The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(44)
“What about after?” said Scott.
“After what?”
“After your father is gone. After your trust fund is raided by the IRS. You don’t have an education. You don’t have any skills. What are you going to do with yourself once we’re gone and you’re all alone?”
“I....” She didn’t know what to say. The IRS would take her trust fund? But she supposed that if all his money came from illegal things, of course Uncle Sam would want their cut. It was only fair. “I don’t want the money,” she said weakly. It was true. She didn’t want it. But she also didn’t know what she’d do without it. Her trust fund was who she was. She’d quit every single thing she’d started, and now she had nothing left except for dirty money. “I can’t let people keep getting hurt so I can have a river view.”
“Let us handle it,” said Toni. “We’ll take care of Sterling. Once we get him, the house of cards will tumble and Jadon will get caught in the rubble.”
“If not, we’ll come back,” said Hart. “You have my word.”
“Your word,” she repeated, but it didn’t sound any better coming out of her mouth. After all the stress, all the fear, all the worry and they were going to leave? Willa fell back, shaking her head. “I need to get some air.” She kept walking backward until she cleared the living room and turned, headed for the elevator.
She reached the elevator and hit the down arrow when she heard her name. “Willa....”
“Not now, James.” She didn’t want to talk to him. She already knew what he was going to say. He was going to speak to her in that calm, cool, and collected way that she had grown to depend on. He was going to tell her how he didn’t want to put her at risk and then make the same promises that Scott had. And she didn’t want logic right now. She wanted to be angry. She wanted her father to pay for what he’d done. And she really wished she hadn’t hesitated to say all that when the possibility of her going broke had been brought up.
The elevator opened and she stepped inside. “I’ll talk to you later, James.”
But he walked into the elevator with her. She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him out, but it was like pushing a brick wall as he kept on coming in until the doors had plenty of clearance to close, locking the two of them in the elevator. “You’re pushing me out?”
She wasn’t sure whether he meant literally or metaphorically, but it didn’t matter. She started to tell him what she thought and then she remembered that Toni hadn’t done anything with any bugs in the elevator. So Jadon could be watching her right now. Considering she might have to play the dutiful daughter for months now, she couldn’t risk him thinking that she and James were doing anything, so she had to bite the inside of her cheek to avoid saying anything. She felt the tears well up behind her eyes and tried to blink them away. Of course she’d cry. Wasn’t that just icing on the cake?
She bet Toni didn’t cry whenever things didn’t go right. Jennifer was too cool to ever break down like this. But Willa, the poor little rich girl, couldn’t hold it together for even a few minutes.
The elevator hit the lobby and Willa bolted. She didn’t hear James following, but she knew he was close by. That knowledge was comforting on one hand and so frustrating on the other. Once she was outside, she couldn’t hold back the frustration. “If you’re going to leave, just leave. Go after Sterling. He’s the one you want, right?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said James.
“Yes you are. I know you’re just like the rest of them. You’re there because of their mother, Isobel. Which is good. It’s noble. If you were doing this for money or guns or anything stupid, it would be so easy to hate you. But now you’re just being the noble white knight.”
“No. I’m not like the rest of them. When I say I’m not leaving you, I mean it. Willa, I’m with you until you’re done with me. I’m all in.”
He looked at her with a barely tamed intensity and Willa had to suck in a breath. He wasn’t talking about her revenge plot with her father. He was talking to her as if— “People are coming.” Willa averted her gaze to the ground and bit her lip. Holy shit, had James really said that? Had he really meant it? Her heart beat faster in her chest and for a moment she felt lighter. Much lighter than she should feel considering the heavy stuff going on around her.
“Is everything okay?” asked Jennifer as she approached. She wore a blonde wig and oversized pair of sunglasses that she hadn’t been wearing inside. They must be really worried about being monitored if she was that serious about her disguise.
Austin and Scott hung back a little bit.
“I think everything is going to be okay.” Willa brought her eyes back up to James and gave him a little smile. James was all in. Everything really was going to be okay.
And that was when the explosion hit.
James heard the familiar whistle in the air and was already jumping toward Willa when everything went to hell. The shockwave of the blast was the first thing that hit. Then the rubble started to fall from the sky. For a few moments, James couldn’t move. The pure surprise of the attack combined with the need to keep himself over Willa kept him frozen in place. But he knew that the building could’ve lost all stability because of the blast, and if he really wanted to keep her safe, they were going to have to move.