Chapter 32 Willow
WILLOW
My stomach seems to tie itself into a hundred knots as I watch the gang and the brothers face off. The entire thing happened so fast, weapons being drawn in the space between one heartbeat and the next, and now both sides are pointing guns at each other.
Malice still has the gang member who touched me on the floor, one arm pinned behind his back and a knee pressed down between his shoulder blades.
“What the fuck?” the guy splutters. “You said she was no one.”
Malice twists his arm harder, digging his knee down into his back with more force. I can’t see the man’s face, but I’m sure the torquing motion has to hurt like hell. Anger is practically radiating off Malice in waves, his face twisted into a mask of rage and retribution.
“Anything under this roof is ours,” he growls out. “And you don’t get to fucking touch what’s mine.”
A tense silence follows his words, and I grip the railing at the base of the stairs so hard my knuckles ache. The truth and conviction in his words are undeniable, the fury unmistakable.
The gang leader, a man I’ve heard the guys call Ethan Donovan, steps forward. Vic swings his gun around immediately, aiming it at Ethan’s head, but no one shoots. Both sides are locked in a standoff, waiting for someone else to either back down… or make the wrong move.
“Get the fuck off him,” Ethan says to Malice, his voice smooth but angry. “Before this shit breaks bad.”
“Where’s your warning for this motherfucker?” Malice snaps, glaring down at the man beneath him. “Because I always thought when you were on someone else’s fucking turf, you showed them and their shit a little bit of goddamned respect.”
Ethan’s jaw tightens, and the tension cranks up a notch.
I can feel a cold sweat chilling on the back of my neck, my heart crashing wildly against my sternum.
Malice doesn’t look like he cares one way or another about all the guns aimed at him, and the guy on the floor makes little pained sounds, breathing hard.
“Alright, Mal.” Ransom steps forward slowly, lowering his gun in a deliberate movement so that the Donovan gang members can see him doing it. “Get off him. That’s enough.”
The two brothers glance at each other, and they share one of those looks that I still don’t quite understand, the ones where they seem to communicate telepathically.
But whatever unspoken understanding passes between them, it works.
Malice jerks away from the guy on the floor, letting him go so he can get to his feet.
Some of the dangerous tension in the air evaporates, and it becomes a little easier to breathe.
“See? We’re good,” Ransom says, turning to Ethan with his hands held out in front of him. “Malice let your guy go. This doesn’t have to go any further.”
“It should never have happened in the first fucking place,” Ethan bites out.
Ransom nods. “No, it shouldn’t have. But your guy did decide to get handsy with someone in our home. You know we can’t let that shit stand. You’d have done the same in Malice’s place.”
However mad Ethan might be, he doesn’t seem able to deny that. Things were going smoothly until that guy touched me, and I shiver with disgust, remembering the hungry look on his face as he cornered me by the stairs.
“Fine,” Ethan snaps, his tone cool. “But you blew your chance to work with us. There’s no fucking trust here anymore.”
The look that passes over Ransom’s face is one of resignation but not surprise. “Yeah, alright. Then I guess this meeting is over. We’re done here.”
The threat of violence still hangs in the air like a spark ready to ignite, and Ransom ushers Ethan and the rest of his crew to the door, keeping himself between them and Malice until they walk past.
Vic and Malice fall in behind them, watching like hawks as they leave.
I stay in the living room, frozen in place, still trying to get my equilibrium back after what just happened. One minute, I was being felt up by some skeezy gang member, and the next…
The next minute, Malice was defending me.
He said it was because I’m under their roof, so I’m theirs, and it’s a basic respect kind of thing, but I don’t know how to feel about that. I’m not their property, not something they own—but at the same time, I’ve somehow become someone they want to protect.
That doesn’t make any sense. Malice hates me, doesn’t he?
He’s never made a secret of that. So why did he defend me just now? Why does he always defend me?
From down the hallway, I can hear the door close, and a few moments after it does, Malice’s voice echoes into the living room.
“Fuck!”
There’s a thud as he punches something, and I flinch at the sound.
He’s angry. I’ve seen him mad before, so that’s not new…
but this is a different kind of anger. This is like when he found out what Colin did to me, or when he found out my mom stole from me.
But worse, in a way. Maybe because he was here to see it happen this time.
“Calm down,” Ransom says, always the voice of reason. Then he makes a frustrated noise. “So much for that deal, I guess. Dammit. We were so close, too.”
“This might be worse than just losing their business,” Vic points out, and I creep a little closer to the hallway door to hear better. “They won’t forget what happened, and we don’t need more enemies right now. We have enough on our plates already.”
“And it’s not like losing the business is something we can just brush off either,” Ransom throws in.
“So what the fuck did you want me to do?” Malice demands.
“Stand there and take it? Just let them walk all over us? Let them disrespect us on our own turf? That’s the kind of thing that makes you look weak and gets you fucking killed.
I can’t let that kind of shit stand. That would be worse than losing the business or them hating us or whatever the fuck else happens. ”
Vic doesn’t say anything in response, and I can imagine the way he’s probably standing there, his mind racing overtime as he tries to calculate all the possible variables of the fallout from tonight. After a moment of silence, it’s Ransom who replies.
“Listen, Mal. I know that’s how you survived in prison. Showing weakness got you fucked up, so you made yourself stronger than everyone who might come after you.”
“It’s not just prison,” Malice grunts. “The same shit applies out here. If you let people like Donovan and his gang walk all over you, then they’ll think they can always do it. They’ll fuck you over, just because they can.”
Somebody says something that’s too quiet for me to make out, and then Ransom’s voice comes again.
“Why don’t you just admit you want her? Maybe it’ll do us all some good. Maybe it’ll keep you from flying off the handle every time someone looks at her in a way you don’t like.”
I suck in a sharp breath, lifting up a hand to cover my mouth.
Is that true?
My mind races, replaying the moment when Malice leapt to my defense. The look on his face. The way he sounded.
And the thing is… Malice doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t tell Ransom to go fuck himself, or that he’s being delusional.
Instead, he storms off, stalking into the garage and slamming a door. A few moments later, Ransom and Victor come back into the room. Vic’s mood is hard to read as usual, but Ransom is easier to figure out. He looks tired and a little on edge, but he doesn’t seem mad.
“Is… everything going to be okay?” I whisper, twisting my fingers together.
He chuckles, coming over to stand before me. “Well, ‘okay’ really isn’t the right word for any of the shit we get into. But it’s not the end of the world, angel. We’ll figure it out the way we always do.”
He reaches up to tuck a bit of hair behind my ear as he speaks, and the familiar gesture is soothing, but it isn’t enough to calm my racing heart.
Vic shoots me one penetrating look, as if I’m a puzzle he’s tried over and over to solve, then goes back upstairs without saying a word.
Ransom shakes his head before beginning to clean up in the living room area, gathering the glasses that are still sitting out with unfinished whiskey in them and putting things back where they belong.
It fits with what I’ve seen of them so far, the way they work together.
Victor goes off to consult his computers, Malice is somewhere brooding, and Ransom is cleaning up the mess.
I guess there does have to be someone who can smooth things over, and it’s sure not going to be either of the other two.
I stand there for a moment longer, debating between helping Ransom and… going to find Malice.
Ransom is the easiest of the three to talk to, and I can still feel the warmth from where his knuckles brushed my cheek. He seems to care about me, more than just as a pawn in these games they’re playing, and every time he touches me, it makes my heart race.
But he’s not the one I want to see right now. Not the one who’s on my mind.
It would be safer if he was—or as safe as dealing with any of these men can be, which isn’t very, but still.
Malice probably doesn’t want to even look at me right now, and if I go to find him, I have no idea what he’ll do or what will happen.
He’ll probably blame me for the loss of the deal with the Donovan gang, pissed that my presence made the deal go south, even though he’s the one who forced me to come here in the first place.
I know all of that…
And yet, I still want to see him anyway.
Maybe I have a fucking death wish.
Following the direction I heard his heavy footsteps disappear in, I head into the garage and find him sitting in a little room set off from the main space.
I haven’t really been in here before, but it looks like a sort of all-purpose space, with workout equipment, a desk, and a work bench with a bunch of tattoo equipment on it.
Malice is sitting on one of the benches in the middle of the room, his elbows braced on his knees as he leans over, a glass of whiskey dangling from his fingers.