“Sorry,” I whisper. He eyes me warily before nodding, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the cabinet door.
I take his nod and stillness as an invitation to continue, so I gently dab the blood from his face. Some of it has dried already, and I have to hold the towel in place until it dissipates. The thin material quickly becomes soaked in various shades of red, and I have to get fresh supplies several times before I’m finished.
Finally, I sit back on my heels, satisfied that I’ve done as much as I can. I notice Jase’s dark grey shirt, spattered down the front with his own blood, and probably Elliot’s as well. I reach out again with the last paper towel, intending to blot the blood from his shirt, when Jase’s hand shoots out and wraps around my wrist.
Our eyes meet, and I shiver involuntarily. His hand is like ice. Then I remember he’s been holding frozen peas to his face, and his freezing cold skin makes sense.
“He was going to kill me,” Jase says, referring to Elliot.
I shake my head. “He wasn’t.”
“He can’t come back here. Ever.”
I nod. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was going to be here.”
Jase raises his eyebrows. “Well, how the hell did he know you were here?”
I point reluctantly at my phone. “GPS.”
Jase’s eyebrows practically hit the roof. He puts the bottle down and gets to his feet, grabbing the phone.
He smashes it against the hard edge of the bench, sending pieces of glass and plastic everywhere. Great. First the vase, now the phone? We’re going to be stepping on glass for the next week.
If he even wants me to stay here, that is.
Jase slumps back to the ground, apparently not bothered about the mess, and resumes swigging from his vodka bottle. I stare into space, wondering what comes next.
I’m too tired to cry. Too shocked by Elliot’s sudden arrival and subsequent departure. My thoughts are whirling.
I’ve never been a smoker, and not much of a drinker, but if someone offered me a cigarette and a bottle of wine right now, I’d light up and suck that cancer stick in between drinking straight from the bottle. Then I remember sucking Dornan’s dick while he blew smoke down at me, and suddenly that craving vanishes.
Alcohol would be most welcome right now, though.
Jase seems to read my mind; well, kind of. He holds the vodka bottle in front of my face and waves it half-heartedly. Nice.
“I need ice if I’m drinking vodka,” I say, and sidestep the broken glass to the freezer. I grab two glasses and fill them with ice, returning to sit next to Jase on the floor.
He fills both glasses straight away and pushes one in front of me, where I watch the condensation form beads and then run down the sides of the frosted glass. Beside me, Jase’s ice clinks as he drains his glass in one mouthful.
I turn my head so that I can see him, my ear resting against the kitchen cabinet, as he pours a second drink.
“You shouldn’t write yourself off,” I say, pleased at only a small amount of ringing in my ears. “Someone else might abseil into your balcony.”
Jase gives me a sidelong glance, swishing the ice cubes around in his glass so they clink against the sides. “Why, got another boyfriend tracking your cell phone GPS?”
I roll my eyes. “Ex-boyfriend. And no. No more.”
Jase appears to be in deep thought for a while before he speaks next. Watching him, the way his mouth sometimes twitches when he’s in deep thought and the lines that appear and disappear on his forehead, I’m suddenly mesmerized by his presence. Finally. I’m here with him. Not as Sammi. But just as me. Just as us.
Whatever fucked-up “us” that may be.
Suddenly, I feel very, very lucky, and very, very happy to be alive. The feeling cuts deep into my chest, physical pain that makes me tremble. I haven’t felt lucky to be alive in such a long time.
I’ve just been existing for six years. This … this is so much better.
Jase glances at me again as he finishes the second drink and slaps it down on the floor between us. He doesn’t move to get a third.
“He really faked your death, huh?”
I nod.
“Left his job … packed up his life, and moved to Shitsville to keep you safe?”
I nod again. “Yep.”
“What did he ask in return?” Jase’s question has a dangerous edge to it.
“What?”
Jase scoops up my untouched drink and gulps it down in three seconds flat, slamming it back onto the floor.
“What was the payoff for him? What’d you have to do?”
I sit up straight, frowning. “Nothing.”
He’s talking about our relationship. I clear my throat. “Look,” I say. “I pestered him for a very long time before he’d even be in the same room alone with me. It’s not what you think. I loved him.”
Jase snorts. “Falling in love with your captor, huh?”
I bristle angrily. “He’s a good man. He gave up everything for me. His career. His future. His safety. Everything. And you know how I repaid him? I waited until he went to work at his shitty job he got to support us, and I tried to gas myself in his fucking garage.” Tears of rage and humiliation burn my eyes and slip onto my cheeks where I swat them away. Jase’s face has changed from annoyed to churlish, and he tries to take my hand, his thumb rubbing the slightly raised flesh at my wrist. He’s never noticed it before, but now he pulls it closer and studies the scar tissue that marked yet another unsuccessful suicide attempt made many years ago.
“I didn’t realize,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
I take my hand away and wipe my cheeks, pulling my knees up, and hugging them to my chest.
“You don’t need to be sorry for anything,” I mumble, shaking my head. “Just don’t talk about him like that, okay? If not for him, I really would be dead.”
“Well,” Jase says, his entire demeanor gentler and more cautious as he continues to glance at my wrists. “I suppose I should be thanking him, then.”
I smile sadly.
“I mean, I won’t thank him,” Jase adds quickly. “That fucker wants to kill me. But for you. That was a good thing he did.”
“Yeah,” I say sheepishly. “Well, he knows how I feel—” I catch my faux pas — “felt about you. It’s the reason he broke up with me.”
Jase’s eyes light up at that, his eyebrows practically touching the ceiling above us. “He broke up with you because of me?”
“I kept calling out your name in bed,” I explain. Jase laughs a low, throaty sound that makes me blush as I realize what I’ve just said. “Not like that.”
Jase is still laughing and choking on a mouthful of vodka at the same time. “Are you sure?” he manages in between laughing and coughing.
I roll my eyes. “Nightmares, Jason. Not the other thing.”
His smile vanishes and he straightens again, any bit of humor or lightness completely wiped from his face. Idiot! I fervently wish I hadn’t said what I said.
“Aw, fuck,” he says, frowning again. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry,” I admonish him with a small smile, trying to diffuse the tension that’s once again settled on us like a pillow held forcefully to the face. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Only me, and my lies on top of more lies.
He doesn’t seem convinced. “I do.”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t. You almost got killed by your own family trying to save me. There’s no shame in that.”
There it is again. We’ve been dancing around that day, that day when I almost died, that afternoon of horror and pain.
“I should have fought harder,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “I go over it in my head all the time, you know. I could have taken the gun and shot him. I could have gotten us out somehow.”
I place a steady hand on his knee. He’s wearing thick denim jeans, but I can still feel the warmth of his skin radiating underneath.
; “There was nothing either of us could have done differently.” It’s taken me years and many breakdowns to realize that neither of us were to blame for what Dornan orchestrated that day. I’ll forever regret that I couldn’t somehow save my father and the woman he loved, but I forgave myself for being powerless in the wake of our collective destruction around the same time that the doctor was sucking the remnants of a product of rape from my womb.
I’m momentarily transported back to the past, to the moment the mask was lifted from my face a little under six years ago, the moment the doctor smiled underneath her surgical mask and told me it was done. I’d been emptied of their sins, painfully absolved, but it was still many years before I’d been filled again with the hope of my vengeance against them.
So when Jase clamps his grip on my hand and squeezes tightly, it’s almost as if I’m falling, tumbling back into the present to sit beside him, my hand at his knee, an angry film covering each of his eyes.
“I should have killed them all the first chance I got,” he says, his face twisted into a mask of rage and pain.
I lean forward, placing my hand on his hot cheek, and when he doesn’t recoil, I smile.
“There’s still time,” I whisper softly, to the first boy I ever loved.
SIX
The roles reverse sharply—Jase is completely fucked, both physically and mentally. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor in hours. About an hour ago, I found a frozen pizza and shoved it into the oven, guessing it was cooked when the cheese started to bubble furiously on top. I gave it to him, and he ate it mechanically, until it was all gone. Then he resumed his listless staring into space.
Which brings us to now.
I’m lost. Up until now, I’ve always had a plan. A destination. People to fuck and people to kill. But now? I’m wandering around Jason’s apartment like a lost soul, wondering if I should go, or if I should stay. Finally, I decide to busy myself with cleaning up the glass from the vase and cell phone.
Three thoughts on repeat in my mind.
Dornan’s in a coma.
I just kicked Elliot out.
I think Jase hates me.
I crouch in front of Jase, who’s polished off half the bottle of vodka and all of the pizza I left for him. He’s still staring into space.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Earth to Jase? What’s going on in there?”
I’ve never seen him like this, and it’s freaking me out. Because I know I’m responsible for turning his life into a living hell. At least, today I’m responsible. Dornan brought him into hell with the rest of us the moment he killed Jase’s mother all those years ago.
He raises his watery brown eyes to meet my gaze and I have to force myself not to flinch underneath the weight of his stare. His jaw is clenched so hard I’m surprised his teeth haven’t started cracking. His fingers are curled around the neck of the vodka bottle like it’s a life raft and he’s afloat in an icy sea.
“What’s going on in here?” he echoes, tapping the side of his head. “You really don’t want to know.”
Probably not.
I kneel in front of him and rest one hand on his bended knee. “You should still tell me.”
He smirks, an expression I never want to see on his face. It makes him look like his father, which is a comparison I never, ever need to be reminded of. But he can’t help who his father is any more than I could help who my father was. Born into treachery, raised among darkness so vile, so toxic, our souls are unlike any others.
He might have escaped the first seventeen years of his life in blissful ignorance of the Gypsy Brothers’ life, but I’m pretty sure he’s all caught up and then some.
“I’m thinking about you and my father,” he says, and my heart sinks. “I’m thinking about all those times you were—” he struggles to get the next part out, “— with him, and it makes me want to kill you both.” He reaches up his spare hand and places it on my cheek. I don’t dare move, frozen to the spot, as he lets his hand trail down ever so gently to rest around my throat. He doesn’t squeeze, just lets it rest there as a not-so-subtle gesture.
“Let me guess,” I say, blood roaring in my ears as anger joins the shame already blanketing my being. Anger that we were ever put in this situation by our fucked-up families and the club that controlled us all. “You want to strangle me? Go ahead. I probably deserve it. Just promise me you’ll kill him as soon as you’re done with me.”
He drops the attitude and his hand from my throat; my skin burns where his hand rested, craving his touch once more. Which is all kinds of screwed up. But still. I’d much rather a threatening hand on my throat from Jase over a violently possessive lust-grip from his father.
Dornan. Why won’t you just die, motherfucker?
“I’ll never be done with you,” Jase mumbles, taking a fresh swig of vodka and grimacing as it no doubt burns his throat. “Even when you were dead, I wasn’t done with you. You haunted me for six fucking years. I’m still not sure you’re really here.”
I reach out my arm and trace the black circle under his uninjured eye. “When’s the last time you slept?” I ask, echoing the question he asked me a few days ago.
He shrugs.
“At least get off that floor and come sit on the sofa. I cleaned the glass off it.”
I stand and offer him my hand, which he takes, getting to his feet. He keeps ahold of his bottle of vodka but quickly drops my hand, reverting back into his own little universe. I frown, biting my lip.
“Do you want me to go?” I ask. There’s no malice in my tone, no hurt. If he needs his space, I’ll happily give it to him. There are a thousand fleabag motels in the greater Los Angeles area where I could hide out while I wait for Dornan to either wake up, or die.
God, I want him to die so badly.
Jase shakes his head. “No. Stay.” He doesn’t look at me, but his words are forceful enough that I believe he’s being genuine. I can forgive the dude for not being able to deal with all the shit I’ve stirred up in a very short time.
I wait in the hallway as he wanders around, robotically closing windows. At the wall just inside the front door, he punches a code into a small keypad, and a red light flashes. I remember the security system from when I used to come here before.
I remember a lot of things about before.
Memories of days long gone, of innocence and first love, curl around my mind like tendrils, whispering softly, making me hurt. Part of me wants to get lost inside them for a while, but as Jase slams the remaining window shut and stalks into the living room, I’m jolted back to the present.
I follow cautiously, unsure if my presence is wanted. I hover awkwardly as Jase kicks back onto the end of the sofa that has a chaise extension. He crosses his legs and stares at his bottle of vodka, forlorn. A vibrating sound buzzes from his jeans pocket and he pulls out his phone, closing one eye to read it.
His face falls.
“What?” I ask quietly.
He throws the phone down on the sofa beside him. “Someone found Jimmy.”
Jimmy. Of course. In the commotion of everything, I’d almost forgotten the dead man whose blood had covered me from head to toe only hours ago.
“Dead?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Yes, dead. That’s generally what happens when you blow someone’s brains out.”
I almost say, That’s generally what happens when your motorcycle blows up, too, but I bite that back. It’s not helpful right now.
I think about Jimmy, and it bothers me. At first, I’m not sure why, but then I realize … It was the casual, instinctive way that Jase placed his gun to Jimmy’s temple and pulled the trigger. No hesitation.
“Why’d you need Jimmy’s gun?” I ask suddenly. It’s not the question I really want to ask, but it, too, has been bothering me. Why did we have all that fanfare with the guns and Jimmy being offered a ringside seat to the Juliette rape and murder show? Why didn’t Jase just use his own gun? I mean, the likelihood of his gun—of D
ornan’s gun—being registered is almost zero. They’re bikers, not members of the NRA. Now that my brain is functioning again, all of these questions are burning a hole in my brain, but it’s the unspoken questions that hurt even more.
Why did you wait six years, and never do a damn thing to hurt your father?
Why didn’t you kill him?
Why is your body covered in Gypsy Brothers tattoos? In family patches and club insignia?
Why are you even here?
I can kill a man and watch him die, but I can’t ask these questions. Not now. I’m too afraid of what the answers might be. So, instead, I stick with the safer question.
Why’d you need Jimmy’s gun?
Jase eyes me for a moment before responding. “Dornan’s gun was damaged when his motorcycle blew up beneath him. I doubted it would fire. Imagine if I’d tried to shoot Jimmy with a gun that didn’t work.”
My stomach roils at that image. Yes. Imagine indeed.
“Imagine what they’d do to you and to me.”
“You’re smart,” I say, feeling stupid that the thought didn’t occur to me in the parking lot. I was careless, and if it weren’t for Jase’s quick thinking and excellent acting, we’d probably both be dead.
I’d definitely be dead.
“I’m a details guy,” Jase says, leaning his head back and closing his eyes for a moment. I take a deep breath and sit on the other end of the couch, my thoughts troubling me greatly.
Why is he still here?
Elliot’s words come back to haunt me, a stab in the gut. I told him to go. I’m a horrible person.
He’s Dornan’s son. His blood runs through his veins.
I steal a glance at Jase, and my troubled mood turns into a barely muffled laugh as I see that he’s fast asleep, passed out sitting up against the couch, one hand still wrapped firmly around the neck of the vodka bottle.
I can’t be mad at him now. He’s adorable when he sleeps. I push those disturbing questions away. They’ll still be there in the morning for me to ask.
I stand and tiptoe over to where Jase is lying, gently unfurling his fingers from the vodka bottle. I return it to the fridge, and then pad silently into his bedroom. I grab the duvet from his bed and carry it to the living room, lightly covering Jase with it. He’s out cold, and for a moment I just watch him sleep, the lines on his face gone in sleep.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 30