different now. Which means we can play the game differently.”
Malice starts pacing, cracking his knuckles as he stalks across the living room floor. He practically radiates furious energy, but the same could be said for all of us. Ransom’s eyes glitter with anger, and that same unsettled agitation is there in me too.
But I push it back for now, because I need to focus. I need to be able to think past the raw emotions that grip me. My mind moves a mile a minute, putting together plans and discarding them just as fast.
Whatever we attempt against Olivia, the plan has to be airtight.
It has to leave no room for error or surprise.
Willow’s grandmother has proven that she’s very good at exploiting any opening we give her and operating in our blind spots.
Manipulating them, even—like when she let us believe that Troy was dead, so he could come out of nowhere to ambush us and take Willow.
We can’t afford a mistake like that again.
“We’ve been hitting her financially,” Malice says finally. “How’s she paying for all this security?”
“We haven’t been able to hit her hard enough,” Willow replies. “We can hurt her investments and take away the expansions she wants to make to restore her estate, but she’s still incredibly rich.”
“Do you think we could try to outbid her?” Ransom asks. “Like, pay some of her security to just… take a little break and let us get in there?”
“That’s risky as hell,” Malice grunts. “What’s to stop them from just taking the money and then fucking us over? Then we’d be trapped with no backup.”
Ransom makes a face. “Yeah, there is that. But we took out Troy and his bodyguards. There’s got to be a way.”
“Troy wasn’t expecting us. He had guards around, sure. But they were overconfident, thinking no one would find them in his cabin. Counting on Olivia to underestimate the threat is a mistake. And she can always hire more guards, while there will only ever be just four of us.”
“Wait,” I say, cutting into their conversation as something sparks in my mind. “I have an idea.”
“What?” Willow asks, a flicker of hope lighting in her expression.
“Those jobs we used to do for her. All the stuff she blackmailed us into doing when we only knew her as X.”
Willow’s face crumples. “We already tried that route, remember? I couldn’t get enough information connecting her to being X and all the illegal shit she made you do. She’s kept her footprint too clean.”