Chapter Twenty Two
Willow
She’s afraid she’s going to die.
Her chest is squeezed so tight, her breath is so shallow, she feels like her heart is going to explode, leaving her strewn across this anonymous hotel room in a city she doesn’t even like. This is going to be her end.
Willow tries to take deep breaths, to soothe the tightness restricting her air. She never should have let that lady take Frank. She should go. Run, find Frank and leave, disappear into another dirty, anonymous city. She’s managed to hide from Carlo this long. The only reason he’s on his way here now is because she willingly turned herself in to him. She must be stupid. He’s going to kill her.
She almost leaves her skin when Liam rubs his hand across her shoulders. Liam is the reason she’s here. For a moment, she almost hates him. Hates that she let him talk her into sitting in this room and waiting for her death to come to her. She shrugs off his hand and sits back into the corner chair, trying to school her breathing into short, even puffs.
Peters is still there, calling Liam over to have a quick talk before clapping him on the back and leaving the room. She hears a loud rap on the wall next to her. Liam knocks back, once, then twice. Then, it’s just her and Liam, sitting in this beige room, waiting for a killer.
She can tell Liam wants to talk to her, to reassure her that everything is fine and will be over soon but she doesn’t want to hear him right now. All his words will fall hollow on her ears. Her vision is tightening down, the room is zooming into a narrow focus as she waits for the hammer to fall.
Liam is on the end of the bed, watching her carefully. She thinks he’s saying something. His lips are moving but she doesn’t hear any of the words he’s making. Then, she sees him punching at his phone, his mouth talking into the black screen. Then he’s above her, shaking her shoulders.
“Willow, Willow.” His voice is urgent and deep. She can hear fear.
“Willow,” he says again, “they’re here. Carlo is here. Stay here, don’t move from this chair, stay behind me. Willow, do you hear me?”
A knock splits the room. Liam pushes her back into the chair. She watches, her head feeling like it’s underwater, as he crosses the room and peers through a crack in the curtain.
“Just Carlo and Tony,” she hears him mutter. She wonders why he’s telling her this then realizes it’s for the wires, for the police in the other room. Liam pulls open the door and backs across the room, putting himself between her and the people at the door. Stupid, brave man.
Carlo steps into the room.
He brings the smell of expensive cologne and cigars and cheap women in with him. He’s still bald, still wearing a gold pinky ring, still dressed in a silk bespoke suit. Nothing has changed about him. His voice is still gravelly and his eyes are still cold. His smile still like a snake.
And it’s this snake smile he trains on Willow.
“Whispering Willow,” his abrasive voice scratches at her ears. “How nice to see you. Been a long time, baby!”
Willow is frozen. Terror seeps through every pore, freezing her.
Carlo slips his hands into his pants pockets. He always liked to appear casual. Nonchalant power, he called it. He strolled around the small room before stopping in front of Liam. “Liam, boy. Good to have you back on the payroll, kid.” He gave a hearty laugh and punched Liam in the shoulder.
Willow wonders briefly when the police are going to bust in. Now would be nice.
Carlo looks around the room and a look of fake dismay crosses his face. “Now, where’s my kid, Willow? And, what is it anyhow? I need to know what kind of cigars to give the guys to celebrate.”
Willow makes a choked squeal. Not Frank. No. Frank isn’t here, she remembers. He’s safe.
Carlo turns on Liam. “Where is my kid?”
Liam clears his throat. “With a friend. She’ll bring him later. I didn’t think he…needed to be here…for this…”
“He? It’s a boy!” Carlo spins to face Tony, who’s been silent near the door this whole time. “You hear that, Peters? It’s a boy!”
Tony gives Liam a keen look, understanding dawning on his face as he connects the dots.
Carlo reaches deep into his coat pocket and pulls out a gun. The overhead lights glint off the shiny barrel, the smell of fresh oil wafts faintly across the room. Carlo thumbs off the safety and rocks back the slide, the click of the bullet sliding into the chamber ricocheting across the room.
“Aw, you’re probably right there, Liam. Nothing will fuck up a kid more than watching his mom bite it. And I got money but I don’t really want to be on the hook for those therapy bills, you know what I mean?” Carlo chortles.
“Okay, now…out of the way.” Carlo waves the gun in Liam’s direction. “I’ve been waiting years for this bitch.” His genial laughter is gone, replaced with deadly intent.
“You’re not going to do it here, are you?” Liam questions incredulously.
“Why not? I got you and Tony here to clean up my mess. Move.”
“Someone will hear, you can’t…”
“Right.” Carlo smacks himself lightly on the forehead with the hand holding the gun, like he’d forgotten to close the garage door when he left home. “Tony.” He holds out his hand, snapping his fingers at Tony until the other man deposits a shiny silver silencer into Carlo’s hand. Carlo grins as he spins the cylinder into place on the end of the gun.
“There’s that taken care of. Now, out of the way. This bitch is dead. Run off with my with kid. The fuck? I said move,” Carlo bellows at Liam.
The door splinters open, sending Tony flying across the room. When Carlo spins toward the noise, Liam sweeps at the back of his leg, buckling the man over. Liam grabs him around the neck and tries to wrestle him to floor.
The room is so loud now, Peters is shouting and police are pouring through the door. Tony is one the floor, arms jacked up behind him, cuffs clicking into place as an officer yells into his ear for him to stay still.
Liam’s trying to wrestle Carlo to the ground. The light reflecting off the silencer flashes in Willow’s eyes. She blinks, the scene suddenly coming into sharp relief around her. She watches in stunned silence for a minute, until she hears Liam grunt when one of Carlo’s elbows find a place in his ribs.
Willow launches herself off the chair and lands on Carlo’s back, sinking her teeth into his ear. He bellows and tries to shake her off. Willow bites harder and something coppery oozes across her teeth. Carlo’s bellow becomes a scream. Willow feels something come lose in her mouth, something rubbery and crunchy and salty warm. She spits and the tip of Carlo’s ear lands on the floor. Carlo sways under her and she let’s go of him just before he slides to floor and lands on his face with a thud. Carlo fainted.
Liam is staring at Willow. She looks at him and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. It comes away red.
“What?”
Liam shakes his head pulls her into his arms. Willow watches as police officers pull Carlo up and lock his arms behind him. His eyes flutter open and he peers up at Willow blearily. She grins at him, she can still taste the tang of his blood in her teeth.
“Bitch,” he slurs at her “you’re fucking dead, you hear me. You and him. And the kid, too.” Peters clips him across the temple and he slumps back into unconsciousness. Two officers haul him out of the room and down the stairs.
Willow shakes her head, taking in the room around her. The place is destroyed, chairs and tables knocked over, Carlo’s gun glinting at them from the floor and spatters of his blood staining the carpet. Willow doesn’t care anymore. She turns her face into Liam’s chest and cries silently.
She feels a soft touch on her back but doesn’t look up.
“Let’s get you folks down to the station. Get your boy back. And talk about where you’re going after this.”
Willow doesn’t say anything as Liam leads her out of the room and down to the waiting police car.
Epilogue
Somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains
Willow is peering through the kitchen window as Liam chases Frank through the bright green grass surround their cabin. She grins at their antics and turns to pull a blueberry pie of the oven. Liam and Frank found the blueberries on a walk yesterday and they were plump and juicy and begging to baked into a pie. She places it on the table to cool and wanders out onto the porch that surrounds their homey little cabin. Willow pulls in a deep breath of fresh mountain air, loving the tingling in her chest.
“Mommy, mommy. I found a bug.” Frank yells at her. He’s stopped his game of tag and is bent over a small bush in the corner of their yard, poking at the yellow flowers that bloom profusely over the bush.
“Eww,” she laughs back at him.
Liam grins at them both and heads over to the garden, checking on the dampness of the earth and pinching at a few brown leaves. Then, he turns and studies the road leading up to their mountain home, looking for cars he doesn’t recognize. When he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary, he turns back to the garden.
Willow couldn’t imagine a more perfect life if she tried.
After the police had taken them to the station, they’d made immediate arrangements for Willow, Liam and Frank to be placed into the Witness Protection Program. They gave them new identities and moved them away to a small town Liam remembered from his wanderings around the country after his prison stint. It was a sweet little town, nestled into a valley in the center of the mountains and protected from the outside world by a single road in and protective population. Willow had never felt safer. It was good place for Frank to grow up. Willow rubs her hands over the belly that’s just beginning to burgeon underneath her clothes. It would be a good place for her little girl to grow up, too.
At first, she was scared here. She remembered Carlo’s shouted threats as the police dragged him away. She was sure he was going find them again and kill them all. She spent her nights wandering the house, making sure all the windows were shut tight and the locks were engaged. Then, she and Liam followed the televised trail with interest. Carlo’s entire empire was dismantled and his security and compatriots turned on him and each other to keep themselves out of trouble. The trial lasted months, with Carlo eventually being found guilty of over one hundred and fifty different charges from extortion to murder. Willow finally lost her fear when he was given the death sentence.
As for Harriet, she was put in the joint for a long time. Even with her new name, she couldn’t help but get into trouble. She mixed with the wrong man, but instead of her turning him into the police, he caught up with her and did the honor of turning her in. It was poetic justice and enough for Liam to let sleeping dogs lie, especially when he received the divorce papers and was officially not married to her anymore
That’s when she knew her life with Liam and Frank could finally start. That’s when she started sleeping with the windows open and Liam stopped searching the roads and the woods for threats.
Frank, luckily doesn’t seem to remember much about what went on. He doesn’t talk about their time in California or ask about the apartment or the library. Willow hopes that his memories of their time there has been wiped out by the move to here. Sometimes, she catches him with a thoughtful look on his face and when she asks him what he’s thinking he’ll look at her strangely before giving her one of his bright Frank grins and saying “Just pie. The cherry kind.”
She calls Liam and Frank inside for dinner. She gets to cook dinner every night now and has been testing recipes on Liam that she’s planning to serve in her new café when it opens up in town. He loves her blueberry scones but didn’t think much of her zucchini muffins. Meatloaf sandwiches are going to be their specialty. She’s also found the perfect striped curtains for the windows.
Liam and Frank clatter up the wooden steps to the porch, bringing the smell of dirt and grass and happiness with them. Liam proudly shows off a tiny green worm he found clinging to the side of a flower and Liam hugs her from behind, his hands sliding around to cup protectively at her belly. Frank is very excited about becoming a big brother. Or a “bug” brother as he calls himself. He chatters incessantly about his little sister and about all the bugs he’s going to teach her about. He wants to name her Lady, after the ladybug, of course. Liam has told him they’ll consider it. Willow just rolls her eyes.
They live quietly and occasionally her grandparents come to visit. They’re even discussing being part of their grandchild’s life and maybe move to the mountains themselves.
Sometimes Willow catches Liam drifting off to another time. His eyes glaze over and she knows he’s thinking about prison and the things he did there. Sometimes she knows he’s thinking about Harriet. They found out from Peters not long after they moved here that Harriet was dead. Carlo was involved and her body had never been found so they weren’t able to charge him but they knew she was gone. Liam had been silent for a few days after they found out but later came to Willow and told her he was okay with it. That Harriet was the reason he’d gone to prison and gotten mixed up with Carlo in the first place. He wasn’t sad about it. Willow let him have it.
Willow often walks around their home, touching the small things she’s collected and that Frank has brought back from his and Liam’s walks in the woods. She’s made a real home here, with photographs and throw pillows and furniture that hasn’t been sat on by dozens of other people before it was hers. Frank has a stack of toys in the corner of his room and an open yard that Willow allows him to have free reign in. And Liam, to Willow’s surprise, has an amazingly green thumb. He tends the flowers and trees in their yard and his vegetable garden gives abundant and huge vegetables. Willow has plans to use his tomatoes in a soup for the café.
And at night, after they’ve put Frank to bed, Liam and Willow cross the hall to their own bedroom. As the cool mountain air pours in through the open window, Liam warms Willow’s skin with his tongue and his fingers and then he moves deep inside her and warms her down to her core. Then, he rubs at her growing belly and laughingly calls her Mrs. Johnson. And then she calls him Old Man Johnson and they drift off to sleep with the scent of mountain honeysuckle wafting in through the window.
They’ve become a real family, the three of them. Soon to be four. Willow can hardly believe it sometimes. She can’t imagine why she ever thought being a famous singer was a life she wanted. This is the life she wants. With her husband and her kids and her home and her little café. It may seem small to some people but Willow is happy with small.