“Willow is down there. We have to help her.”
My stomach turns. I rise to my feet and pull Rose up, keeping her close to my side as I make my way down into the basement. I hear my brothers follow, their guns still ready for whatever we might face.
There’s a bare light in the basement. I can see Willow in the corner, tied to a chair. Connor walks around her and kneels to cut the rope holding her, his expression grim. Angry.
Willow is obviously drugged. She blinks, bleary and unfocused, and then her eyes land on me.
“Aiden? Connor. Rose? What?” She shakes her head, her eyes unable to lock on any of us. “Why? Why are you…all of you…”
“Willow? It’s me, Rose.” Rose kneels in front of her friend, carefully pulling at the rope. “Remember? We were both here. Dmitri tied us up down here.”
“You left. You left me.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Rose says quietly. “But I came back. We came back for you. Okay?”
I bite my tongue. Will she ever be fine? I know Dmitri wrecked her. I can’t see if she’ll ever be whole again, even a little. I don’t know.
“Willow, I need to tell you something,” I say.
Rose glances over her shoulder. There’s uncertainty in her eyes. I know she’s wondering if we should say anything, but I know it can’t wait. Willow needs to know now.
She blinks. Somehow, through the fog, she sees something in my eyes. I can tell she knows. She can see. Her lips part, but no words come out. Whatever she’s thinking doesn’t have enough energy or thought to come out.
I still have to say it. I have to tell her.
“He’s dead,” I say. I don’t sugarcoat it. She deserves more than that.
Willow swallows. I watch the pain flicker in her eyes, then the hate, then the sorrow. Maybe some part of her always clung to the ideal she had before she married Dmitri, the dream of a married life. Maybe she remembers the moments when he wasn’t her captor, her abuser. I don’t know.
Now, there are only a few silent tears. She’s too drugged and tired for more.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I can see her jaw tense. She rises from her chair and sways for a moment. Connor gently presses a hand to her elbow, supporting her.
Willow is quiet when she finally says, “Come with me.”
She turns to go up the stairs. We follow her out, Connor close at her side. Willow leads us through the halls until she reaches a back room, a library-like corner tucked away from the rest. She lowers herself onto her bruised knees slowly.
There’s a hidden safe at the bottom of the bookcase near the floor, behind a framed picture she pulls out and tosses aside.
She punches in the code, and the safe door swings open with a soft beep. Willow pulls out a stack of things—papers, files, a few USB drives. She deposits them on the chair beside her and slowly gets to her feet, her painful movements growing a little more steady.
“This is it,” she says.
Lachlan stares. “It’s—”
“All of it. His most private business information.”
Finn’s eyes widen. “You mean—?”
Willow lifts a USB and turns it in her fingers, holding it up to the light. Her face is drawn too thin and worn out, but she looks almost triumphant.
Or maybe it’s just relief etched in her features.
“Shady dealings,” she confirms. “All the proof of his plotting against the Assembly. The truth about how he killed your father.”
Willow turns the USB one more time before Connor gently stops her, his hand on hers. She looks up from the device and blinks, tears welling up again. She lets it go, and Connor takes it as she steps away.
Lachlan nods. “We have all we need, then.”
