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Vic makes an affirmative noise too, although he doesn’t speak.
“We’ll be there soon,” Malice says, then ends the call.
He shoves his phone into his back pocket and jerks his chin at me. Moving quickly, the two of us gather some supplies and then climb into his car and speed off toward Willow’s apartment.
Malice is quiet on the way over, and normally, I would probably talk to fill the silence, but there’s too much running through my mind to worry about that.
Willow’s old boss being dead isn’t great, and we’ll have to make sure we cover Vic’s tracks on that. There’s no way in hell we’ll let him get sent to jail like Malice did.
The bigger issue is the thing that prompted Vic to kill the guy in the first place.
This means we need to keep our guard up. Because someone is coming for us.
We knew there was a chance this might happen when we decided to take out Nikolai, but we all agreed it was worth the risk. Avenging our mother was worth it.
We pull up to Willow’s building a few minutes later and get out, glancing around the darkened street before heading up the stairs to her unit, where Vic lets us in.
“Two gunshots to the chest,” he reports immediately. “Muffled them with the pillow, and the TV was still on, so it’s unlikely anyone heard. As far as I know, the apartment immediately below this one is vacant as well.”
“Good.” I nod, unsurprised that Vic has already gotten to work covering up his tracks.
Like it or not, we’ve had a bit of experience with cleaning up messes and getting rid of bodies, so we spring into action immediately.
“Help me get the body wrapped up,” Malice says, jerking his head to our brother.
Vic already has a roll of black trash bags out, and Malice spreads out the tarp we brought. They roll Carl’s body up in the tarp and then wrap that with trash bags. Vic has some cleaning supplies in his bag, and we brought even more industrial strength stuff, so we start going to work on the blood that’s pooled on the cheap, fake wood floor. Luckily it’s not carpet, so the tacky dark fluid comes up easily.
Once the blood is mostly cleaned up, Malice glances over at me. “Start packing up Willow’s shit. Just a few bags, clothes and whatever else.”
Willow seems like she’s in shock, sitting on the couch and staring into the middle distance. She hasn’t reacted or even moved since we came in and started securing the scene, but when she hears those words, she blinks and shakes herself out of it.
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking past me to Mal. “Why is he packing my stuff?”
“Because you’re coming with us,Solnyshka,” he tells her evenly, meeting her gaze.
“What? No!” Willow blurts, surging to her feet. “No. I’m not going anywhere. You can’t do this. I’m not going with you!”
Her voice is high, and she looks freaked out and on edge.
With the night she’s had so far, it makes sense.
“Yes, you are,” Malice shoots back, squaring his shoulders. “I can’t risk anyone tracking down my brothers, so there’s no fucking way I’m leaving you here on your own.”
“No!” She shakes her head, her blond hair flying around her face. “That’s too much. Too far. I have a life, and you can’t just drag me away from all of that. I won’t go!”
I want to step in and reassure her that this is for the best, but before I can do that, Malice has his gun out and drawn on her.
“This is not negotiable.” He narrows his eyes, his voice low. “So you’ve got two options. You come with us, or I kill you right now. That’s it. Those are the only two choices here.”
Something shifts in Willow’s expression as she takes in his words. Her nostrils flare, her soft brown eyes flashing. At first, I think it’s from fear—but then she surprises the fuck out of me by stepping right up to Malice until the barrel of the gun is pressed against her forehead.
My jaw just about drops to the fucking floor, and I can feel Vic stopping what he’s doing beside me as he watches her too.
She looks savage and fierce, almost unstoppable. She’s half Malice’s size, but in this moment, she doesn’t look like it. She looks like a queen.
“Do it then,” she whispers. “Fucking do it if you’re going to. You keep talking about killing me, but you haven’t done it yet. And I don’t think you will.”
The moment stretches and turns heavy as the two of them face off, and I can’t look away from Willow’s gorgeous, brilliant eyes.
