Page 20

Willa

A gatha’s farm looks peaceful. Bracketed by a cloudless blue sky and rolling fields of hay on either side, the little white farmhouse and grayed cedar barn are picturesque. The country air is fresh, scented with clover, and other grasses. I haven’t lived in Seattle in almost a year, and when I was living there, I never noticed how loud the city was. Hart’s a city too, but a small one. Leaving Seattle to come out here just an hour ago only emphasizes the quiet. The only sounds disturbing the nothingness are melodious birdsong and the rustle of the wind.

As soon as we pulled up, Atlas got out of the truck and opened my door for me, even though I was the one driving. He took my hand like I needed helping out. I didn’t, but I still left mine there in his. He brushes a kiss over my knuckles. His smile is small, but it’s there. I’m so absurdly thankful to see it.

I sweep my eyes over the yard. “Should we check the cameras in the barn first? Or that pole? The house?”

“Probably the house. If she’s having issue with the power pole, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do other than to call and make sure someone gets out here sooner rather than later.”

“Do you think she heard us pull up? We probably don’t want to sneak up on her.” I drop my voice, winking at him. It’s probably not funny that the stashing of lethal and bizarre weapons like grenades is becoming an inside joke.

“Because she has explosives?”

My heart swells so big that it’s pretty much an explosive, all because Atlas grazes his lips over my forehead.

“Something like that, yes.”

“I’m sure she heard us pull up.” He glances up at the sun, shimmering brightly in the sky with no cloud cover to buffer it. “It’s hot out.” He starts off toward the house and I fall into stride easily with him because he slows his pace for me. “If they don’t get the power on soon, everything in the fridge and freezer will spoil. Senior citizens lived on a fixed income. How can any company let that happen?”

This is the reason I fell in love with him. This is the reason I fall more in love every day. Most people wouldn’t even think about something like that.

By the time we reach the porch, I have my phone in my hand. I guess I’m planning on calling that company to rip them a new one, but I have no idea who should get the ripping. I’ll have to get that information from Agatha.

I’ve never had a grandma. I’m pretty much vibrating, but it’s not just to give out a verbal tongue lashing to some power company. It’s excitement too.

I should have come earlier. Who cares about the drive? I should be making it every few days. I’m pretty much drowning in guilt when the front door opens. Agatha steps out and thankfully it’s just her in a floral dress with a pleated skirt and a belt that’s cinched at her trim waist. Just her as in, she’s not toting out any firearms or bombs. She’s not wearing her usual orthopedic shoes, but a pair of old hiking boots.

“Agatha!” I pick up on a slight tremble that shudders through her when I race across the yard, leap up the steps, and hug her. It’s probably stress from the whole power situation. “I’m so sorry about all this crap. I pat her shoulder. “Just let me know who I need to call, and we’ll call and call and call , until someone gets their buns out here to fix this for you.”

“Oh, it’s uh…” Her eyes flick to the barn, over to the pole on the far end of the yard, and then to the truck. They linger there, almost longingly. “I can’t remember. Come inside and I’ll get a bill with the company’s name.”

“Okay. We could go for a ride if you want to cool down. I have great AC in there.”

Agatha laughs, but there’s something wrong with the sound. More nerves? Stress? I’ve seen her when she was pretty much trussed and carted off and she wasn’t nervy like that. She was tough and fire breathing throughout it all.

“Maybe in a bit,” she says. I pick up on a sad undertone. Is something else wrong?

I share a quick look with Atlas. He’s standing right behind me on the steps, but he just gives me a one shoulder subtle shrug, as if to say, let’s sit her down and figure this out and she’ll perk right up in no time.

Agatha turns her head and her eyes linger on my face for just a second before she opens the door, but it still sends a weird shiver down my back. I don’t know if Atlas is getting weirded out too, but he strides past me and steps in front of me so fast that I can’t stop him. He’s already through the door before I even have a foot inside.

Even if we’d walked through together, I don’t know that I could have done anything to stop what happens.

A muffled cry from Agatha splits the quiet, as though she’s been roughly shoved aside. Something black wraps around Atlas’ shoulder and he’s twisted around and slammed into the wall, a gun at his temple. I see it all happen as I walk into the house behind him.

My heart slams into my throat and a frigid blast of panic freezes me. The man standing behind Atlas is middle aged, tall and wiry. Physically, he wouldn’t be a match for Atlas in any way, but he had the element of surprise and now he has a loaded weapon pressed to the temple of the man I love.

Unbelievable rage blares into my bloodstream like a horn going off right in my ear. I stand on the spot, panting like a trapped animal, growling low in my throat like one too.

Whoever this prick is, he’s dressed all in black. From what I can see under the ball cap, he’s neatly groomed. Dark hair, dark eyes, average features. He looks so much the same as anyone else. Why the fuck is he doing this?

The money.

That chest.

That’s the only explanation I can think of. What if there was more than one person involved? The club gave the money to who they thought was the rightful owner, but what if that woman just got to the chest first? What if she had partners that she cheated, skipping out on them with the whole fucking thing? What if someone else knew about the money after she left and came back because they thought there was something more to be found? What if none of that is true and this has nothing to do with the chest?

I can’t actually truck with that idea at all. This guy was clearly hiding out in here. He was waiting for us. That means that he must have had this planned and he used Agatha as part of it. To what? Lure us here? Even badass old ladies can be terrified when some asshat creeps into their home with a loaded gun and tells them they had better cooperate or they’ll be a nasty picture with their brains splattered all over the wall for their loved ones to find.

Nausea and dread swirl in a toxic mix in my gut.

“Let’s go,” the guy demands, his voice deep, but scratchy. It doesn’t match his face. He digs the gun harder into Atlas’ temple. I can’t look away from that spot. I can’t move. My whole world is going to crash in and burn.

If this asshole made one wrong move, I know I’d try and wrestle that gun away from him and I wouldn’t be above shooting him somewhere that wouldn’t kill him, but would hurt a lot all the same. I’ve never had a violent fantasy in my life, but I’m fantasizing hard about it now. I want to scratch this fucker’s eyes out for daring to hurt people I care about.

“Now,” he commands. “Living room. Walk there real slow.” He whips his head around to Agatha. Only now can my eyes track to her face. She’s white and trembling. She won’t look up from the floor. “You too,” he tells her. “You go first and then you.”

You. He means me .

Despite how frightened and ill she looks, Agatha moves quickly. She scrambles past us. I can’t look at that gun for a second longer or I’m going to pass out. That would probably just piss this guy off.

I can’t give him a reason to hurt any one of us. I do what he told me to, though every step is biter and jarring. I’m afraid to look behind me, so I don’t. I just trail Agatha.

She sits down on the old floral couch. I hesitate, which causes the guy to bark orders. “Sit down beside her. Take out your phone slowly and throw it into the middle of the room.”

I basically fall down beside Agatha. She’s trembling. So am I. I don’t know if she’s shaking solely out of fear. I’m certainly not.

I chuck my phone and watch helplessly as the asshole forces Atlas into a wooden chair that’s out of place in here. It’s from the kitchen. He keeps the gun trained on the back of Atlas’ head while he cuffs his hands behind his back and then ties him with thin, tough looking rope.

Seeing it bite into Atlas’ bare arms is worse than being tied up myself.

“Phil, please!” Agatha begs.

Phil? This is Phil? As in… her son Phil?

He whips Atlas’ phone out and picks mine up. He pops out the SIM cards and breaks them in half, disposing of the batteries after. Once that’s done, he snaps his head up, face contorted with rage like this is inconvenient for him .

He points the gun directly at his mother with an expression so unhinged that I take her hand in mine and clench it tightly. She gasps loudly, but only whimpers when Phil directs his rage fest at me.

“I’m going to ask this once and once only before I start maiming him.” He whips the gun in Atlas’ direction. I still can’t look at him, but only because I’m afraid if I do, Phil will keep the gun trained on him, or use it. “Where is my money?”

“I- I- we gave it back to the rightful owner. She claimed it,” I stammer.

“I tried to tell you that,” Agatha whispers, clearly trying to not antagonize her son further. It doesn’t work. His lip curls up in a savage sneer.

“I hid that money. It was mine . We might have stolen it together, but she had no right to take it.”

“Who?” It’s probably not smart to ask questions, but I can’t think of anything to do other than to buy time. I don’t know if Wizard is tracking Atlas’ phone or not, but there was a signal when we got here and if we haven’t checked in with him, maybe he’ll get suspicious.

If he’s tracking Atlas’ phone.

If he even has time to get suspicious.

Those are big ifs, and then there’s the fact that we’re an hour away from Hart.

“My wife,” Phil snarls, forcing out the words like a glob of spittle.

“She has the money.” That only makes Phil’s face darken and I swallow thickly. “She’s clearly taken it and run. She could be anywhere by now. We don’t have anything more than that. I don’t… we don’t know anything else.”

Phil starts shaking his head. It creeps me right the fuck out when he doesn’t stop doing it. He keeps thrashing it from side to side so violently that his neck groans and creaks.

“No!” He shouts, slamming his way over to me. He picks me up by the front of my shirt and shakes me. Hard.

My teeth knock together and I’m so scared that I can’t move. I can’t kick him in the balls or try and get his gun from him like I should. My own body betrays me.

“You stupid cow. That was my money!”

I have no idea who Phil and his wife stole the money from, or how she was involved, but it’s clear from the haunted, crazed light in his eyes that someone expects to be paid, in part or in full, and if not, they’re going to exact some kind of retribution. He’s all hunted and not the hunter.

“I need to get that money,” he yells, beads of spittle landing all over my face. An angry vein throbs in his forehead.

“I’m s-sorry,” I stammer, turning my face to the side, my teeth clashing together. “I can’t help you. I don’t know where it is. We tried to do the right thing and give it back, no questions asked.”

“That’s what I told him,” Agatha whispers again. I turn my face just enough to see her bowed head, the frizzy white hair falling forward and sticking up at all angles. She looks emotionally beaten, a scared little old lady. The kick-ass grandma nowhere in sight.

A hot surge of grief and wrath shoot through me again, followed by a protective urge so strong that it knocks the breath from me.

I cautiously look at Atlas from under lowered lashes. How can blank his face like that and be so composed? He’s shutting down and not willing to give Phil anything. He very subtly shakes his head at me, warning me not to do anything crazy like try and defend myself and rescue us all.

Phil shakes me again, but my eyes stay on Atlas’ face the whole time. I watch the shadow flash there, a ghost of violence that he can’t contain. “Your club is complacent. Pathetic . Who gives back that kind of money with just a warning? If they had any sense, they’d be ruthless and exercise their right to it in order to preserve their own lives. Their goodness will be their downfall. Trying to play the hero only ever makes you one thing and it’s not noble.”

“Compassion isn’t stupid.”

Phil shoves me back onto the couch and points the gun directly at me. I’ve never gone so stiff or so cold that it happens on a cellular level.

His dark eyes scrape over me, his lips thinning out like his patience. “I don’t believe you. That’s too stupid.”

His hard stare never wavers, but neither does mine. I try to channel Atlas’ flat expression and his unassailable calm. “If you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll have to convince you.”

His hand whips out and cracks brutally against Agatha’s cheek.

“Oh my god!” I throw my arms around her, catching her as her neck snaps to the side and the force of the blow carries her into me. I cradle her face while her hand flies up to her cheek, a nasty red mark standing out livid against her thin, pale skin.

“Stop it!” I wheeze, shock and horror stealing my voice. “How could you do that to your own mother!”

“My mother loved this land more than she ever loved me,” Phil snarls. “And my stupid father. She loved him too. He was the only thing that ever truly mattered to her, and she won’t leave this house. This place is a mausoleum. It’s a shrine to him. No matter how much I begged her to see me, to love me…”

“So just because you have mama issues, you think you can steal a bunch of money, break the law, and come here and terrorize us?”

“No, you stupid whore. That money isn’t mine. I took it for safekeeping and now that there’s no keeping , no one is safe.”

“No one meaning you. They’re coming for you.”

“That’s right.” Phil starts pacing, but the gun remains trained on me. It was probably wise not to antagonize him. I need to keep my head. I can’t lose it like he’s losing control. “I need you to tell me where she went.”

“I don’t know. We don’t know anything ,” I insist. That’s not true, but if I tell him that the club put trackers in the money and they probably do know where his wife is, what will he do to us? The only thing I can think of is time.

We need it. We don’t have it.

Then there’s always the fact that if I tell him what he wants to know, Phil could do anything to us. We’d know more than he’d like. He wouldn’t let us just walk out of here, healthy and happy as we fucking please.

“I’ll tell you exactly what Agatha likely did. We put the club’s phone number in the chest. Your wife called it. She met with them outside of Hart. They gave her the money and advised her to disappear,” I explain patiently. “She didn’t seem to have a problem with that, and she wasn’t afraid to show her face. It didn’t seem suspicious. She knew all about it.” I inhale deeply, knowing full well that I’m going to incite Phil’s ire, but I want to draw his attention away from Agatha and Atlas. She’s old and brittle and he’s tied up . Maybe if Phil comes at me, I should try for his gun. It’s dangerous, but Bullet taught Lynette and I how to use one, and also gave us more than basic self-defense training. “Honestly, this seems more like a problem for you and your wife, rather than involving us.”

The red creeps up Phil’s neck in a matter of seconds. He’s livid to the point of spiraling . Over his shoulder, Atlas grows visibly more agitated. He shoves his arms up and down, trying to shimmy out of the ropes, but it’s going to be impossible for him to free himself from those cuffs.

“No!” Phil pretty much screams, leaning straight into my face. “This your problem. You and your stupid club. You’ll have to pay for giving my money away and for her duplicity.” He grasps my hair, wrenching a handful to the side so fast that pain explodes in my scalp and wrenches sickeningly in my neck. “How much are you worth to your stupid club, hmm?”

Phil tugs me straight off the couch using my hair. He winds it tighter around his fist, and it’s either fall into step with him or let him tear a bloody chunk out of the side of my head.

“You’re worth so much more alive, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun, hmm?” He sniffles, slurping snot back. I half expect him to spit it out on me, but he swallows it back. My gorge rises at the disgusting sound. He points at the wood stove in the corner of the room. There’s a pile of wood neatly stacked at the side. “Light it.”

My throat closes again as fear prickles over my skin, goosebumps cropping up on my arms. He wheels me to the stove and forces me down onto my knees. I reach for a piece of wood, open the glass door, and shove it in, even as I feel the barrel of the gun press into the back of my head.

I load it up, hoping to hell that it catches when I try and light it.

Light it. With what?

Phil answers that for me before I have to ask. He throws a lighter down onto the floor. I scoop it up, my hands trembling so violently that I have to try several times to get the wheel to turn. Eventually, it sparks and I stick my hand in the stove. The fire licks along the crisp woods, curling little hairs before it wraps around to the bark on the back side. I think I’ll have to do this for hours, but thankfully the bark catches, the flames spreading fast, crawling over the entire surface and spreading to the pieces I’ve stacked above and below.

“It’s nicely seasoned. Pine. It’ll burn hot.”

The heat hits me in the face. I get a terrible image of Phil shoving my head in there, or my hands, or pressing my face to the top or sides while it’s hot. Acid washes over the back of my tongue. I quickly shut the glass door and turn the handle as the flames rush up behind it.

“Phil, please stop this now. They don’t know anything, and they don’t have your money. This is only going to bring the wrath of the entire club down on your head.” Agatha is right behind me suddenly. She has her hand on Phil’s arm, pleading with him.