Chapter 18
WILLOW
A light flicks on, flooding the hallway with illumination. Malice glances up, and I whirl around to see Ransom standing in the hallway behind Victor.
He cocks his head, and I can only imagine what this must look like to him. I’m sandwiched between his brothers, the two of them looming in close on either side of me. One of them is naked, and I’m sure my cheeks are red as hell.
“Huh.” Ransom purses his lips, his eyebrows rising a little. “Looks like I missed the party.”
His words seem to snap the unspoken tension in the air, and Malice and Victor both step away from me at the same time.
I nearly fall over from the suddenness of the movement, feeling almost adrift after being locked in place between them.
Ransom comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with Victor as all three of the men gaze at me.
I wrap my arms around myself as if that can somehow keep me safe, finally managing to find my voice.
“The door was open,” I squeak out. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Malice narrows his eyes, but Victor speaks before he can.
“The woman you invited over probably didn’t close it right,” he tells his brother, his voice quiet and even. “You need to be more careful. Neither of us care about you having girls here, but you should at least make sure they don’t leave the door wide open.”
“Fucking hell.” Malice glares down the hall in the direction of the entryway. Then he shakes his head, shifting his focus back to me. Suspicion passes over his harsh features as he adds, “That doesn’t explain how the fuck this one knew where we live.”
There’s no point in hiding it, now that I’m here in the lion’s den. If I try to lie, I’m pretty sure it’ll just make things worse, so I decide to stick with the truth.
“I followed Ransom once,” I admit in a whisper. “After he visited me at school one day.”
Ransom huffs a surprised breath, but he looks a little bit impressed. Victor’s expression is coolly thoughtful, and Malice just looks even more suspicious.
“Why did you do that?” he demands.
“I don’t know,” I say, the words spilling out of me in a rush. “I don’t know why. I just wanted to find out where you all went when you weren’t watching me. You know everything about me, and I just wanted to know one thing about you.”
All three of the brothers react to that, but I can’t read their expressions well enough to tell if my explanation has made them more or less angry.
“Fine,” Malice growls, clearly in charge of this little interrogation. “So why did you come here now?”
Memories flicker through my head, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other as I remember running down that alley, ducking around dumpsters and pieces of trash as the unknown man pursued me.
“There was a man,” I tell them, twisting my hands together.
“I was waiting for the bus home from school, and he was there. Sort of hanging back in the shadows. It creeped me out, so I decided to call for a ride instead. But before the car arrived, he started coming toward me. I ran, and then… then he started following me. Chasing me down the street.”
“What the fuck?” Malice explodes. He lashes out, slamming his fist into the wall so hard it makes me jump. “You could have led him right to us.”
“Hey. Chill out, Mal,” Ransom cuts in.
“No, I didn’t. I got away from him before I came here,” I promise, glancing between the two of them.
“See?” Ransom holds out a hand as if to say told you so. “And anyway, we don’t know for sure if it was anything to do with Nikolai. Plus, she came right to us to tell us what happened.” He looks at me and gives me a little nod, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a smile. “You did good, angel.”
Malice huffs, and he still looks like he wants to hit something—or someone—but he backs off.
“Find out what she knows,” he mutters to Victor, then stalks back into the living room to grab his pants and tug them back on.
Victor and Ransom usher me into the living room too, and I give Victor my full attention, turning my back to where Malice is getting dressed. It feels like a bad idea, like turning your back to an apex predator or a monster that might eat you, but it’s somehow safer than watching him.
“Where were you when you noticed this guy?” Victor asks.
His voice is quiet and even, almost as low as it was when he was whispering to me in the hallway, but his controlled demeanor makes it easier to focus on his words and organize my thoughts as I start to answer.
“I was at the bus stop on the south side of campus,” I say, giving him the nearest cross streets.
He asks me several questions in rapid-fire, and I answer every single one, giving him as much information as I remember. When I finally finish speaking, he nods.
“I’ll hack the security footage from the area and figure out who this man is,” he tells me. “We need to find out if it’s a random occurrence, or if someone is tailing you for a specific reason.”
“Okay,” I say, plucking nervously at a loose thread on my shirt.
I have a sudden stab of fear that now that I’ve told them someone might be after me, they won’t let me leave their home, but then Malice walks back into view.
“We’ll let you know what we find out,” he grunts.
“I’ll take you home,” Ransom offers.
I’m not sure I want to take him up on that. The last time I got into a car with one of them it ended… confusingly. But it’s late, and I don’t know if someone else is waiting to stalk me or chase me through the streets, so I also don’t want to say no.
Malice glares at me once more and then stalks off, heading for another part of this strange, large building they live in. He never put a shirt on, and it’s hard not to notice his naked, tattooed back on display as he goes, but I wrench my eyes away.
Victor doesn’t even look at me again as he starts toward the stairs that lead from the living room to an upper floor, probably planning to get to work on hunting down whoever was following me.
That leaves me and Ransom alone, and I glance nervously at the handsome man with the tousled brown hair and the easy smile.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him.
He leads me out of the living room and into a darkened garage, flipping on a light and striding confidently toward…
Oh fuck.
I swallow hard. It’s a motorcycle.
My footsteps slow, and Ransom chuckles as he notices, turning to look back at me over his shoulder. “Have you ever ridden one before?”
I shake my head in answer. “No. Never.”
He grins, and there’s something sexy and almost flirtatious about it. “Don’t worry, angel. I’ll take good care of you.”
My stomach does a weird little flutter at the warm promise in his voice, and I try to shake off my reaction. My entire body has been on edge since I walked in and saw Malice doing… everything he did to the woman bent over the couch, and I feel like I’m still trying to get my equilibrium back.
Ransom gets on the bike, throwing his leg over it with practiced ease before gesturing me over with a jerk of his chin. “Climb on behind me.”
It takes a second for me to get myself moving, but I do it, clambering awkwardly onto the large bike behind him.
There’s enough room for us both on the seat, but it’s a very intimate position, the front of my body smushed against the back of his.
I stiffen a little, trying to keep a bit of space between us.
With the push of a button, he opens the garage door. Then he cranks up the bike and revs the engine. I can feel its powerful vibrations under me, so much more immediate and intense than being in a car.
“Hang on tight,” Ransom tells me as he rolls out of the garage. The door closes behind us as we turn onto the dimly lit street.
As soon as we start to pick up speed, I forget all about how I wanted to keep some distance between us. I do as he told me to, clinging to his large body as tightly as I can, my arms wrapped around his waist and my hands clasped against his muscled abs.
He speeds through the streets of Detroit like he owns them, and my hair whips around my face as we speed past businesses that are shuttered for the night. Adrenaline pours through me, but as it becomes clear what a confident, skilled rider Ransom is, I start to relax a bit.
I feel… free, in a way, and almost high on it.
I’ve never done anything like this before, and it feels kind of good.
He heads in the direction of my apartment, but instead of taking me straight back there, he pulls up in front of a little hole in the wall diner about a mile away from my place.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, twisting around a little to look down at me.
A bemused smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. For some reason, these men keep trying to feed me.
Ransom cocks his pierced eyebrow, grinning as he takes in my expression. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head, glancing toward the diner. “Yeah, I could eat.”
“Good. Come with me,” he says, and we get off the bike and go inside.
The diner is almost entirely empty when we walk in, and it has a worn down but somehow cozy feel to it. We settle in a booth near the back, and I pick up the menu on the table and flip through it idly—as much to give myself something to do with my hands as because I’m trying to decide what to eat.
A bored looking waitress comes over to take our order, although looking at Ransom makes her perk up a little bit. He orders a burger with cheese fries and a milkshake, and I order the same thing.
The waitress takes our menus and leaves, and I start fiddling with the piece of paper wrapped around the silverware on our table as I glance at Ransom.
“So you’re not a vegetarian like Malice, huh?”
He chuckles. “Nah. Me and Vic both eat meat. I get why Malice made the choice he did, but I like burgers too much to ever give them up.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“So, has your mom left you alone?” Ransom asks. “She hasn’t tried to steal from you again, has she?”