Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF PROTECTION
By the time Willa returned to the penthouse, the sky over Manhattan had turned the dull purple of late winter evening.
She walked in smelling of smoke.
Atlas smelled it before anyone else did.
The mastiff tried to rise, failed, and let out a sound that made every man in the room reach for something useless.
Willa dropped beside him.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “I know. I smell terrible.”
Atlas pushed his huge head into her lap with surprising force. She winced but did not move away. His body trembled, whether from weakness or distress she could not tell.
Jared stood across the room.
He took in her wet shoes, blackened sleeves, ash beneath her fingernails, the swollen redness around her eyes. His face revealed almost nothing.
That made it worse.
Men like Brendan made messes with their anger. Men like Jared turned anger into architecture.
“Did you see him?” Jared asked.
Willa looked up.
Miles answered before she could. “Yes.”
Jared’s gaze moved to him.
“He admitted nothing,” Miles added. “But he wanted us to know.”
Something cold entered the room.
Willa stroked Atlas’s head. “No.”
Jared’s eyes returned to her.
“No what?”
“No disappearing Brendan. No making him vanish. No breaking his legs. No poetic mafia lesson in a basement.”
Miles looked mildly disappointed.
Jared did not.
“You assume too much about my methods.”
“Do I?”
“No,” Miles muttered.
Jared shot him a look.
Willa almost laughed, which was absurd given the state of her life.
Then she remembered her apartment and the burned drawer, and the laugh died before it reached her throat.
“I mean it,” she said. “If you hurt him, he becomes the victim. If he becomes the victim, I become the unstable ex who ran to dangerous people. He knows that. That’s why he showed up.”
Jared studied her.
“He has done this before.”
It was not a question.
Willa kept her hand moving over Atlas’s head.
“He’s good at making bruises look like accidents and fear look like drama. He never hits where strangers can see at first. He doesn’t start by locking doors. He starts by remembering your coffee order. Fixing your sink. Walking you home. Telling you other people don’t understand how special you are.”
Her voice stayed steady, but every word cost something.
“Then one day you realize he knows all your passwords, your landlord thinks he’s charming, your friends stopped calling because he answered your phone too many times, and the door isn’t locked because it doesn’t have to be. You already believe leaving will destroy everything.”
Jared’s face had gone still in a way that felt less like indifference and more like containment.
“And did it?” he asked.
“Did what?”
“Destroy everything.”
Willa looked around the penthouse. At the guards. The windows. The dog who was alive because she had gone with strangers in the middle of the night.
“My life is ash in a third-floor apartment in Brooklyn,” she said. “So maybe.”
Atlas whined.
Willa softened instantly. “Not you. You’re not ash.”
Jared turned away.
“Stay here tonight.”
“No.”
“There are guest rooms.”
“I know what rooms become when powerful men decide women are safer inside them.”
Jared looked back sharply.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then he said, “You can choose the room. You can keep your phone. You can lock the door from inside. Miles will take you anywhere you ask. Nora can come here if that makes you feel safer.”
Willa blinked.
He knew Nora’s name.
Of course he did.
But the offer itself unsettled her more than the knowledge.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because Brendan burned your apartment.”
“No. Why are you trying so hard to sound reasonable?”
Something almost like pain crossed his face.
“Because my dog growls when I don’t.”
Willa looked down.
Atlas’s eyes were half closed, but his ears were tilted toward Jared.
“Smart dog,” she murmured.
Jared exhaled through his nose.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen and his expression turned to stone.
Miles noticed. “Who?”
“Councilman Rusk.”
Miles’s face darkened.
Jared answered and walked toward the windows.
Willa caught only fragments.
“No.”
Pause.
“I don’t care what you heard.”
Pause.
“She is not a bargaining chip.”
Willa’s hand stilled.
Jared’s voice dropped lower.
“If anyone comes near her, they answer to me.”
He ended the call.
The penthouse felt suddenly smaller.
Willa stood. “What was that?”
“Nothing you need to worry about tonight.”
Wrong answer.
Her laugh came sharp. “You really can’t help yourself.”
Jared rubbed one hand over his mouth, the first tired gesture she had seen from him.
“Your name moved fast after the lobby.”
“My name?”
“Brendan spoke to someone. That someone spoke to someone else. There are men who dislike me enough to become curious about the woman my dog chose.”
“I’m not your woman.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“But they think I am.”
Jared said nothing.
Willa’s stomach dropped.
“That’s why you want me to stay.”
“I want you to stay because your apartment is gone and your ex is unstable.”
“And because your enemies think I matter.”
“You do matter.”
The words landed too quickly.
Too heavily.
Willa stared at him.
Jared looked as if he regretted saying it, but not because it was untrue.
She folded her arms. “I matter to Atlas.”
“Yes.”
“And to you?”
The room seemed to hold still.
Miles suddenly found great interest in the far wall.
Jared’s eyes did not move from Willa’s.
“You made him look up,” he said. “That is not a small thing in this house.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
Willa looked away first.
She hated that something in her chest warmed at that. Hated it because warmth near danger was how traps began.
A guard entered and murmured something to Miles.
Miles swore under his breath.
Jared turned. “Now what?”
“Package downstairs. Addressed to Miss Thornton.”
Willa’s mouth went dry.
Jared’s eyes darkened. “Bring it up.”
“No,” Willa said. “Don’t—”
But the order had already moved.
Ten minutes later, a small cardboard box sat on the kitchen island.
No return address.
Willa recognized the handwriting.
Brendan had written her grocery lists in that hand. Apologies. Birthday cards. Notes taped to the mirror after nights he called misunderstandings.
Jared reached for the box.
Willa caught his wrist.
He froze, staring at her hand on his skin.
“I open it,” she said.
“It could be dangerous.”
“It’s addressed to me.”
“Willa—”
“I open it.”
His jaw tightened, but he stepped back.
Miles handed her gloves. This time, she took them.
Inside the box was a dog collar.
Old leather. Smoke-stained. Cut nearly in half.
A brass nameplate hung from it.
ATLAS.
Willa heard Jared stop breathing.
Miles whispered, “That collar was buried with Lucia’s things.”
Jared’s face went white with rage.
Not red. White.
Willa looked at the collar, then at Atlas.
The dog had lifted his head.
His eyes fixed on the object in her hands.
Then he began to shake.
“No,” Willa whispered.
Atlas tried to stand.
His paws slipped. His body convulsed with panic. A hoarse bark tore from him, followed by a growl so broken it sounded like grief given teeth.
Jared moved forward.
Atlas snarled at him.
Willa threw the collar into a drawer and slammed it shut.
“Out!” she shouted. “Everyone out!”
No one moved.
She turned on Jared.
“Out, or you lose him.”
Jared looked at Atlas.
Then he walked out.
One by one, the others followed.
Willa closed the door and crawled back to the dog.
Atlas was panting hard, eyes wild, caught again in fire and smoke and the person he could not save.
Willa pressed her forehead to the rug near his paw.
“Safe,” she whispered. “Safe. Safe. Safe.”
It took nearly thirty minutes for his breathing to slow.
When the doors opened again, Jared stood outside alone.
His voice was soft.
“That collar was in a locked room only six people could access.”
Willa looked up from the floor.
“Then Brendan didn’t do this alone.”
“No.”
May you like
Jared’s face had become something merciless.
“Someone in my house gave your monster a key to mine.”
