I check that my own phone has a full battery and then exit the GPS app, shoving it back into my bag. Satisfied, I sling my bag over my shoulder and tiptoe out of the garage, shutting it soundlessly behind me.
Relief courses through me, and I feel like weeping all of a sudden. Again. I walk along the hallway, back to the room where Dornan is still presumably sleeping, and now that I’m home free, I’m much more casual.
Which is kind of stupid, because when I reach the top of the curved staircase and round the bend to the cluster of bedrooms, my knight in shining armor is standing in my path, wearing nothing but a pair of tight black boxer shorts, his hair mussed up and arms folded tensely across his chest.
“Oh,” I say, raking my gaze over him. “Hello.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jase asks, his voice full of anger.
“I’m trying to find a bathroom,” I spit back at him. Thank fuck he found me after I laid the bombs, or I’d be royally screwed, and probably end up with a bullet in my head.
“You have a bathroom in your room,” he replies, like I’m a moron.
“Yeah, and if I wake your father, I’ll never hear the end of it,” I hiss.
He leans closer and sniffs my shirt. “What are you doing?” I say, pushing him out of my personal space.
“Why do you stink like gasoline?” Jase asks, suspicion alive and well on his face.
I narrow my eyes. “Because your father just draped himself all over me. Do you really have to ask? Do you want me to draw you a picture?”
He eyes my bag, and I can practically see the cogs turning in his pretty head. “Why are you carrying a bag around to go to the bathroom?” he asks, snatching the bag from my shoulder.
He unzips the bag, which now holds nothing except a change of clothes and a big ol’ maxi-sized pack of tampons.
“Because I have my period, dickhead,” I say. “Would you prefer I carry around this massive box of Tampax for your brothers to see?” I reach over and rip the box out of the bag, waving it in his face. “I can only imagine the tasteful jokes they’d make about that.”
Seemingly satisfied with my story—but still not happy—he thrusts the bag back at me, and I grab hold of it before it falls to the ground. He turns on his heel and stalks off, his ass looking mighty fine in those tight boxers he’s wearing.
I slip back into the room I’m sharing with Dornan without waking him up, and sit on a wicker chair on the balcony, the muggy night air warm but bearable outside.
I sit, and I wait for the sun to come up, and for my day of reckoning to begin.
***
Dornan wakes the moment the sun begins to rise, the world bathed in an eerie orange glow, half darkness, half light. I watch from my spot on the balcony as he dresses, quickly and efficiently. He even has a proper gun holster that he wears across his chest over a plain black T-shirt, with a gun strapped under each arm. A leather jacket over the top—plain, I’m assuming because they’re going for the element of surprise—and he’s dressed to kill.
Too bad for him that he’s the one who’ll be dying.
He strides out to the balcony, and I rise from my chair to greet him.
“Morning, baby girl,” he says, dipping his head to my lips and taking what he thinks is his.
I stand on tiptoes and kiss him with fire. I kiss him with rage. I kiss him with every ounce of feeling I’ve got left in my body. I have to stop myself from biting down on his tongue and tasting his blood.
He’s breathing heavily when he finally pulls away from me, a devious smirk on his lips.
“Damn, Sammi,” he says, wiping his finger over his bottom lip. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wanted to eat me alive.”
I smile darkly. “Something like that,” I respond.
He gives my ass one last squeeze and steps back, tucking one of my stray hairs behind my ear. It’s a foreign gesture for someone like him, and my stomach roils a little at his tenderness, however fleeting.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I sit back down, smiling as he grabs his stuff and walks toward the door.
“I’ll be waiting,” I call to him as he leaves the room, flashing me a smile and a wink as he closes the door behind him.
I hear his footsteps retreat, and suddenly I’m a ball of nerves. My stomach burns, and I feel an unpleasant gagging in my throat, barely making it to the bathroom before I empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet bowl. Gasping for breath, I spit a mouthful of acidic saliva into the toilet bowl, flushing the remnants of yesterday’s gas station hotdog and fries away.
I make it two steps out of the bathroom before I decide I’m not finished, and rush back to the toilet bowl, gagging on the remaining vomit that’s burning its way up my throat.
I stand there for a few minutes, making sure I really am finished this time, before I flush again and rinse my mouth out. I see movement in the mirror, someone moving around in the room beyond, and I whirl around, banging my hip against the bathroom counter in the process.
“Ow,” I complain, stumbling out of the bathroom.
Jase is sitting on the unmade bed, dressed this time, in jeans and a dark gray T-shirt that shows off his tattooed biceps beautifully. I swallow thickly, searching the room for a glass of water.
“Don’t you knock?” I ask, locating a glass of water on the nightstand closest to my side of the bed. I grab the water and take a long drink. I almost spit a mouthful of water across the room when Jase speaks next.
“Vomiting in the morning,” he observes casually. “You’re not knocked up, are you?”
I choke on the water in my mouth, forcing it down my throat before I speak. “No, I am not,” I reply shortly, annoyed at his presence. “What do you want?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t have a bike, remember? I’m stuck with you while everyone else gets to ride out to the warehouse.”
Of course I know. It’s the only way this plan will work. Because I refuse to hurt him.
I raise my eyebrows. “Don’t act like you’d rather go with them on some revenge ride. You’re nothing like the rest of them.”
The sound of one motorcycle starting drifts up from the driveway below, quickly joined by the rest. Game on. I haven’t got much time, and Jase wants to stay and exchange witty banter? When all the while I’m thinking Go Away! Because I need to get my phone, and I need to see where those six little green dots are so I can press the button and end this thing before they’re out of the five mile buffer zone.
“I need to get dressed,” I say, stalking over to my bag. Jase doesn’t move to leave the room.
“By all means, stay and watch,” I say, my words dripping with sarcasm. He smirks, and it kills me that he hasn’t given me a real smile in what feels like forever.
The smirk disappears from his face as he leans back on his hands, apparently not going anywhere. “You’re not exactly shy,” he says, flicking his gaze up and down my body. “But if you’re feeling like covering up, there’s always the bathroom?” He jabs a thumb towards the room I’ve just exited, and I sigh dramatically, grabbing my handbag and heading into the bathroom. I lock the door behind me, heart in my mouth, as I unzip the bag and fumble for my phone.
I close the toilet lid and sit down, my legs suddenly like rubber. Breathing quickly, I navigate to the GPS app and watch the six dots spread apart minutely as the bikes leave the property, and I can just hear the faint sounds of their engines opening up as they hum down the highway.
I close the GPS app and switch to the other app, the one that has the detonate button. I dry retch as I hover my finger over the button that will start the two-minute countdown, and end in a fiery explosion.
For a moment, I waver. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I can’t. But then I think of what will happen to me when the bikes all eventually splutter to a stop, when the fuel gets low enough for the plastic bags to block the fuel intake, and someone figures out what I’ve done.
I swallow back fresh bile and hit that button, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
Because in less than two minutes, Dornan and his sons—all of them, apart from Jase—will be blown to smithereens.
FIFTEEN
I lock my phone and leave it on the high windowsill in the bathroom, changing into a black sleeveless top and cut-off denim shorts. I leave the bathroom and stride past Jase, perching myself on the wicker chair on the balcony.
It’s at that moment I spot something that could ruin everything. A lone motorcycle, parked on the driveway directly below the balcony I’m standing on. A bike that looks suspiciously like Dornan’s.
I tilt my head to the side, a growing sense of panic building within me.
“Whose bike is that?” I ask Jase, pointing to the motorcycle sitting stationary on the driveway. Jase unfolds himself from the bed and saunters over, not hurrying at all.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Dornan got a puncture in his tire. He took Jazz’s bike.”
“Oh,” I say, suddenly feeling dread plant roots in my stomach and blossom rapidly throughout my body.
Dornan’s bike is here.
Dornan’s bike is going to explode in about ninety seconds.
Less than fifty feet from where we stand.
I back away from the railing, wondering how far the fragments will travel when the bike explodes. Sure, it’s down below us, but that doesn’t give me a reason to feel safe. Suicide bombers who use shit like this can wipe out entire blocks of high-rise buildings, and although I know Elliot’s made these on a much smaller scale, I don’t know enough about them to assume we are out of the firing zone.
I stand in front of Jase as the alarm clock on the nightstand beats heavily, its every tick slamming into my brain like a sledgehammer. He looks at me weirdly as I reach out and tug on his wrist.
“What now?” he asks, irritated.
“I need to show you something,” I say, tugging on his wrist. He doesn’t move, rooted to the spot.
“No,” he says. “I’m not in the mood for your antics right now.”
I panic, my stomach lurching again. Holy shit. How am I going to get him inside?
I rush back into the bathroom and just get the toilet lid propped open in time to vomit, nothing coming out but clear bile. Gross.
“Jase,” I say weakly, still kneeling on the toilet floor. “Can you please come here?”
God, will you just please come inside already?
I lean my head against the cool tiled wall, listening for him. My heart leaps in relief as I hear his footsteps approaching the bathroom.
“What?” he asks, clearly unimpressed.
I stand on shaky legs. “Can you get me some water, please?”
God, these have got to be the longest two minutes of my entire life. Shouldn’t the bombs have exploded already? Maybe it didn’t work, which is both good and terribly bad.
Good because we aren’t about to have Dornan’s bike explode below us. Bad because if the bombs don’t explode, they’ll eventually be found and traced back to me, the girl who creeps down hallways stinking of gasoline and carries a massively oversized handbag, in the middle of the night, when she has a perfectly good bathroom to use in her own room.
Jase looks unimpressed and shakes his head. “I’m here to watch you, not to wait on you hand and fucking foot,” he says, turning to exit the bathroom.
“Wait!” I say desperately, tugging at his elbow.
It doesn’t matter though, because the two minutes are up.
And beneath us, the world explodes.
SIXTEEN
Even the best-laid plans can go awry. That’s the thing about randomness and fate.
You can put double the amount of explosives in your enemy’s motorcycle gas tank; but that doesn’t mean he’ll be riding it.
You can lie to the boy you’ve loved since you were fifteen years old, but that doesn’t mean he’ll believe you.
You can try to kill everyone who’s ever done you wrong, but that doesn’t mean they’ll die.
I’m standing in the emergency room of a crumbling public hospital on the American side of the border with Jase, when several other high-ranking Gypsy Brothers members turn up. My father’s vintage, they were his friends once upon a time. Now, they’re Dornan’s minions, reluctantly or otherwise. And they’re here, overtaking the ER in their burly leathers, waists bulging with poorly concealed handguns. Several police officers and FBI agents are among the throng as well, leaving very little space for the actual sick and injured people who are crammed into the available free space.
One of the guys, a solidly built dude with a long gray beard, comes up to Jase. “You need to get back to the club and restore order,” he says to Jase. “With everyone else out of action, you’re the highest-ranking club member.”
Jase shakes his head. “No, Slim. I’m not leaving my family here. I need to know what’s happening.”
Slim, who is actually not that slim at all, steps closer. “I’ve known you since you were a little snot,” he says, his hand on Jase’s shoulder, “And kid, if I say you’ve got to get back to the club, you get your ass back to the fucking club.”
Jase glances at me. “Come on,” he barks. “Clubhouse. Now.”
I open my mouth to respond that I’d rather stay here, when Jase grabs my wrist and starts dragging me alongside him. “Hey,” I protest, shaking him off. “I want to be here when Dornan wakes up.”
He continues to drag me to the parking lot while I protest, until he does something I never thought he’d do to me.
He shoves me onto the hood of his car, pulls a gun out of his waistband and holds it to my head.
I go to open my mouth and exclaim surprise at the fact that he’s packing heat, when I see that it’s Dornan’s gun. My heart sinks. He must’ve somehow gotten it along with his father’s personal effects. I’m personally still baffled as to how Dornan or his gun survived the blast. I’m even more pissed that Mickey and Donny are still hanging on in their own hospital beds. Who knows if any of them will survive, but at this point, I’m wondering whether anything will kill the stubborn fuckers.
I shake as I move my eyes upward, the cold steel of the car hood at my back, straining to see the barrel of the gun that is pressed between my eyes.
“You knew that bomb was going to blow,” he breathes, pressing his entire body against mine, trapping me against the car. I start to pant, suddenly terrified.
“What did you do?” he hisses.
“Nothing,” I protest.
Jase is angry, a tight coil of nerves, rage ready to explode. I see it in his clenched jaw, his deep frown, the way he holds the gun steady at my forehead.
“The doctors have Dornan in an induced coma,” he says bitterly.
I nod minutely. I can practically see black waves of seething anger pouring off him, filling the air between us.
“My brothers are dead,” he says, and he won’t take his eyes off me.
It’s true. I needn’t have worried about Jazz. He was right next to Dornan’s motorcycle when it blew to smithereens, taking him along with it. They’ll be picking pieces of him off the driveway for months. Ant’s dead too, but I don’t understand how three of them survived.
“I’m sorry your brothers are dead,” I lie. I’m not. I’m glad.
He laughs bitterly, taking the gun from my head and letting that arm drop to his side. He digs something out of his pocket and places it on the bonnet of the car in front of us; a small square box made from cardboard. My heart drops.
“I didn’t know you were a fake,” he says dangerously pushing my contact lenses with his finger so they slide across the hood of the car.
Shit!
“I didn’t tell you I was blind as a bat?” I ask casually.
He lasers me with his eyes. “They’re not for improving vision,” he spits. “They’re for changing your eye color. What color are they, really?” He is o
n me before I can react. He grabs my wrist with one hand and jams the gun into my throat with the other, slamming me down onto the car bonnet again.
“Who’s Elliot?” he asks, pressing the gun to my throat enough to be uncomfortable, without completely cutting off my air supply.
Oh, God. It’s clear he knows I had something to do with the bombs. But does he know about me?
“What?” I rasp around his fingers. “I already told you.”
“Elliot McRae. You’ve been meeting him on your runs, Samantha.” He says my name like I’m a piece of shit. “It’s not just once or twice for a hotel hook-up. I know. What have you two done?”
“You’ve been following me?” I ask incredulously.
“I saw you with him at that warehouse. Thought I should know who else I was sharing you with. Did a little investigating.”
He digs the barrel of the gun in harder. “Who is he? Your boy toy?”
“He’s just a friend,” I say, coughing. “You’re hurting me, Jase.” I try to push the gun away from my throat, but he lets go of my wrist to bat my hands away.
“Good,” he says. “Then you’ll know I’m serious. Why have you been meeting with him?”
I panic, and scan my brain for an answer. It’s getting harder to breathe and a lack of oxygen isn’t helping me come up with a lie.
“Hey,” Jase says, snapping his fingers in front of my face with his spare hand. “Tell me the truth instead of making up another lie.”
It doesn’t matter, does it? It still doesn’t connect Elliot to Juliette.
“He loved me, once,” I say honestly. “Until he left me.”
His grip relaxes slightly and I pant, my fingers still tight around his arm, tears forming at the corners of my eyes.
Something vibrates against my thigh as a high-pitched ring comes from Jase’s pocket.
Looking irritated, he drags his cellphone from his pocket and looks at the screen briefly.
“Fuck,” he mutters, taking a step back. He holds the gun out in front of him, his eyes never leaving mine. “Don’t. Move,” he utters, pressing a button and holding the phone to his ear.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 25