Willow
“So?” Sage demanded the second I walked through the door. “How did it go?”
I slipped off my shoes and collapsed onto the sofa. “Better than expected.”
Her eyes lit up, and she settled beside me, drawing her knees to her chest. The hood of her unicorn onesie flopped over her eyes. “What happened?”
“I kissed him.”
She flinched. “Who, Tom?”
“Ew, no!” I waved a hand. “Ronan. Tom supposedly got called away right after we started talking to Mr. Petrov, but Ronan saved me. We danced, he gave me a ride home, and I kissed him outside.”
“Go, you!” Sage held up her hand for a high five. “Except for the whole Petrov thing, it sounds lovely. You basically got your date after all.”
I rested my head on her shoulder and smiled. “I know. I actually think I might want to see where things go with him, even though he wants to steal my family company. I can’t seem to help but want him.”
Sage gave me a look. “That’s great. I don’t understand why you thought you and Ronan couldn’t be together and just keep it separate from what’s going on with your companies.”
“Because things are messy and the world doesn’t work that way.”
She pursed her lips. “It should.”
A knock sounded at the door.
I raised a brow. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No. You?”
I shook my head, my pulse picking up as I wondered if Ronan had come back. “Who is it?”
The knocking stopped. A moment later, the entire door smashed inward and crumpled to the floor. Sage screamed. I scrambled off the sofa as a massive man appeared in the doorway. Debris crunched beneath his boots as two other men followed him in.
I exchanged a wide-eyed look with Sage. “Run!”
I took off for my bedroom, which was directly behind the living room, and she raced right, toward the bathroom. I slammed the door and stumbled to the window, but I’d forgotten it didn’t have an emergency exit and there was nowhere I could go, short of falling to the concrete. I lunged for the closet, but before I could reach it, an arm encircled my waist and yanked me into a bruising embrace.
“Let me go!” I yelled, lashing out ineffectually with the back of an elbow.
The man grunted. I flailed, trying to kick him in the knee, but I couldn’t reach it from my angle. I heard a shriek and a curse and hoped Sage was having more luck than me.
The brute hauled me into the living room and tossed me on the sofa. I straightened, mouth open to speak, and he backhanded me across the face. Pain blossomed on my cheek.
I touched the hot skin with the tip of a finger, hardly able to believe he’d hit me. Fear churned in my gut.
These men had burst into our apartment and attacked us. They were masked. They acted like they had no problem hurting people. But I had no idea why they were here, who they were, or what they wanted.
I didn’t wait to find out.
I sucked in a lungful of air and screamed, hoping to alert the neighbors. The brute who’d backhanded me clapped a hand to my mouth and pressed. Hard. I whimpered into his palm. He leaned close, his eyes alive with excitement. He enjoyed this.
“Don’t make another sound or I’ll cut your pretty tongue out.” His breath was warm and fetid. Near the bookshelves, the third man, who’d stayed out of the fray, snorted in amusement. If I had to guess, I’d assume he was the leader.
There was another curse from the other room, and I looked over in time to see a second man, short and stocky, enter with Sage tossed over his shoulder. He dropped her to the floor, then bent and secured her wrists with flexicuffs. That done, he headed toward me, shouldering Brute out of the way.
“Wrists together,” he ordered.
I didn’t comply.
Shorty extracted a knife from his pocket and flipped the blade out. “Now,” he snarled.
With a gulp, I did as he said, even though it seemed like the worst possible move. I had no self-defense training, so what other options did I have? I couldn’t take on three grown men, and Sage didn’t look like she’d be much help. She was rocking back and forth, her expression blank.
“What do you want?” I demanded as he pulled the plastic uncomfortably tight.
The leader stepped away from the bookshelf, where he’d been examining our reading choices, and cocked his head. His impassive face was somehow more terrifying than his companion’s excitement.
“Your brother owes our boss money.” His rough voice grated on my nerves. He sauntered forward, cast a look at Sage, and returned his attention to me. “He needs motivation to pay.”
Slap!
His palm cracked across my face. Warmth spilled down the side of my eye. His bulky ring had cut my skin. Blood trickled in a slow but steady stream, and my head spun. I didn’t do well with blood.
Oh God. We were in trouble.
“Leave her alone,” Sage cried.
She crawled over to me and started to raise her hands as if to touch my face, but then remembered they were cuffed. Something flashed, and we both looked up. Brute held a phone aimed at us. He snapped a second photograph.
“Do you think that’s enough?” he asked the leader.
Leader considered us for a moment. “Trash the place,” he said. “Make sure to get another photo on your way out.” He stalked to the exit, only glancing over his shoulder for long enough to wink. “Play nice, girls. And, Willow?” A shiver crawled over me at his use of my name. “No cops, or Tom takes a long dive from a high building. We can make it happen. Capiche?”
“Yes,” I whispered, wondering who on earth my foolish brother had gotten involved with.
To Brute, he added, “Hands off the blonde, but anything goes with the brunette.”
Sage paled.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” I promised.
Her frightened look told me she knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep. Shorty shoved the bookshelf over and upended the coffee table.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to make myself small. Questions ran endlessly through my mind. I felt sick. Who did Tom owe? And how much? People didn’t destroy apartments and assault women for small sums of cash. A sinking sensation told me he was in well over his head.
Brute advanced on Sage, licking his lips. She pressed herself into the base of the sofa as though wishing she could vanish. I forced myself to move despite the pain that licked along my nerves, sheltering her with my body. For some reason, this guy had been ordered not to hurt me, and I wouldn’t let him get to Sage without defying that order.
“Out of the way.” He nudged me with his foot.
“No.” I curled protectively around my best friend.
He leaned down and sneered nastily. “I said move, bitch.”
I stayed where I was. Shorty strode into my bedroom, and I heard something crash. Brute glanced at the door, then grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to lift me from Sage. I clung to her with every bit of strength I had.
“Hey, fuckwit,” Shorty said a moment later. “Hands off the blonde, remember?”
He scowled. “It’s not her I want.”
“Come on.” Shorty nodded at the exit. “We need to leave. Someone might have called the cops.”
“But—”
“Forget about her.”
Brute grunted in disappointment but straightened and lumbered away.
Beneath me, Sage’s limbs loosened with relief. I waited until I was certain they’d both left before scrambling off her.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry. They didn’t hurt me.” She studied my face. “You’re not bleeding much, but you should get the cut taped shut.”
I shook my head. “If we go to the hospital, they’ll ask what happened.”
“And?” She widened her eyes. “If we don’t, you could be scarred.”
“Not a big deal.” A scar might make men like Petrov less interested in me.
“What about the police?” she asked.
The only reason they hadn’t arrived already was because our neighbor across the hall worked night shifts and the one to our left was on vacation.
“You heard him,” I said. “If we call the police, they might do something to Tom.”
“Willow.” She sounded exasperated. “Tom can take care of himself. He’s the one who dragged us into this mess. We need to look out for ourselves. Do you think, if the situations were reversed, he’d hesitate?”
I paused, considering her words. My brother was all the family I had left. He wasn’t perfect, but no one was. Surely I should at least give him a warning first.
“I’ll call him.” I realized that my hands were still bound. I headed for the kitchen drawer and managed to open it and grip the handle of a pair of scissors. There was no way I could cut my own binds, so I made my way back to Sage. “Hold your hands out.”
She cringed. “Please don’t stab me.”
I bit the tip of my tongue as I concentrated on lining the blade up with the indentation between her wrists. Then I held my breath and snipped. Her hands came free.
“Phew!”
She took the scissors from me and cut the band off my wrists. “There you go.”
I winced as circulation returned to my fingers. I hadn’t even realized it had been blocked.
I rubbed them, then turned on my phone. It buzzed with messages from Tom—all of them angry. I tapped one and hit Call Back then held it to my ear. It rang and rang, but he didn’t answer.
I tried again. Damn, he must have been ignoring my calls because I’d ignored his, but now wasn’t the time for stupid games.
I sent him a text message.
Willow: Call me ASAP. It’s urgent.
We waited. Minutes passed with no reply, and my chest began to ache. Tears of frustration pricked my eyes.
“We have to tell someone,” Sage said gently. “Even if it’s just for the insurance. The door will need replacing, and the landlord is going to be upset. Not to mention, that guy was going to…” She trailed off, but my mind filled in the blank. She had every right to be angry and scared. She’d been threatened with far worse than I had.
“Can we give Tom until tomorrow to get back to us?” I asked. “He might have turned off his phone, and he’ll probably hit the bars after the dance is finished. We can try him again in the morning and if he doesn’t answer, I’ll pay him a visit. He’s probably ignoring me because he’s angry, but what if he’s not? What if they have him?”
I was asking for a lot, and we both knew it. Strange men had kicked down our door and terrorized us. Waiting to report the incident until tomorrow might not look great when the police asked why we hadn’t called immediately. But Sage was my best friend, and she was strong. She’d endured a lot in the past, and I was hoping she could hold out for a while longer now. I’d do nearly anything for her, and I was counting on the fact she felt the same.
“Fine.” She sighed. “But if we haven’t heard from him by lunch, I’m calling the cops. What happened isn’t okay.”
I hugged her. “Thank you. I’m sorry about this.”
She touched my forehead and tutted, not acknowledging my words. “If you won’t see a doctor, then at least let me patch you up.”
She moved around things strewn across the floor as she went to the bathroom, returning with a first-aid kit and a cloth. She set them down, took her phone from her pocket, and snapped a few photos of my face.
“For the police,” she explained.
I nodded, mentally kicking myself because I should have thought of that. She knelt in front of me and, with soft strokes, cleaned the blood from my face. My cheek throbbed when she touched it, and from how hot the skin was, it must have started to swell.
“You’re going to look terrible tomorrow.”
“At least it’s the weekend.” Not that I’d be staying here. The apartment no longer felt safe. A sense of menace lingered. I was getting out at first light. Sage finished with the cloth and spread salve on my skin. Probably one of her home remedies. Last, she used a bandage to close the small cut above my brow.
“We can’t stay here,” I said as she tucked things back into the first-aid kit.
“We shouldn’t leave when we can’t lock the door to keep our things safe,” she countered.
“No one is going to come down this end of the hall unless they’re visiting us,” I reminded her. “And nobody would visit this late at night.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I’ll say an incantation to ward off intruders and dispel the negative energy, then we can go.”
“Sure.”
If that was what she needed to feel comfortable, I wouldn’t argue. Instead, I packed a few things in an overnight bag while she wandered around the apartment with incense. She left crystals at each of the windows and the door. When she completed her ritual, we took a cab to the nearest hotel and huddled together on the bed.
Neither of us slept.