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All three of my men react to the insult, tense and angry. I can feel it growing behind me, bubbling up inside them like it’s about to explode outward.
“You watch your fucking—” Malice starts, taking a step forward.
Before he can move too far, I reach out, putting a hand on his arm. I look away from Olivia for long enough to lock eyes with him and shake my head. I try to communicate silently that we have a plan for Olivia, and that him getting thrown in jail for assaulting her right here in the open is not a part of it. Just because we got Judge Bailey to recall the warrants that were out for the guys, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t be arrested for a new crime.
Malice curls his hands into fists. I can feel the strength of his muscles under my hand, as if he’s a predator on a very short leash, wanting to bite. But he takes a deep breath and nods, stepping back, letting me handle it.
I turn back to Olivia, and she looks just as sour as ever.
“You keep talking about the Stanton name and the Stanton estate like it’s this big, grand thing,” I tell her. “But you want to know the truth, Olivia? It’s nothing more than a house of cards, waiting to fall apart.”
For one tense moment, my grandmother just glares at me. Her lips twitch like she wants to say something, but instead, she just turns on her heel, striding back toward the black car that’s parked at the side of the road. Her driver watches impassively as she gets into the back seat, and I can see what look like two bodyguards in the vehicle as well.
She snaps something to the driver, and her car peels away.
“Fucking bitch,” Malice snarls, breaking the silence as she disappears around a corner. “Who the fuck does she think she is?”
“She’s used to being the one holding all the cards,” Vic says. He sounds calm and collected as ever, but when I turn my head, I can see anger simmering in his eyes. “Being on the other end of things has put her in a bad place, clearly.”
“Wow, poor her,” Ransom says, rolling his eyes. “My heart just bleeds for how hard this must be for her.”
“At the end of the day, this was a good thing,” Vic points out. “It means we’ve got her on her heels. She’s stressed and pissed off, which means everything we’re doing to her is having the desired effect.”
He’s right, and I hold on to that thought as we head inside and take the elevator up to the penthouse. Olivia isn’t so smug anymore, and it felt really nice to wipe that self-satisfied look off her face.
Hopefully forever.
Not long after we get back, Ransom and Vic head out again to take care of some errands. They’ve been slowly rebuilding their supply of tech, weaponry, and ammo, since they left so much behind when they fled Detroit and then Mexico.
I pace around the condo, feeling strangely agitated, as if there are ants crawling under my skin. Every time we confront Olivia, I feel a simultaneous rush of excitement and fear, the same mixture I might feel if I passed my hand through an open flame, dancing too close to a bonfire.
Between Troy and Olivia, so much has been taken from me, but bit by bit, I’ve been clawing back those pieces of myself that they tried to destroy.
It’s not enough though.
I want more.
My pulse picks up as I stride into the kitchen, stopping short when I see Malice. He’s standing near the sink—loomingover it, really—his muscular, tattooed frame looking out of place in the sleek, modern room as he drinks a glass of water.
Something lights inside my belly, the spark of a flame that once used to burn like an inferno. He’s so solid and real, so darkly handsome and powerful. And he’smine. I’m sick of anything holding me back from him. I’m sick of feeling like I’ve been locked away in a glass case by my trauma.
He puts the glass down on the counter, and I stride forward before I even register making the decision to do it. The movement catches his attention, and he looks over at me as if he’s about to say something, but I don’t give him the chance.
I put my hands on either side of his face as soon as I reach him, going up onto my tiptoes. Then I practically attack him with a hard kiss.
21
MALICE
Fucking hell.
One second, I’m about to ask Willow if she wants to order dinner in tonight, and the next, she’s launching herself at me and kissing me hard.
The intensity of it catches me off-guard, but it’s fucking instinct at this point. My arms go around her, and my mouth responds ravenously, even as my brain scrambles to catch up to whatever the hell is going on.
Right now, my body is more concerned with the feeling of her against me and the way her mouth moves with mine. Heat surges through me, and I feel that hunger that I always feel for her, urging me to kiss her harder and deeper.
But then my brain does catch up, and I can feel that this isn’t the same kind of desperation that she usually kisses me with. Or that she used to before Troy took her and broke her down. This feels more like she’s trying to force herself into it, trying to ignore how much she must still be struggling with shit like this.
