“You too, Willow.” He took her cue and continued walking.

“Fiona,” I called. “Can you please see Roger out?”

“Of course.” She hurried after him.

I gave Willow my full attention. “Come inside.” She entered and set the flowers on the table. I shut the door behind her. “Who are they from?”

She thrust her hand out, and I noticed a card clasped tightly between her thumb and forefinger. I took it from her and scanned the text, growing angrier with each word.

I raised my eyes to hers and noticed that her cheeks were damp. She’d been crying.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “I’m going to blacken your brother’s eye when I get my hands on him.” He was trying to use his sister as a bartering piece, and I wouldn’t stand for it. “I’m sorry. He’s a user.”

I thought she might crumple, but instead her expression turned steely. “Every time I think he’s hit rock bottom, he finds a way to sink lower. When will it stop?”

“When we make it stop,” I tell her. “Did these arrive just now?”

“Maybe five or ten minutes ago.” She hesitated. “I called him.”

“Who, Tom?”

“No.” Her tone was bitter. “Petrov.”

Something knotted in my gut. “You should have come to me first. Talking to him could have put you at risk.”

She shrugged. “I’m used to taking care of myself. But as it happens, you might be right. He said something that got me thinking.”

My mind caught on the first part of her statement. It saddened me how much she’d grown accustomed to tackling things alone. It was difficult to believe I’d thought of her as a spoiled princess. But then the second part of what she’d said sank in. “What did he say?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line. “That the deal was off and he’d be taking what he was owed another way.”

Something clicked into place. “Is it possible that Petrov is behind everything?”

She cocked her head. “I wondered the same thing.”

My fingers curled into fists. If Petrov had been the one terrorizing her because Tom owed him money, and her brother was still trying to force her into marrying him, then Tom was going to wish he’d never been born.

“Perhaps Petrov thought that if he kept up for long enough, Tom would somehow conjure the money or beg for it from someone else,” I suggested.

“Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on in Tom’s head. It was bad enough that he raised the possibility of paying his debt with a bigger portion of the company…and me. But this?” She swiped at her eyes. “It feels like he’s a stranger. I don’t know him anymore.”

I gathered her in my arms. “I doubt he knows himself either.”

She made a disdainful sound. “He’s been growing more distant for years, but I figured it was normal to drift apart as we got older. I should have known something was seriously wrong. Perhaps I could have fixed things before it got this far.”