“I want to talk about where the fuck you’ve been for three days not answering my calls.” His words are bitter and I can tell he has thought of nothing else except me and my safety since I left here three days ago.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “They took my phone and smashed it.”
“Well, are you okay?” he asks me, his voice straining to sound normal under the weight of his despair. His blue eyes are oceans of worry and hurt, and I have to look away before I really do cry.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I got in there. They bought my story. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Elliot stops fumbling with needles and packages and stares at me questioningly. “What do you mean, that’s it?”
I grit my teeth and take a deep breath, the events of the past three days a broken record of pain, blood, and lust playing on repeat in my addled mind. I can’t tell him about Michael. He would never speak to me again if he knew the depths of my treachery.
“Dornan liked me straightaway,” I say in a monotone voice. “He liked me a little too much.”
Elliot’s hands are empty and I can hear his nails digging into the hard plastic that covers the table I lay upon. “Julz…” he growls.
Hot tears fill my eyes and I look up at him angrily. “Don’t call me that,” I say viciously. “Don’t you ever call me that, do you understand? Do you want us to both get killed?”
He lets go of the table and shakes his head. “Did he hurt you?” he asks, his fists in tight balls.
“Yes,” I say honestly, blinking the tears away. “But I let him. It’s all part of the act.”
He goes to grab my shoulders and I look at the front door in alarm. “Jason is watching,” I say in a high-pitched voice, and I see Elliot use every single reserve of strength he has to back away from me and collect his tattoo gun from the counter. He preps the needles, each one holding dye that will soon be on my skin.
“How’d you convince him to stay out there, anyway?” Elliot is crazy angry, but attempting normal conversation at the same time. Super.
I stretch out on the soft plastic bed. “I told him I cried last time I got inked, and it would be way too embarrassing for me if he watched.”
Elliot smirks despite his earlier tirade, his needle poised at my hipbone.
“So,” he asks stonily, “you gonna cry?”
I clench my fists as he begins to drag sharp needles through the sensitive, scarred flesh that covers my hipbone. “Hell, no. It takes more than a little tattoo gun to make this girl cry.”
SIXTEEN
Three hours later, my tattoo is completely shaded in, blacks and dark reds a swirl of patterns and seeping blood across my midsection. I am sweating, and my skin is simultaneously numb and screaming alight, each nerve crying its own confused protest.
“I thought this wasn’t supposed to hurt,” I asked Elliot as he applied a new dressing. “I thought I was meant to get a huge rush or something?”
Elliot paused, staring at the fresh blue and purple bruises around my wrists, where Dornan pinned me to the bed after he shot Michael.
“Your body only has so much adrenalin,” he says, taking my wrist and studying the flesh with an unreadable look on his face. He brushes his warm fingertips lightly across the bruises, a deep frown settling into his forehead. “You’ve probably used it all up.”
The front door jangles, scaring the hell out of me, and I look up to see Jase at the front counter of the shop. He eyes us cautiously, obviously noticing the tenderness with which Elliot is touching my bruised wrists.
“You done?” he asks me. I nod eagerly, sliding off the bench and carefully pulling my t-shirt back over my head. I wince as the fabric touches my inked skin; even though the plastic forms a barrier, it doesn’t stop my skin from protesting at the merest touch.
“Don’t forget to bathe it every day and keep it clean and dry,” Elliot says, as he’s no doubt said a thousand times before. He hands me an after-care kit which includes gauze pads, saline solution, barrier cream, and a business card with the landline of the studio printed across the front in large numbers. Smart.
“Got it!” I say, making my way towards the door, where Jase waits. I don’t look back at Elliot. If I look back, I’m screwed.
Remember why you’re here.
My mantra, a chant that keeps me sane in times of trepidation.
Fuck Dornan over. Kill his sons. Send the rest to jail. Find that tape.
Live happily ever after. Pfft.
We step outside to a day that has almost entirely disappeared; wisps of aubergine cloud hang low in the sky, waiting for the night sky to swallow them completely.
“Where to?” Jase asks, lowering his sunglasses to look at me.
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m kind of starving. Are you hungry?”
Jase smiles. “Yeah. I called the clubhouse, Pop’s still sleeping it off.”
He must notice my face fall as he says it, and back-pedals furiously. “I’m sorry,” he stutters, “I didn’t mean–”
“Beer,” I say to him in response. “I could really use a beer.”
He frowns and points to my midsection. “Are you sure you’re supposed to drink after getting a tattoo done? Doesn’t it bleed a lot or something?”
I shrug. “Let’s find out.”
He laughs, and the sound is sweet in a world full of hurt and lies. “Come on, then,” he says. “I know a place on the beach that you’ll probably like. You eat Mexican food?”
I think of how, as teenagers, we would visit Venice Beach to get away from our parents, where we would drink cheap beer and order nachos after swimming in the sea for hours upon hours. I swallow a lump in my throat and smile. “Sounds great,” I say.
As we make our way towards the beach, only a couple hundred meters away, I can’t get the past three hours out of my head. The conversation with Elliot was a roller coaster, to say the least.
“What’s your game plan, anyway?” Elliot spoke carefully as he pressed sharp needles into my flesh.
I was already bathed in sweat, my fingers curled around the sides of the bed. “I’m going to take them out, one by one. Dornan last.” I breathed heavily to the hum of the gun.
“Take them out?” Elliot had muttered. “What do you mean, exactly?”
I locked eyes with him and he stepped away from me, his gun poised in his hand, silenced for the moment.
“You mean to tell me you’re going to kill all of them?”
I smiled darkly, and I could tell he was grasping for a way to talk me out of it.
“You should have stayed in Nebraska,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is insane.”
“Why?” I challenged him. “Because they don’t deserve to die?”
The tattoo gun dropped to his side and he looked frustrated. “Because it shouldn’t have to be you who does it,” he said with an air of finality.
“Elliot?” I asked. “Hey.” I sat up and reached across the void that separated us, touching the intricate ink sleeve that adorned his muscled arm.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it for you,” he said, looking completely defeated. “I wanted to. I didn’t think about anything else. And then …”
“I understand,” I said, feeling robbed that I couldn’t pull him to my chest and give him the biggest, tightest hug. Instead, I focused on his arm, and the tattoos that adorned it. There were stars and skulls, a pretty pin-up girl with blonde hair, a babushka doll, a sickle, and a gun. Birds were scattered in the spaces not taken by other symbols, and I swallowed thickly as I realized I was staring at the story of his life without me. I brushed my fingertip lightly against the babushka doll, certain it was for his daughter.
“You have something to live for, El. Something far more important than revenge. You have a family.”
He smiled sadly and looked down at where my fingers lay on his skin.
“Kayla was an accident,” he said, rubbing his finger across the babushka doll. He raised his t-shirt sleeve and I
saw the word Kayla captured in a swirling red ribbon across his shoulder. “Mandy wanted to have a termination, but–”
My breathing stilled for a moment at that word.
“I wouldn’t let her,” he murmured. “I told her what it was really like to watch that happen. God, I’m sorry, Julz,” he finished, and I didn’t bother correcting him. “I didn’t mean to mention that shit.”
I smiled through my sadness. “Don’t be sorry,” I replied, my heart swelling and twisting for Elliot with an emotion I hadn’t felt in years. “I’m happy something so nice came out of something so horrible.”
He relaxed and held up his tattoo gun again. “We should finish this.”
I nodded and lay back down. “Yeah.”
He poised the needle above my skin. “Which one first?” he asked, and I immediately knew what he was asking. Which one was I going to kill first.
“Chad,” I replied softly. “The oldest one.” The worst one.
He nodded and I tensed as he gouged sharply into my flesh.
SEVENTEEN
“Hey. Earth to Samantha!” Jase is waving a hand in front of my face. We have stopped at the end of the Venice Beach boardwalk and all of the crazy that lies along it. I can see a guy juggling fire, a middle-aged Filipino woman belting out bad karaoke, and plenty of body builders still working out at the bank of metal gym equipment that sits in the sand.
Memories of being a teenager flood through me. It even smells the same. I have to force myself to pay attention to Jase as he speaks.
“You want to eat?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “Let’s swim,” I say, drawn to the ocean like a magnet. I kick my borrowed shoes off and leave them on the sidewalk, stepping off into the gloriously warm sand. It feels blissful. It feels like home.
Jase smirks. “We don’t have bathing suits.”
I shrug. “My underwear will work,” I say, tugging my shirt off and throwing it on the ground beside the shoes. I unzip my pants and shimmy them down, kicking them onto the pile as well. I am wearing only a black bra and matching bikini-cut panties, and I know I look good.
I look back at Jase and laugh. “Come on,” I say. “Unless you’re scared.”
“Scared of getting arrested,” he says devilishly. “I don’t wear underwear.”
“Oh,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “Well, at least roll those jeans up and step into the water with me.”
I leave him on the sidewalk, cussing at his laced boots as he tries to pull them off, and run across the sand and into the water. Diving underneath the surface, I keep my eyes firmly closed in case my contact lenses should become dislodged. Between my tattoo, my contact lenses, and trying to remember my fake name, keeping this disguise up is starting to get really annoying. And it’s only the beginning.
I surface again and kick my legs, the salt water a welcome cleansing from the horrors of the past few days.
Jase hovers at the edge of the water. His toes are barely getting wet. He has removed his leather jacket and shirt, and I can appreciate his six-pack and build from where I float lazily. The gangly boy I left has morphed into a very attractive man. His tattoos are completely different to Elliot’s – mostly gang related – and when he turns to look up the beach, I catch sight of his Gypsy Brothers tattoo. It looks identical to the one Dornan sports, and my stomach roils. Turn around, Jase.
He does, wading in a little deeper so that the water laps at his ankles. “Come out here, you pussy,” I tease him.
“My jeans’ll get wet,” he says. I stick my lip out and pout dramatically. He laughs at that.
“The water’s soooo good,” I say. He fishes his keys and cellphone out of his pocket, throwing them on the sand just out of the water’s reach. Nobody will touch them. He’s a Gypsy Brother. They pretty much own Venice Beach.
He strides into the water, up to his knees. The bottom of his jeans are immediately soaked with salt water.
“Further,” I call, kicking backwards.
He shakes his head and doesn’t move. I swim towards him, a devilish grin on my face. “Don’t–” he warns, but before he can finish his sentence, I pull his arms, making him keel over into the water. He surfaces, laughing and spluttering, and my heart feels a little less heavy.
“Thanks,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Welcome,” I reply. “Told you the water was good.”
He just shakes his head, smiling in amusement.
He watches the horizon for a moment before speaking more seriously. “So are you, like, my dad’s old lady now?”
I almost choke. “What?” I splutter.
“My pop. Are you guys, like, an item?”
My smile is completely gone, and I press my feet firmly to the sand beneath us. But he has posed an interesting question. Does Dornan consider us in a relationship, no matter how short our acquaintance has been, no matter how blatantly dysfunctional?
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. Because I don’t. The unexpected closeness with Dornan has presented both a blessing and a curse – I have unparalleled access to him, his club, and his sons, but at the same time, if I continue, I will have to spend the majority of my time with the person I hate more than anything in the entire world, the person who ripped my entire existence apart and stole everything I ever cared about.
“I think he’s pretty smitten,” Jase says, and I don’t know what I hear in his voice – jealousy? Resignation?
I shrug. “I only just met the man. All I wanted was a job at your burlesque club.”
I didn’t want him to shoot my supposed ex-boyfriend – an innocent stranger – and then hold a gun to my head.
“My father’s not the kind of person you say no to,” he says seriously, squinting into the sun.
“And here we are,” I reply.
He doesn’t talk for a few moments, and I use the time to swim in a slow circle around him.
“I’m sorry about my brother, hopped up on fucking energy drinks,” he says finally.
“Pardon?” I ask, stopping my breaststroke. I float in front of him, then put my feet back onto firm sand.
“Chad,” he says, chewing his lip thoughtfully. “People always think he’s high, but he’s not. He drinks those goddamn guarana drinks from the minute he gets up in the morning. Guy’s gonna have a heart attack one of these days. I’ve tried telling him, but …”
I can only imagine how that conversation went.
“I like those drinks,” I say, laughing. “Almost as much as I like beer.”
“Don’t touch the ones in the fridge back at the clubhouse,” he says. “Chad’ll murder you in your sleep. They’re all his apparently.”
I smile vacantly, a twisted idea beginning to form in my mind.
Guy’s gonna have a heart attack one of these days.
My smile turns into a shit-eating grin.
“What?” Jase asks, flicking water in my face.
“Nothing,” I say, flicking water back. “I was just thinking about how good that beer would be right now.”
We drag dry clothes onto our wet bodies, and they cling to our skin as we drink beer and eat fish tacos on the sidewalk. It grows dark and I watch the fire juggler absently, thinking over the details of my plan.
My mind is suddenly racing so fast that I can barely concentrate on what Jase is saying.
Because I think I have figured out how I am going to kill Chad.
And it will be delicious.
EIGHTEEN
It takes a week to organize my little plan, all the while being fucked by Dornan at every opportunity he can find. He fucks me in the shower, in his office, in his bed, and over a pool table. I thank the stars that he has not thought to fuck me on the stage of the burlesque club, because if he did, I think I would evaporate under the burden of my lies and he would surely guess that my real name is Juliette Portland.
Ten days after my arrival, I enact my plan. It is a quiet Sunday afternoon in the clubhouse, and Chad is alone in the massive
garage where all of the bikes are parked. There aren’t many bikes here today – Dornan and most of the club have gone on a ride, and Chad has had to stay back, having just had his knee operated on. I can immediately tell that he is pissed off at being left, and he is hobbling around furiously, clanging spanners and swearing at his bike as it sits on its stand, most of its parts on the floor in messy piles.
I saunter in and close the door behind me, an open can of his favorite energy drink in my hand.
“Hey, Chad,” I say, tilting the can as if I am drinking it. I don’t let a drop of the liquid touch my lips, though.
I mean, I don’t want to die.
Chad looks up, wearing an annoyed look, and his eyebrows bank together when he sees me.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks, clanging more tools around. He does a double-take and stands up again, hobbling around the bike to me. He snatches the can out of my hand and I feign surprise. “Don’t drink my fucking drinks, bitch,” he says, slamming the can onto the counter next to him. I wait patiently as he continues to work on the bike.
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” I say, leaning on the counter next to him, making sure he has a good view of my cleavage. It’s always a great distraction. “You shouldn’t drink so much of that stuff, you know. Your body can’t handle it.”
He snorts and throws his spanner to the ground, narrowly missing the bike. He reaches for the can and takes a giant gulp, sneering at me. Bingo.
“What the fuck you smiling at, bitch?” he asks, slamming the can back down beside me. Almost immediately, he appears confused, and I can only imagine how fast his heart is starting to beat. He becomes drenched in sweat instantly, and sways on his feet.
I shrug, making my eyes wide and innocent. “Feeling okay, Chad?” I ask, laughing as he crashes to his knees. He screams as his freshly reconstructed knee makes a meaty pop and a cracking noise, and I can only guess that the operation has been reversed quite severely.
“What the–?” he pants, clutching his chest with both his hands. I kneel in front of him so that we are eye to eye, and pat his head condescendingly.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 8