Chapter 20
Artyom
The door shut.
That thick, dark wood door closed behind her and swallowed the sound whole. It left a razor-thin seam of light, then even that vanished.
I stayed where I was. Didn't move.
The soup in front of me had gone cold. A slick of fat had skinned over the top. I nudged it with a fork. It broke, then crawled back together.
My fingers still held the glass. The wall of it had warmed under my hand, but I didn't drink.
She had just left. Followed that man—Ethan Hall—and walked right out.
Lily sat beside me and started it herself. "That's someone from the Hall family, isn't it?"
I didn't answer.
She paused, frowning. "Ethan Hall. The Hall family's bastard. His father is your enemy. You know who he is."
Ethan Hall. Of course I knew.
I'd seen his photos in the files marked "watch closely."
His face had shown up in the appendices of background checks—tailored suit, tucked into the corner of some event, calm as a church.
The man in that photo and the man across from me tonight were the same. But when he had sat next to Willow, that face hadn't looked like the one in the file. The man in the photo had been contained. So contained he wouldn't trip anyone's radar.
Tonight, beside her, he had been a challenge. Sharp. Predatory.
Male possession, aimed straight at a female.
"So..." Lily spoke again, careful, hesitant like she'd tested the words first. "You really don't think Willow got close to you because she wanted something?"
There it was—the rest of the question—draped in a little probe.
I lowered my gaze and swirled the liquor in my glass. "Wanted what? Wanted the blood I couldn't wash off? Or wanted the Hall family's rotten mess?"
My eyes drifted from the door back to the table.
The fish was cold. The sauce along the edge had congealed into dark little clots.
"You really believe that?" Lily laughed. "She just happened to show up around you, and she just happened to know Ethan. Don't you think there are too many 'just happened' in that? Girls like that are best at playing dumb—acting cute and clueless so some guy pays their bills."
She said playing dumb like it was something she'd seen a thousand times.
But my head stayed on something else—Willow at the doorway. Her fingers had knotted around her bag strap so tight her knuckles had gone pale.
She hadn't been playing dumb. She'd been broke.
When she'd looked back at me, there hadn't been calculation. Just confusion. Fear.
"Don't forget," I said, "you recommended this place."
Lily didn't answer right away.
She sat there and watched me. "I didn't expect she literally couldn't pay."
She went quiet for a beat, then dropped her voice. "You used to say you hated being used more than anything."
"Yeah." I paused. "So she isn't going to use me."
Lily sat there, said nothing.
I stood. "Go back to the mansion. Maya will set you up."
She rose too. The chair legs tapped the floor.
She didn't leave right away. Like she waited for something.
I didn't look up. Didn't look at her.
She sighed, turned, and walked out. Her heels clicked away until the sound thinned into nothing.
The restaurant left me alone. Outside, night had fully settled in. Streetlights washed an empty sidewalk and stretched tree shadows long and slanted across the pavement, like scattered shards.
The door didn't open again.
I sat there, staring at the fish turned stone-cold, the sauce fully set now, dull and dark like a shell over the porcelain.
A draft seeped through the window crack and slid along the back of my neck—cold.
I got up and walked toward the car at the curb.
?????
By the time I pulled up along the plane-tree-lined street under Willow's building, the dash read 9:47 p.m.
I didn't get out. I leaned my elbow on the window edge, an unlit cigar pinched between my fingers.
Early fall air poured in, sharp and clean. It carried the sweet smell of roasted chestnuts from a cart down the block, tangling with the cologne on my skin into something messy.
In my head, Lily's half-said warning stuck like a thorn.
Was Willow something the Halls had put near me?
Was she a traitor?
I couldn't read it.
I even thought I'd lost my mind—ditching a pile of files that needed my signature just to sit under a shitty apartment building and let the cold bite my face.
Streetlight spilled over the stained brick. Somewhere far off, a convenience store bell chimed as the door closed.
I watched that building for nearly forty minutes before a familiar black Bentley rolled in and eased to the curb.
Ethan got out first, went around to the passenger side, opened the door, and helped Willow out.
The wind had mussed her hair. Her face still looked flushed. She kept her head down, listening to him, nodding now and then.
He must've said something stupid, because she suddenly laughed, eyes curving into two crescent moons.
I'd seen that smile.
Last time, in the bar's private room, she'd been drunk in my lap, undoing my shirt buttons with that same damn smile—sweet like it had been dipped in honey. Back then I'd thought she only wore it for me.
I watched Ethan lift a hand and brush a leaf off the ends of her hair. His fingers grazed her earlobe. She flinched—but she didn't pull away.
"I'm home. Thanks for today," I heard her say. Soft. A little embarrassed. "I'll pay you back when I get paid."
Ethan smiled and shook his head, voice low.
Willow's cheeks went even redder. She smacked his arm with the easy familiarity of someone who'd done it a hundred times. My temple started hammering.
"Okay, okay, I got it. Go," she said, taking a step back and waving. "Drive safe."
Ethan stepped closer, then bent down.
His lips barely touched her forehead.
It was quick as a gust of wind—and it burned into my eyes like a red-hot brand.
I snapped upright. Veins stood out on the back of my hand.
Who the hell did he think he was, stealing a kiss from her?
Willow froze, eyes wide and round.
Ethan straightened, smiling, ruffled her hair, got in, and drove off.
She stayed there, staring after the car as it disappeared. She lifted her hand to her forehead and just stood there, dazed.
That idiot. She was actually savoring it.
The thought stabbed into my skull like an ice spike dipped in poison. Rage climbed from my feet to the top of my head. I shoved the door open and stormed toward her, forgetting to even shut the damn thing behind me.
My steps were heavy. Dead leaves rasped under my shoes.
She heard me and turned. The second she saw me, the smile on her face locked up. The light in her eyes drained, like someone had thrown a dirty rag over it.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice carried pure shock.
I didn't answer. I walked up and grabbed her wrist.
She winced, tried to yank free. "Let go—you're hurting me!"
Hurting her?
I stared at the spot on her forehead like Hall's mouth still lingered there. Something inside me snapped clean in half. I lifted my other hand and rubbed the back of it hard over that skin—again and again—brutal, fast, like I could wipe him off her.
"Don't touch me!" She panicked, shoving at me, tears gathering. "Artyom, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"What the hell is wrong with me?" I let out a cold laugh and pressed harder until the skin went red, almost raw, then stopped.
"The one with something wrong in their head is you.
Willow Pierce, are you that damn desperate?
A guy buys you dinner, drives you home, kisses your forehead, and you're ready to hand him your heart, yeah? "
Her face went dead white. She stared at me like she didn't recognize me. "What did you just say?"
"I said you are dumb as fuck." I locked onto her eyes, and the cruel words spilled out before I could rein them in.
"Someone throws you a couple crumbs and you wag your tail, ready to follow.
You even know who he is? Ethan Hall—Hall family's second son.
You really think he got close to you for your pretty eyes?
You're getting screwed over, and you're still too damn stupid to see it! "
The wind howled, sweeping leaves up to slap against us.
She stood there, paper-white, lips drained of color. Her eyes reddened inch by inch, tears spinning in them. She bit her lip so hard she wouldn't let one fall.
"So that's what I am to you?" Her voice shook, thin and brittle like a leaf clinging to a branch in a hard wind. "Who I am with, who I eat with, who I accept help from—every time, it is because I am stupid, because I am easy to fool. That's it?"
I saw her eyes burning red and something in my chest softened for half a second. Then I remembered her smile at Ethan. Ethan's mouth on her forehead. The softness iced over.
I looked away, voice flat and freezing. "What else? You think he actually likes you? Grow up, Willow."
She opened her mouth like she was going to argue.
My phone in my pocket suddenly vibrated like it was possessed. The harsh buzz ripped through the quiet.
I frowned, pulled it out. Maya.
At this hour, it meant blood. I released Willow's wrist and answered, irritation rough in my voice. "Talk."
Maya sounded shaken. "Boss, it's bad. Miss Blake got attacked downstairs at her building.
She was hurt bad—she's in surgery at Central Hospital.
They hit hard and clean, like they meant to kill her.
One of the guys we grabbed alive said it was the Hall family.
He said Ethan Hall paid him. Said it was to teach Blake a lesson. "
I jerked my head up and looked at Willow.
She was still crying, shoulders hitching like some wronged little animal.
Hall people, choosing this exact moment to go after Lily.
Everything snapped together into a net and dropped over my head.
If Ethan really meant to use Willow to come at me... if tonight had been planned...
Cold crawled down my back.
I watched Willow. She watched me back, tears still in her eyes, lost and scared.
"Artyom," she rasped, "did something happen?"
She didn't even fight about what I'd just said. She saw the shift in me first.
I pressed my lips together, wanting to tell her, wanting to hear the truth from her own mouth.
I trusted—damn it—I trusted she wasn't plotting against me.
"It is nothing." I avoided her eyes. My voice eased a notch, despite myself. "Something came up at work. I have to handle it. Go upstairs. Get some rest."
I didn't look at her again. I turned and walked back to the car fast.
The car shot off like an arrow.
In the rearview mirror, she still stood under the streetlight, small and alone, watching the direction I'd gone for a long, long time.
When I reached the hospital, Lily had already been wheeled out of surgery.
She was still unconscious. Thick bandages wrapped her body. Bruises and blood marked her face.
Maya stood by the room door. The second she saw me, she moved in.
"How is she?"
"Out of danger," Maya reported under her breath. "Two broken ribs. Concussion. We caught one attacker alive at the scene. He swore the Halls sent him. Said Ethan Hall paid him. Said he was supposed to 'teach Blake a lesson.'"
Ethan Hall.
I nodded and looked through the glass at Lily on the bed.
She was white as paper, brow drawn tight even in sleep.
Then her fingers twitched. Slowly, she opened her eyes.
She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned her head and saw me in the doorway.
Tears spilled instantly. Her lips trembled like she tried to say my name, but pain stole the sound.
I went in and stopped at her bedside. "How do you feel?"
She didn't answer. She just cried, shaking all over.
"Artyom... I was so scared. I thought I'd never see you again."
"It is over." I patted her uninjured hand. "I have people on it. I am not letting them walk."
She cried harder, tears sliding down her cheeks.
"It was Ethan. It was Ethan's people, right? He tried to kill me because I was with you. He wanted to use Willow against you, and I was in his way."
Her words pricked my heart like a needle.
The suspicion from downstairs surged back up. Everything pointed at Ethan. Pointed at Willow having an angle.
And still, I didn't want to believe it.
"Don't spiral," I said, reaching up to wipe the wet from the corner of her eye. "I'll find the truth. Whoever did this to you isn't getting away with it."
Lily forced a small smile.
Then she closed her eyes and drifted back under.
The room fell quiet again, broken only by the monitor's steady, monotonous beep.
I stood there, staring at Lily's pale sleeping face, not moving for a long time.
That offhand guess of hers hit the bottom of my mind like a stone in deep water—and the ripples kept spreading.
Ethan Hall.
What the hell are you to Willow?
That little money-hungry girl who'd gotten drunk out of her mind in a bar... could she really be some careful, patient schemer?