call me Sammi.”
He nods. “Well, see you ‘round, Sammi.”
“Yeah,” I say, and suddenly my sadness is so heavy, I’m afraid I might collapse on the floor in front of him. But I don’t. I swallow back the hard lump in my throat and turn to leave. “See you ‘round.”
When I steal a glance over my shoulder as I’m pushing the heavy doors open, he is still watching me.
Five
I nearly didn’t make it out of LA alive.
If it weren’t for Elliot smuggling me out of town and setting me up in Nebraska, I would have been dead that very night I lay in hospital, broken and bleeding. Dornan’s second son, Donny, had been on his way back to the hospital to inject a lethal dose of heroin into my veins while Elliot was questioning me.
“Who did this to you?” the young police officer asked softly. I stared into space, unable to form words.
“I’d rather stay alive,” I said finally, shaking my head.
He leaned close and whispered to me, so close I could almost taste the coffee on his breath. “It was Dornan Ross, wasn’t it?”
The fear that leapt into my eyes must have confirmed his suspicions.
“I think they’re planning to kill you whether you tell me or not,” he said urgently. “They’ve been hanging around your room all afternoon, waiting for me to leave.”
My entire aching body stiffened, and my heart started beating so fast, I thought it would explode out of my chest and drench the beige walls in a shower of red.
Elliot eyed the small cart in the corner of the room that was meant for washing. He lifted the lid and peered inside, pulling out a blood-stained set of green hospital scrubs with his fingertips. He quickly and efficiently stripped down to his boxers, which would have been completely traumatising for me had I not believed that he was trying to help. He dragged the green scrubs over his head and hopped around, trying to pull the pants on as quickly as possible.
He came back over to the bed and unhooked my IV from the stand. I had a bag of morphine attached to the main saline bag, and a little button I could press to deliver a new hit of pain relief every fifteen minutes.
Elliot pressed and held the button, delivering the maximum dose possible, and almost immediately I felt floaty and numbed.
“Scoot forward,” he said, looking around behind him. He lifted me as gently as possible, but I still screamed in pain from my broken bones being moved. “I’m sorry,” he said, covering my mouth so that no sound escaped.
He maneuvered me to the side of the bed so that my legs were hanging off, and eased me down into the laundry cart. I wriggled down, biting on my fist to stop from screaming, and arranged myself so that the lid would close on top of me.
“Here,” he said, handing me his gun, and that’s the moment when any suspicion I had about his intentions melted away.
“If this doesn’t work, and somebody else opens this lid … shoot and keep shooting, you hear?”
I nodded.
“You know how to use a gun?”
I nodded, tears streaming down my cheeks. My father, up until a few weeks ago, had been the president of the most renowned and feared biker club in the United States. Of course I knew how to use a gun.
“I’m gonna get you out of here, kid. I promise.”
And he did.
Six years later, Elliot isn’t a cop anymore. In fact, he resigned from the force almost immediately after moving me to a safe house in Nebraska with his grandmother. Juliette Portland was reported dead in the hospital from internal bleeding the night he smuggled me out, and while we think that Dornan bought the story, it’s always possible that he is still keeping watch for me.
I’m standing outside a building with LOST CITY TATTOOS emblazoned across the front, my dirty clothes switched for a spaghetti-strap white summer dress that skims my knees and shows off my enviable tan. I’ve just spent the last hour scrubbing every inch of myself in the shower of my hotel room. I wasn’t actually staying in a dingy hostel. I had a room at the Bel Air. I figured I may as well enjoy my last few hours of freedom before moving into the clubhouse tonight.
I push the door open and am immediately hit by a breeze of cold air. The air-conditioning is bliss against my reddened skin, which has started to prickle after only a few moments outside. It is so much cooler inside, I think I might never leave.
I am expecting the humming of tattoo guns, but everything is silent. I look around the room, seeing nobody.
“Hello?” I call, waiting for an answer.
“Hi,” a voice behind me says, startling me. I spin around to see Elliot, still looking as gorgeous as he did the last time I saw him, only now more grown-up, and with tattoos covering every visible inch of his skin. He wears a white t-shirt and dark grey dickie shorts, a pair of bright blue sneakers on his feet. His face is the only thing that assures me of who he is.
I study his face and wonder if he knows who I am, then decide he probably doesn’t. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
He immediately looks suspicious. “No. Should I?”
I shake my head, my fake Southern drawl thick on my words. “It doesn’t matter. I came here because I need a tattoo. Everyone says you’re the best.”
He smiles, licking his lips, and I see a flash that I think is a tongue stud. “Come on through,” he says, leading me to one of the hard leather beds. “What kind of tattoo are you after?”
“One to cover a scar,” I say, biting my lip.
He nods, patting the bed. I hoist myself up, studying his face intently. He is the kindest person I have ever met, I think to myself. He truly did risk his life to save mine.
“Okay,” he says, smiling. “Where’s your scar?”
I swallow thickly, gather my dress in my fist, and raise it so that he can see.
His face contorts into something tortured. He looks at me, then the scars, then back at me.
“Julz?” he whispers. He takes in my hair, my skin, my blue eyes, my new nose. He steps back as if horrified.
“It’s Samantha, now,” I say, the accent gone, my breath hitching in my throat. “And I need your help.”
Six
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. I suddenly feel ill, as though I have done the wrong thing by seeking him out.
“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling my dress back down and sliding off the bed. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
I try to leave but he catches my elbow, turning me to face him. “Wait,” he says. “Please. I don’t want you to go. I’m just a little … shocked. I haven’t seen you in three years.”
I just stand there, feeling pathetic.
“Juliette,” he says darkly. “What are you doing here?”
“Sightseeing,” I reply with a deadpan face.
He lets go of my elbow and walks to the front of the store. He flips the sign hanging in the door to closed and locks the door, pulling the shade down so nobody can see in.
“My apartment is upstairs,” he says, looking at me like my appearance is causing him physical pain. “I think we need to talk.”
“And then you’ll tattoo me?” I ask hopefully.
He appears to be fighting an inner battle. “If you tell me why you need those scars covered up, then sure, I’ll make you the best fucking tattoo you’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll tell you why if you promise you won’t try and talk me out of it.”
He suddenly looks weary. “Let’s just go upstairs,” he says, “before anyone else finds you here.”
I look around the deserted shop, confused as to who exactly is going to find me in a store that is now locked, but I follow him upstairs anyway.
I am pleasantly surprised when I enter the apartment. It is a far cry from the stark white of the store, and feels surprisingly spacious. It has been decorated in a retro style, all black and reds, with hits of canary yellow here and there. There are band posters covering the walls – from a cursory glance, I can see bills for The Ramones, The Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili
Peppers. Knotted beams of polished oak run beneath my feet. There are two low-back, black leather sofas facing each other with a glass coffee table between them and a gloss-black kitchen tucked off to the side.
Elliot walks behind the bench and reappears several moments later with two open bottles of Budweiser.
“Good idea,” I say, accepting the one he offers me.
He sits across from me, and I can’t help but remember the very first time I saw him after my father died, when he came back to Nebraska.
I’d been puking. At first, Grandma wrote it off as a stomach virus and kept me in bed for the week. But one week slowly crept into two, then three, and I was still sick, still lying in bed all day, and the doctor eventually confirmed what she had secretly feared and what I had never considered.
I heard her on the phone to her grandson, late one night when I couldn’t sleep.
“You have to come back here,” she pleaded. “It’s bad, honey. It’s real bad.”
She knew everything. She knew what they had done to me. And now, she knew that I carried a lasting reminder of their treachery.
Elliot was there the next day, sitting beside me as I puked into an old tin bowl. He held my blonde hair back as I vomited, pressed a cold flannel to my neck. He cared for me the way I desperately needed someone to care for me.
“What do you want to do?” he asked me. Even then, when I was only fifteen and he was just shy of twenty-three, he treated me like I was the most important person in the world.
“I just want it to go away,” I said. “Can you make it go away?”
He clutched my hand, both of us trapped in a nightmare that never seemed to
Seven Sons (Gypsy Brothers, #1) Page 5