Chapter 24 Willow
WILLOW
I spend the rest of Friday and all of Saturday into Sunday in bed, sick with a cold after spending all that time lying on the ground at the golf course, wet and freezing.
On Sunday, I’m still curled up in bed, surrounded by the mess that comes from being sick. There are tissues scattered around the room where I tossed them, some of them missing the trash can. I was too worn down to get up and fix it, so they’re just littering the floor.
I’m feeling a lot better by now, the cold starting to fade, but I still don’t want to get out of bed.
My mind is still reeling from Malice’s actions and Ransom’s words.
How did this happen?
What does it even mean?
I knew I was in deep when they started stalking me after what I saw at the whorehouse. But this is something else entirely, and I’m so confused. I don’t understand their obsession with me.
Why me?
Just like I told Malice before, I’m no one special.
I flop back against the pillows, sighing softly.
It feels weird to think that my life was easier back when I was working at a strip club almost every night and struggling to stay afloat as I juggled bills and school work, but it was.
At least my head was never as full of as many complicated feelings as it is these days.
Curling up under the blankets, I tug them over my head to block out the late afternoon light, snuggling deeper into the little nest I’ve made.
I’m just starting to doze off again when I hear a quiet sound out in the living room.
It sounds like someone opening the door to my apartment, and I sit up with a jolt, my heart racing.
Footsteps cross the living room, and then Victor appears in my bedroom doorway, looking around my room with an expression of disgust.
“What the fuck?” I yelp, scrambling back in the bed until I’m pressed against the wall.
I’m already on edge from everything that’s been going on with these men, and I have no idea why he’s here or what he’s going to do.
Malice is unreadable on a good day, but Victor is something else entirely.
I can’t predict him, and the last time I saw him, he stood behind me and whispered things in my ear as we both watched his brother fuck some woman.
I wait for one tense, breathless second, waiting for him to say something or do something. But when he finally moves, he surprises the fuck out of me.
Striding inside my room, he starts… cleaning.
There’s a garbage bag in his hands, and he opens it, snapping it a few times before he starts gathering up the mess of tissues and things from the floor.
“Um,” I manage to choke out, blinking at him. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning,” he says shortly, like it should be obvious. And I guess it is, but that doesn’t change any of the shock I’m feeling in this moment.
“Okay…” I drag out the word, watching as he takes the plastic grocery bag out of my little trash can and throws it into the big bag in his hands. He makes a face at the little metal wastebasket and mutters something I can’t hear under his breath.
When it doesn’t seem like he’s going to explain any more, I sigh and prod a little. “Victor, why are you cleaning my room?”
“Because I’m tired of looking at it. It’s always been a mess, but this is too much.”
He steps over a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, and for a second, I worry he’s going to grab those and throw them away too. Then the full meaning of his words hits me, and I sit up straighter.
“Wait,” I blurt. “What do you mean you’re tired of looking at it?”
Malice has barged his way into my apartment twice now, but Victor’s never been here before.
At least… I didn’t think he had.
Which can only mean that somehow, he’s been watching me while I’m here, not just when I’m out and about.
I already knew he and his brothers were stalking me, but something about the idea of Victor watching me in my home freaks me out. My heart is racing as I stare at him, waiting for him to say something. When he doesn’t, I snap a little.
“You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you?” I demand, my voice turning thready.
He just looks over at me, his blue eyes cool and impassive.
But he doesn’t deny it, and that’s all the confirmation I need.
My stomach twists, although somehow, this new revelation doesn’t surprise me as much as it probably should.
If anything, it explains a lot about how these guys seem to know so much about me.
Like how Malice knew where to find me on Thursday night, to say the least.
That gets me out of bed, and I sniffle, wiping my nose as I glare at Victor.
“What is it? Cameras? You’re the one who’s good with computers, right? Malice said you could hack into security footage to find that guy who came after me the other night. You clearly know a lot about surveillance. So show me where they are.”
We stare at each other for a long moment in a silent standoff. Then he lifts one shoulder in a half shrug.
“Fine.” He walks over to the window and points to a spot along the outer edge of the sill. “There’s one here.” Then he steps out into the hall, gesturing to a framed art print I’ve got hanging on the wall. “And here.”
From there, we go around the apartment, stopping in every room but the bathroom as he points out cameras and I take them down from the little spaces he tucked them into.
“I should break every single one of these,” I mutter, clenching the tiny cameras in my fists.
“No.” Victor shakes his head. “Don’t do that. They’re expensive.”
He holds out a hand. I hesitate, but then shove the cameras into his palm.
He picks up a bag from the couch and starts tucking them away in there, slipping them each into their own little compartment in the bag.
I watch him work, worrying my lower lip between my teeth as my mind churns.
Part of me can’t believe I got away with getting rid of the cameras so easily, and for a second, I wonder why he agreed to show me where they are at all.
But it hits me in a rush why he’s so nonchalant about it.
Because they’re no longer hiding the fact that they’re stalking me.
Victor is inside my apartment right now, and he got in without a key. Malice was here just a few nights ago, and I saw Ransom on campus on Friday. What do they need cameras for, when they can barge into my life whenever they want?
I sneeze again, and a look of distaste crosses Victor’s face. He hands me a tissue from the box on the beat up coffee table, and I blow my nose into it.
“Throw that away,” he says firmly. “In the actual trash, not on the floor.”
I roll my eyes, but make a show of walking into the kitchen and throwing the tissue into the trash.
He rummages in his bag for a second and then pulls out a spray bottle and a neatly folded cloth. As I watch, he moves around the small space, spraying something from the bottle onto the surfaces in my living room before wiping them down.
The scent of sanitizer tickles my nose, and I tilt my head to one side from where I’m hovering in the bedroom doorway.
“What’s the deal?” I ask him after a moment. “It’s not like I’m a slob, and your blackmail agreement definitely didn’t include housecleaning services. So why do you need my apartment to be so clean?”
Victor stiffens, but he doesn’t answer the question. I notice the fingers of one hand tapping against his thigh, one finger after the other, in a neat row. What’s that about?
Instead of answering any of my questions, he puts the cleaner away and picks up an empty Styrofoam cup from the table, making a face when he reads the side of it. It’s the cup of noodles I ate last night, when I managed to drag myself out of bed to eat something.
“What is this?” he asks.
“More trash, I know.” I step forward to try to grab it from him, a little annoyed. “But I didn’t ask you to barge in here—”
“No,” he says, cutting me off. “I mean, is this all you’ve been eating?”
I shrug and wrap my arms around myself, feeling self-conscious. “It’s not like I had the energy to cook. I’m sick.”
“This kind of shit isn’t good for someone with a cold,” he says. He drops the container into the garbage and then strides into the kitchen.
I follow him in, watching with a sort of stunned curiosity as he starts opening cabinets and the fridge, pulling things out and muttering under his breath.
“What are you doing now?” I ask, feeling like a broken record at this point.
“You’re not giving your body what it needs to get better.”
“So you’re… going to cook for me?”
He shoots me a look that either means ‘obviously’ or is his way of telling me to shut up. But it’s so hard to get a read on him that I have no idea what he’s trying to convey.
“I bet you eat the same thing every day,” I mutter. “You seem like the type.”
Again, his shoulders go a bit stiff, but he doesn’t reply.
Just as methodically as he’s done everything else, he starts working on the food.
He finds a can of chicken broth in the cabinet and pours it into a pot, setting it to simmer.
Then he hunts down knives and a cutting board, scratched up and discolored from use.
He starts cutting up the few carrots that were in my fridge, the ones not too wilted to use.
I watch as he strips the meat from a leftover rotisserie chicken I bought because it was on sale at the grocery store and adds that to the pot.
Soon enough, the kitchen starts to fill with the scent of savory, warm soup.
He seems to be totally absorbed in his task, and I take a seat at the rickety table that’s set against one wall, unable to resist this opportunity to study him without him looking back at me.
The first night I met the Voronin brothers, I was struck by the fact that Victor and Malice looked so similar, but now I can see more of the ways in which their features differ from one another.
They both have sharp jawlines and thick, dark eyelashes, but Malice’s face is a bit wider, his cheekbones and nose a bit more broad, as if the lines of his face were drawn with a heavier pen than Victor’s.
Their hair is almost the exact same color, and they both keep it fairly short, but not a single strand on Victor’s head is out of place, whereas Malice’s hair always looks like he’s had his fingers in it, mussing things up.
There’s something enigmatic about Victor, as if he only allows a small fraction of the things he’s thinking or feeling to show on his face, keeping the rest hidden from view.
Once the soup is done, he turns back to me, and I tear my gaze away from him and pretend I’ve been studying the table the entire time. He carefully ladles the broth, veggies, and chicken into a bowl and brings it to the table, setting it down in front of me.
“Eat.”
I half expect him to leave now that he’s accomplished this odd task he gave himself, but instead, he sits down across from me, staring at me with an expectant look until I pick up the spoon and start eating.
My stomach growls, so any idea of rebelling against doing what he says goes out the window. Besides, the soup is hot and tastes surprisingly good.
His gaze never leaves me as I slowly sip at the broth, studying me as intently as I studied him while he cooked. It’s disconcerting to be the focus of all of someone’s attention, so I find myself searching for something to say just to fill the loaded silence.
“I can’t believe this came out of my kitchen,” I comment, taking another bite of the savory chicken soup. “I’ve never cooked anything this good. I wouldn’t have even thought I had the ingredients to pull it off.”
He shrugs. “It’s not that hard. Once you know the principles of cooking, you can adapt them to just about any ingredients.”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“At home. I taught myself when I was younger. Malice and Ransom both hate to cook, so if I want them to eat something besides takeout all the time, I have to make it from scratch.”
“Are you the oldest?” I ask, curious in spite of myself. “Is that why you look out for them?”
He purses his lips. “In a way, I guess. Malice and I are twins. Ransom is the youngest.”
“Twins?” I murmur, the spoon hovering halfway to my mouth.
I was just thinking to myself how similar Malice and Victor look, but I had no idea they were twins.
It’s surprising, in a way. They’re both dark-haired and intense, where Ransom has lighter hair and seems more charming and easy going.
But the physical resemblance between them is where the similarities between Malice and Victor end.
“Yes.” Victor nods. “You couldn’t tell?”
“I don’t know.” I set my spoon down in the bowl. “You’re so… different. Malice is like an inferno or something. He’s always burning hot. Ready to explode. You seem like the opposite of that.”
At the mention of Malice, I can’t help thinking about what happened the last time he was here. My body tingles at the memory of him between my legs, kneeling at the foot of my bed as he spread my thighs open and…
My face flushes, a burst of embarrassment rushing through me as a new thought occurs to me.
Does Victor know about that?
I don’t really know how the cameras he had set up worked, but it seems possible that he could have seen everything that happened that night through the camera that was hidden in my room.
I glance up at him, and although his face is impassive, something about the way he looks makes me sure I’m right.
Oh my god. He does know.