20. Killian
Chapter 20
Killian
A s I trudged down the hall pulling Willa behind me, I knew I was making a mistake. Letting her see Lily was only going to crush her, sadden her, maybe break her. The thought of it made me irritable and frustrated. There was something fragile and innocent about Willa and letting her see her sister felt like throwing a newborn baby into a nest of vipers.
I shook my head, hoping to dispel all the foreign emotions Willa had stirred up in me in the short time I’d known her. I barely recognized my own behavior. Since when did I cave into a woman’s overly sentimental pleas when they were in direct opposition to my own better judgement?
Never, that’s when.
I unlocked the cell door and walked in, Willa trailing behind me. We hadn’t left Lily in here long, so she looked much the same as when we left her— sitting, chained to the chair Cullen had put her in.
She shot me a bored look, which was either due to true boredom or her desire to make me believe she was unaffected by her current situation. Or both. A small part of me admired her self-containment. If I’d met Lily under different circumstances, I might have recruited her.
Her expression changed drastically when she saw Willa. Her apathetic stare transformed into a vicious scowl. Was she actually concerned about Willa or angry that she hadn’t been killed in her place?
“Willa? What the fuck are you still doing here?”
Willa stepped forward tentatively, already looking intimidated by her older sister’s questions. I wanted to put a reassuring hand on her back, but I knew Lily’s razor-sharp eyes would miss nothing.
“I-I was worried about you.” That wasn’t exactly accurate, but I didn’t refute her words.
Lily gave her a speculative look, then broke out in a chilling smile. “It was you, wasn’t it? You fucking told them where to find me. You fucking bitch. What kind of sister are you?” Her tone was nasty and accusing, giving Willa a look meant to melt her into a puddle of shame.
Instead of being cowed, Willa’s spine stiffened. “What kind of sister am I? What kind of sister are you ? You set me up to die!”
Lily cocked her head, her angry expression sliding into one of remorse. Her brow puckered and her lips quivered, as her eyes filled with tears. “You know what, Will? You’re right. I’m sorry, what I did was wrong. I was just so afraid of what these guys would do to me, I panicked. I didn’t mean it. You have to help me convince these guys that I’m innocent. I had nothing to do with whatever they’re accusing me of. You have to get me out of here.”
I had to admit. Lily was good. Her wide, liquid blue eyes, so similar to Willa’s, shined with sincerity and contrition. This is the exact plea I feared she would make, playing on Willa’s big heart and compassion. Making her feel guilty and responsible for Lily’s safety. Fucking bitch.
Willa took a step toward her sister. “Look, Lily, you have to tell them what you know,” she pleaded.
“I don’t know anything. I have no idea what happened to Mac. I had nothing to do with it.” Again, her eyes were wide and guileless, but I knew for a fact she was lying. My eyes darted to Willa to gauge her reaction to her sister’s pleas, praying she didn’t fall for her bullshit. Was she buying this? I feared she was.
“Willa.” I needed her to know that we had irrefutable evidence that Lily was complicit in Mac’s death. I couldn’t let any possible doubt fester.
Willa surprised me. She held up her hand to me, stilling further words, still staring at her sister. “Seriously, Lily? You need to be honest. Tell us about what happened to Mac.”
Lily shrugged. “What can I possibly say? I didn’t have anything to do with it. It wasn't my fault. Get me out of here, Willa.” She ended her last sentence with less of a plea, and more of a command, staring Willa down as if mentally compelling her to obey.
Willa’s shoulders stiffened. “No. You need to tell them what you know. I can’t do anything for you unless you help.”
Lily’s remorseful expression fell away as quickly as it had appeared, her brow smoothing out, tears drying up. A fucking chameleon. “Are you crazy? I’m not admitting to anything. The minute I tell them anything, they’ll kill me.”
Hope flared in Willa’s eyes. “No, Lily, if you help, they'll be more likely to let you go. They want your boyfriend, or accomplice, or whatever.” Willa’s speech was getting faster as she made her pitch to Lily. First of all, what she said wasn’t even true. There was no way Cullen was just going to let Lily go, but I wasn’t sure if Willa realized that.
Lily rolled her eyes. “Grow up, Willa. They aren’t letting me go anywhere. God, you are so fucking stupid.”
My fists tightened at Lily’s comment and Willa’s shoulders dropped. “You’re guilty, Lily. Why shouldn’t you pay for what you did? What you did to Mac, what you tried to do to me.”
Lily’s eyes flashed. “It was you or me, who the fuck did you think I was going to pick?”
Willa's eyes widened at the extent of Lily’s ruthlessness. “You’re unbelievable,” she said in disgust.
Lily’s lips pursed. “Such a child, honestly. What are you even complaining about? You seemed to have landed on your feet.” Lily’s eyes darted to me meaningfully. “I’m the one chained to a fucking chair.”
Willa shook her head in disbelief. “You deserve to be there. You’re long overdue for facing the consequences of your actions.”
Lily gave her a cool little smile. “Don’t worry about me, sis. I always come out on top in the end.” Her smile dropped and she pinned Willa with an icy glare. “Look, if you aren’t going to get me out of this mess, you can get the fuck out of here.”
Willa crossed her arms over her chest and shot Lily a look of utter disgust. “What happened to you? Mom and Dad were great parents. How did you turn into such a fucking monster?”
“Too much praise and attention?” she replied flippantly, then stared at Willa for a moment, her cold blue eyes scanning Willa’s face, her lip curling. “God, I hated when you were born. I had everyone’s attention all the time. Adorable Lily, clever Lily, precious Lily, then along came Willa. You stole it all away from me. No one cared about me, they only wanted to see the baby. Hold the baby, play with the baby, dress the baby. I fucking hated you. You don’t know how many times I wanted to hurt you, push you down, or smother you with a pillow. Anything to get rid of you. You ruined everything.” She gave a joyless laugh. “And considering how these assholes found me, you’re still ruining everything.”
I stared at Lily, deeply disturbed by her monologue. Instinctively, I reached out to Willa and wrapped my hand around her waist. She was trembling, but the expression on her face wasn’t shock. It was confirmation. She’d known all along what Lily’s core was made of—unadulterated evil and cruel selfishness.
Lily sneered as she stared at my hand on Willa. “I knew it. You two are fucking, eh, Will? A lot better than your usual choices.” Lily raked her eyes down my form, licking her lips slightly. “I should have picked him instead of the nerd, but he would have seen right through me. Isn’t that right, Killian. We’re alike, aren’t we? Mac told me what you and Cullen used to do as mercenaries.” She gave a mock shudder. “Gory stuff. You tell Willa about that? Poor, innocent Willa probably won’t appreciate the way you murdered, fucked, and tortured your way through life as a soldier for hire.”
“Enough,” I boomed. “Willa, let’s fucking go.”
I didn’t wait for her to agree. I ripped open the door and ushered Willa through it as Lily’s harsh laughter echoed behind us. “That’s what I thought,” Lily snickered.
I knew this was a fucking mistake. Cullen was going to have his hands full interrogating her. I wasn’t going to participate because, right now, I wanted to wrap my hands around her scrawny neck and snap it.
I gripped Willa’s hand and tugged her down the hallway back to my room, eager to put separation between these two women who grew up together but couldn’t be more different.
I opened the door, uncertain how to start the conversation considering the many horrific things Lily brought up.
Willa sat on the bed and instead of the flood of tears I’d expected, she reached out and punched the pillow. “I feel like such an idiot! What was I thinking?” she asked rhetorically and punched the pillow a few more times. Was she thinking about what Lily told her about their childhood or about my past? Or both?
I sat down on the bed and pulled her into my lap, throwing the pillow aside. I needed to touch her, feel her, fix her. She was small and soft, but her body was tense, and I could smell some of my soap on her skin from when she sucked my cock earlier. Fuck, she was so sexy, why did I allow us to get out of bed? Why the fuck had I agreed to bring her to Lily? Oh, right because she sucked my cock. I needed to stop thinking with my dick.
Stroking her smooth cheek, I kissed her forehead. “What are you thinking, Willa?”
“Where do I begin?” she murmured smartly. “I think what shocks me most is how unshocked I am. I’ve known all my life that Lily was a cold, cruel, selfish bitch. I even kind of knew she’s always hated me. She didn’t have such a good poker face when we were kids. She used to push, pinch, shove, break my most treasured things—anything to cause me pain. I’d kind of forgotten how terrible she was to me because she was so much older and left home when I was ten.”
I rubbed her back and kissed her head. I had no idea what to say. Verbally consoling someone wasn’t exactly my strong suit. If she wanted me to fuck her into a better state of mind, I’d be more than willing. Thankfully, she appeared to be happy with my physical reassurance and didn’t seem to expect me to say anything.
“I can’t say I anticipated that she’d turn out this bad, though. I will admit, a little tiny part of me wanted to believe she would show me something worth saving, worth believing in. She’s the only family I have left, and I didn’t want to believe she is an irredeemable psychopath.”
“You’re too nice, Willa.”
She sighed loudly then popped her head up to look me in the eye. “What about the stuff she said about you?”
I tensed. “What about it?”
“Was what she said true?”
I shrugged my shoulders a couple times, distinctly uncomfortable. I wasn’t ashamed of my past. I did what I was good at and I made a lot of fucking money doing it. But as I stared into her sweet face, I couldn’t imagine sharing the details of my previous life. The torture, the murder, the chaos, the deception. Lily hadn’t done me any fucking favors by comparing us, even though I’d done something similar earlier in the evening. However, stating that Lily and I were both not as full of compassion as Willa was a far cry from Lily’s insinuation that we were both candidates for an antisocial personality disorder diagnosis.
“I guess it depends on your perspective. Did I do shit on my missions that you probably wouldn’t have done? Definitely. Did I do things you wouldn’t approve of? Probably. Did I only do what was necessary to complete the job and get myself out alive? Absolutely.”
“Would you go back to that work?”
“Fuck no. I didn’t particularly like school, but I was a good athlete. Using my body, my strength and agility was the only way I knew how to succeed in the world, first as a soldier for the government and then as a soldier for anyone who could pay our fees. I thought it was the only way to carve a path in this world, putting my body in jeopardy, using its coordination and natural athleticism to make a living. Mac is the one who convinced me and Cullen to give that shit up and make our way in the security business. He said we weren’t giving ourselves enough credit, that we knew more than we realized. And he was fucking right. We took the risk and we’ve been doing it ever since. Very successfully. But when I was younger, I thought being a soldier, being a mercenary was the only way to escape my life.”
Had I ever spoken so many words in my fucking life? I didn’t think so.
“What were you escaping?”
Fuck, I’d opened a can of worms with my out-of-character babbling. “My childhood wasn’t great. I needed to get the fuck out of there.”
She opened her mouth, but I put my finger over her lips, gently silencing her next question.
“I think I’ve hit my weekly quota of things I share about my past. We should really save something for next week.”
She broke out in a wide grin, her beautiful blue eyes glittering with humor as she recognized me parroting her words back to her. Well, except my request had been about anal sex and hers was about my shitty childhood.
“Okay,” she said, then let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Let’s go to bed, Willa. God knows, things can only get better after we get a little sleep.”
I was pulled from deep sleep by a heavy knock on the door. Completely disoriented, I gently rolled Willa away from me. A smile hovered on my lips and my breath stalled in my chest when she protested our separation and reached for me. Christ, what was I going to do about her?
I pulled on a pair of jeans, not bothering to fasten them. I glanced at my phone and scowled. I’d only been asleep for about two hours. Only one person could be banging on my door and he was at least an hour early. Over eager asshole.
I pulled open the door, ready to tell Cullen to go the fuck away but his expression caused the words to die on my tongue.
“What happened?” I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind me. His lips were pressed together, but instead of looking ready for mayhem and violence, he looked disturbed and uneasy.
“I tried to sleep, and maybe even did for a while, but I was so fucking restless knowing that bitch was finally in our grasp. I just...I needed her to admit what happened, and if she wouldn’t talk, I needed her to suffer. More than needed it, craved it. I went in there prepared to get the information if I had to drain every drop of blood out of her fucking body. She was going to fucking talk.”
I sighed, still stunned at Cullen’s level of anger and grief. I looked him over. He definitely wasn't covered in blood. “Okay, so did you get the name?”
He sighed, that same uneasy expression flashing over his face. “No. Fuck, Kill, she was dead when I got there.”
I simply stared at him, unable to compute the words. “What? Dead? How?”
“I have no fucking idea. I went in there and she was out of the cuffs, but someone had strangled her and left her there.”
I looked at him for a moment, suspicion probably broadcasting from my expression like a neon sign.
Cullen rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t me, motherfucker. If only,” he grumbled.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Let me see.” It sounded gruesome that I’d want to see a dead body, but there was a part of me that just couldn’t believe Lily was actually dead. Maybe seeing her dead body would push me to accept it.
Cullen simply turned and walked me back to the cell we’d been holding her in and opened the door. There on the floor was the woman who had been gloating and scathing by turns only hours ago, her blond hair in a golden cascade around her head. I reached down to check her pulse, more out of reflex than any belief that she was still alive.
Definitely dead.
Fuck. How were we going to get the information we needed? More importantly, what was I going to tell Willa?
I hadn’t had much time to ponder the last question, when I heard the door open and a loud, female scream pierce the air.
“Lily! What happened to her? Is she okay?” Willa asked, rushing to her sister’s side.
I reached out and cradled her jaw, dreading the words I knew I needed to say. Words that were all but irrelevant because Willa was quickly comprehending the situation by the horrified, grief-stricken look that entered her beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry, Willa. Your sister is dead.”
She shook her head, as if resisting my words. “How? What happened?”
“Strangled.” Cullen’s voice came from behind us, as he was still lounging against the wall near the door. I didn’t think Willa had even seen him, but the way fire leapt into her eyes and her mouth curled into a ferocious snarl, I knew exactly where her thoughts had gone.
She stood up and pointed her finger at Cullen. “It was you, wasn’t it? You killed my sister!”