25. Willa
Chapter 25
Willa
I slowly woke up, feeling completely disoriented. I cracked my eyes open, expecting to see Killian’s room. As I looked around the unfamiliar space, everything came rushing back to me. My sister was dead. I’d blamed Cullen and left feeling angry and unsupported by Killian. I’d stupidly agreed to get a ride from Martin. I shuddered as I flashed on a memory of Martin’s elegant features twisted into an expression of hostility and desperation.
I went to check my throat, remembering his hand tightening around the cords of my neck, but my hands were bound to the bed frame.
I was tied to a bed. Again.
Feeling increasingly terrified, I scanned the room, trying to figure out what to do. Martin lived in a loft apartment with giant, floor to ceiling windows. Since the space was open, I was able to see much of the apartment, and was stunned. It was gorgeous, with leather furniture, plush rugs, and expensive looking decorations. Did Cara pay for all this, too?
Martin was standing in the kitchen quietly talking on his phone. He looked up and noticed I was stirring. “Good, you’re awake.”
My head fell back in exhaustion. Jesus Christ, how was it possible this had happened to me twice in one week.
“I’m not Lily.” I felt compelled to say it given the circumstances.
Martin stopped short of the bed and shot me a confused look. Now that he was closer, I noticed a long, very sharp looking knife in his hand. That couldn’t be good. “I know you’re not Lily.”
The way he said the last sentence caught my attention. He knew I wasn’t Lily. Of course, he’d known me as Willa until now, but he’d almost said it as if he would have known I wasn’t Lily, regardless of knowing me.
“Do you—did you know Lily?”
Martin smiled and shook his head. “Don’t act stupid now, Willa. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Act stupid? What are you talking about? Why am I here?” My brow puckered as acid churned in my stomach.
“Why the games, Willa? Lily was into games, too.” He leaned over me, his hand clasping around my throat. His smile was eerily pleasant, but his dark eyes were manic and wild. Fear sat in my stomach like a cannonball. “You need to tell me what I need to know. She told me you know everything.”
My eyes widened. “You saw Lily before she died?” He looked absolutely crazy and the way he was talking about Lily made my skin crawl.
His smile turned into a snarl and rage flared in his eyes. “I went in there to get her out, to get my fucking money. But when I untied that dumb bitch, you know what she did? Do you, Willa?” Martin snarls in my face, his hand wrapped around my neck, the knife still perilously close to my throat.
I shook my head. “No,” I whisper, my eyes trained on the knife.
“She laughed. That bitch fucking laughed in my face, telling me now that I’d freed her, she wasn’t giving me shit because she was pissed at me. She said only she knew where the money was. Then she fucked up. She told me someone else knows where the money was, too. You. She said you knew where the money was.”
“Wh-wh-what? No, that’s not true. I don’t know anything about your money. I hadn’t seen her in months before I saw her at the club.”
“Nice try. She laughed and said, ‘Willa knows, too.’ She said it with this fucking smile on her face. That sneaky, superior smile. That cunt worked for me . I did everything! All she had to do was fuck Mac and keep him distracted while she got some of his passwords for me. Granted, she did it, but I did everything else! I hacked into the system, I set the accounts, I took the risk of breaking into Logan’s office. I was a dumb fuck who fell for a deceitful bitch. She did the same fucking thing to me that she did to Mac.”
I fell completely still, shocked at what he was admitting. “What did you do?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “What the fuck do you think I did? That slut laughing at me? No fucking way. I choked the bitch.” He gave an eerie grin. “The look on her face—the shock, the horror—fuck, it was so sweet. She should have never tried to fuck with me, she shouldn’t have fucking mocked me. She shouldn’t have stolen my money. ”
All the allegations I’d hurled at Killian roared to the forefront of my mind. I’d been so, so wrong. Everything I’d said, accused him of, blamed him for was dead wrong. Shit. And now I was never going to get a chance to apologize, to fall at his feet and beg forgiveness because this total maniac was going to kill me when he figured out that I had no idea where Lily put his money.
At least I knew not to mock him.
“So, where’s my fucking money, Willa?” he demanded, the tip of the knife digging slightly into the sensitive skin at the side of my throat. Small, warm beads of blood started to drip from the tiny wound.
Tears flooded my eyes as panic, pain, and despair caved in on me. “I-I…”
His hand tightened around my throat, his eyes wide and manic. “Tell me!”
I took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself down and think. “You-you said she took your money?”
He blew out an annoyed breath. “Yes, you dumb whore, she took my money. She said you knew where it was.”
This was just like Lily. Even from the grave, she was fucking me over.
“Was it, like, a pile of money? Like a suitcase or something?” I asked, trying to imagine where Lily might stash a wad of money.
“What are you, some kind of fucking moron? It’s not physical money, you idiot, it’s account numbers. I had a book with all the information on it. I was afraid of Ian hacking my computer, so I kept all the account numbers in the book. She fucking took it.” His hand squeezed my throat again, hard enough to cut off my airway, and banged my head against the bed. “You know all of this! Why are you acting so fucking stupid!”
“I-I-I just wasn’t sure if Lily got any of the money out,” I gasped out. A lie, obviously, but telling this guy the truth wasn’t going to get me anywhere but stabbed.
He puckered his brow as if he hadn’t thought of that. “Did that bitch already withdraw my money? Fuck, it’s only been a couple of days!”
I was starting to get dizzy from restricted oxygen and frantically tried to pull away from his grip. He looked at me in confusion. “Oh,” he said offhandedly, as if he hadn’t been slowly suffocating me, and loosened his grasp.
“Martin!” I heard a female call out. Martin rolled his eyes and blew out a sigh of annoyance as he pulled away from me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Cara appeared in my eye-line, looking much the same as when she left The Red Room. Tight, black, midriff baring t-shirt, a short black skirt, and a full face of makeup. “I wanted to see that bitch bleed.”
So much for our happy reunion.
“I told you to stay away until I handled it.” I found it incredible that Martin could talk through a jaw clenched so tightly.
Cara thrust out her chin and put her hands on her waist. Her eyes were flashing with anger and jealousy. “I saw you flirting with her, Martin. I’m not leaving you alone with her when she’s chained to the fucking bed.” She then turned to me, her crimson-colored lips curled back. “It’s already bad enough that you got me fired. Do you know how the girls hit on him? I have to keep my eye on him all the time.”
I frowned. “Weren’t you with Killian?” I asked, though I fucking hated to say it. The thought of Killian touching this woman made anger flow through my veins like lava.
“Yes, but that was for Martin. He figured it would be best if I was around, overhearing conversations between Mac, Killian, and Cullen. We needed to make sure they didn’t know what we were doing.” She shrugged. “I never actually learned anything from my spying.”
The “we” she was referring to must have been Lily, Martin, and her. “You were all working together?”
“Not exactly. Lily didn’t know about Cara. I just said I was using her to keep an eye on Killian and Cullen. She found out about us after I killed Mac. It’s why she stole my fucking money, the jealous cunt.”
“Why did you kill Mac?”
“Because he found out! That nosy asshole figured out I was embezzling Logan’s money and was going to rat me out. I had to kill him. I wasn’t going to let anyone stand between me and the money I fucking earned.” I could certainly make the argument that he hadn’t actually earned any of it, but it didn’t seem like an argument that would get me anywhere but dead.
As if he was just remembering that I was supposed to know where that money was, his hand resumed its previous position at my throat.
“Okay, Willa. You have approximately ten seconds to tell me where my money is, or I will start providing you with very painful motivation.”
His expression was serious. Deadly serious. I glanced at Cara, but instead of compassion or maybe guilt, I found her pretty lips twisted into a satisfied smirk.
Bitch.
My mind scrambled to think of where Lily could have left it. “What about her boat?”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Are you fucking deaf? I knew about the boat. She said only you know where the book is. So, where the fuck is it?”
As he asked, the tip of his knife started to dig into my flesh under the right side of my jaw. I felt more drops of blood slide down the side of my neck and knew I needed to think of something fast because he was losing it.
“Tell me!” he screamed in my face.
“She didn’t tell me anything! I don’t know where your money is, or your book or any of it!” I finally blurted out, unable to come up with anything with him screaming in my face and poking me with his knife.
“She’s lying, Martin! She has to know,” Cara accused. God, she knew how to hold a grudge.
“I’m not! Lily and I weren’t close. She set me up to be kidnapped. You know that, Martin, you have to know it.”
His lips pressed together in fury. He knew I was telling the truth, that Lily had set me up. I thought he might believe me, but then he started shaking his head. “I know you saw her, Willa. I know you went in to talk to her. That’s when she told you.”
I paused, unsure of what to do. What if I convinced him I didn’t know anything, and he killed me because now I knew everything he’d been up to? That concern was gaining in credibility as I considered his murderous track record. He would definitely kill me if he thought I was of no use to him.
“Okay, she told me.”
“I knew it! Where the fuck is it?” he leaned even closer, his expression avid and greedy.
“I can’t tell you. I have to show you.”
“Nice fucking try. You’re not going anywhere. Where is it?”
“It’s in a place in the backyard of our old house, but you can’t see it with the naked eye. I know where it is, but no one else can see it.”
This was actually a true story. There was a spot in our backyard where I used to bury things I treasured to protect them from her. It didn’t work, she figured out what I was up to. Probably because I was eight and didn’t cover my tracks that well. I’d hidden a glass figurine of a ballet dancer in that spot, but Lily had dug it up and smashed it to pieces, leaving them on my bed. I’d cried and cried about it, but my parents simply didn’t know what to do with her. They just bought me another one and pretended it hadn’t happened.
But did I think Lily went back to our hometown and our childhood home, a home now inhabited by other people, to hide some journal?
No. No, I did not.
Martin’s hands tightened on my throat to the point where grayness started to cloud my vision, then pulled away from me. “Fuck you, Willa! Goddammit! Why is this so fucking complicated?” Martin fumed.
A pounding noise had all three of us turning to stare at the large metal door at the front of the loft.
“Who the hell is at your door?” Cara asked suspiciously. All this shit going on, and she was still acting like a jealous high school girlfriend.
“How the fuck should I know? It’s eight in the fucking morning,” he griped. He frowned and swung to look at me. “Where does Killian think you are?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.” Hope started to bubble up inside me at his question. Could it be Killian? If it were, would he go to the formality of knocking?
Martin's face clouded with suspicion. “I don’t like it. We have you and there’s someone at my door.”
The pounding started up again and a voice called through the door. “Hey, Martin. It’s Logan, I have some big plans for expansion I need to talk to you about. You were asking about some type of partnership and I got the information from my accountant about it.”
Martin’s eyes flared. He wanted this. “About time that asshole took me seriously,” he grumbled.
“You have to get rid of him,” Cara whispered urgently. She started biting on her fingernail, her face looking worried.
“Fuck. Fine. I’m going to pull the partition and you stay back here with her.”
They moved the folding room partition, closing me in with Cara. Great. She hated me.
I watched Martin slip behind the partition, but he leaned back in and handed Cara the knife.
“You make sure she stays quiet.”
“With pleasure,” Cara purred as she leaned toward me, twirling the knife lazily in her hand.
Cara straddled me as Martin left. “Please make a sound. I’d love to watch you bleed some more.”
I frowned up at her. Her anger seemed so extreme for the small role I’d played in her life. “Why do you hate me so much? You barely know me.”
She pressed her lips together, sliding the knife lightly down the fabric of my t-shirt, not hard enough to cut the material, but enough to feel the sharpness of the tip. “I hate girls like you. Goody goody girls who play damsel in distress and have all the big, strong men fawning after you. I saw how Killian acted toward you. Martin told me how he played with you behind the privacy wall, how he kissed you and cuddled you afterward. He never did that with me, or any other girl. Is your snatch made out of diamonds, or something?”
I ignored her question and allowed myself a few moments to soak up her insights about Killian’s behavior. I knew about much of it, but it felt nice to hear that his behavior with me appeared out of the norm even to people who knew him. It made me feel all the more awful for how I left him.
“Why do you care about Killian? You’re with Martin.”
“Yes, I’m with Martin, but I kind of liked Killian. I know hooking up with him was kind of a job, but he was really good at?—”
“Okay, I get it,” I cut in. I did not need to hear a list of what she enjoyed about Killian’s sexual skills. Good god. “But you have Martin.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I saw how Martin looked at you, too. He wanted you. You look just like Lily. He told me he’d only been trying to get rid of you in case you accidentally revealed something about Lily to Killian, but I could see his face as he looked at you. He wanted to fuck you, too.”
“But that’s not my fault!”
“It is!” she refuted illogically.
Jesus Christ.
We heard Martin start to talk to Logan through the door. “Hey, Logan, can we talk about this at the club tomorrow? I’ve got company, if you know what I mean.” I rolled my eyes at Martin’s smug insinuation.
I was tempted to open my mouth and scream, but one look at Cara’s knife hovering over my chest put a stop to that.
“I suppose, but I have the paperwork right here. All I need is your signature and you’ll have a stake in the club. Then we’ll start implementing some of your ideas.” Logan replied so good-naturedly, I almost wondered if his offer to Martin was genuine and his arrival was just a case of incredible timing.
Martin was silent, and I could practically feel the inner battle being waged from across the room. He wanted what Logan was offering badly enough to risk him coming in here while I was chained to the bed. If Logan did enter, that put me in an awkward predicament. Did I signal to him that I was here, or would that result in not only Cara most likely plunging that dagger into my chest, but maybe Martin harming Logan?
“What’s it going to be buddy? I know you probably got a hot piece of ass in there, but this deal is worth millions.” Logan's voice was cajoling but filled with manly camaraderie. Gross.
Martin sighed and I heard the locks disengage. He couldn’t resist what Logan was offering.
Cara and I both stilled when we heard the metal door slide open, but instead of Logan’s voice, we heard Martin holler. “What the—?” he was cut off by the sound of skin hitting skin and the dropping of a body. The metal creaked as the door was opened further and footsteps pounded inside the apartment.
“You son of a bitch!”
I knew that voice. The cavalry had arrived.