Dornan shrugs. “It’s all semantics, anyway. I’ve owned you the moment the nurse handed you to me after your stupid mother had you.”
I glare at him, furious at the thought that even that moment of my life was overshadowed by Dornan fucking Ross.
“You know, I’m confused,” I say, my brain slightly clearer now that the heroin high has tapered a little. “You say I’m pregnant, but what kind of father shoots his baby up with enough drugs to kill it? You know, it’s going to be born an addict, if it even survives everything you’ve done to me.”
Dornan scowls, but I can tell my argument hits him somewhere. “Well, you were born an addict, and look how you turned out?”
“Bullshit.” He’s lying.
“Mmm-Hmm. Your stupid cunt of a mother couldn’t stay off the juice for a day, let alone nine months. You were in the hospital for weeks! Crying and fucking performing. You weren’t even signed out to her when you finally left.” He grins as he delivers his final blow. “You were signed out to me. I brought you home. Celia fucking took care of you until you detoxed, while your mother didn’t even miss a beat. Went back to the club the very next day.”
My cheeks burn. I’m angry because I know he’s probably telling the truth.
“My father would never let that happen.”
“Your father was in prison,” Dornan says. “Six months in Sing Sing. And your mother came back to me, just like always.” He smiles, as if the memory is a fond one, and brushes his knuckle against my cheek. I shrink back from his touch, and he laughs again.
“Oh, baby girl,” he says. “In years to come, you’ll be begging me to touch you. Because this is it for you. Me and you and this room. I hope you enjoyed the last twenty-one years. Because until you take your last breath, the only person you’ll ever see again is me.”
He leaves the room then, slamming the door for effect behind him. As soon as I hear his footsteps retreat down the hallway, I scramble off the bed, tiptoeing toward the French doors that lead to the balcony. Everything appears to have been repaired since one of the bombs I planted exploded right below this room, as it tore a gaping big hole on the side of the mansion. I peer out of the glass, glimpsing several armed guards at various points around the property, and in the distance, the smoggy lights that mark the border separating the US from Mexico.
I don’t know how I’d even get past the guards. How I’d get down to the ground floor from the second floor balcony. How I’d not freeze in this stupid little dress that’s totally unsuitable for winter.
But I’ve got to do something.
I put my hand on the curved brass door handle, which is cold and heavy. My breath catches when I push it down…and it gives. No resistance. Excitedly, I push the doors open, but the sight that greets me isn’t the one I expected.
I squeal, stepping back just in time to avoid falling through the non-existent balcony to the hard tiles that adorn the ground-floor verandah.
My heart racing, I step back into the safety of the room, realizing that the repairs aren’t, in fact, complete. There’s a huge fucking piece of the balcony missing that almost swallowed me up whole and left me smashed on the ground in a tangle of broken limbs and blood.
The wind from outside rushes in, cold and sweet after three months of stale air. I feel my loose hair fly wildly around my face as the door behind me crashes open and Dornan rushes over to me, hands fisting in my hair as he tugs me back violently.
“Oww!” I cry, as he uses the momentum of tugging my hair to throw me past him and back onto the bed. I land face down, but before I can crawl away he is on me.
“Shut up!” he roars, digging his fingers painfully into my arm as he flips me onto my back. Before I can get away, he’s looped something around my wrists, and secured them to the bedhead.
I struggle briefly before going limp. We’ve done this dance before and the guy knows how to tie his knots. I’m stuck.
I glare at him derisively. “You gonna make me come before you stab me this time?” I ask sarcastically, remembering the night he made my entire body shudder to life before he sank his knife into my thigh.
He smirks. “Only good girls get to come. You’re not a good girl, are you, baby?”
He takes something from the drawer beside the bed and I crane my neck to see what it is. An iPod with headphones already plugged into it.
Strange.
The smirk doesn’t leave his face as he shoves the ear buds into my ears. “I’ll be back in a few days,” he says, winking at me. “But don’t worry. I made sure this is on repeat.”
He presses something on the iPod and tosses it onto my chest, just as someone that sounds like Sepultura starts screaming in my ears about hate and blood. Really fucking loud.
I glare at Dornan as he blows me a kiss and slams the door shut behind him, while a dude screams into my eardrums.
SEVENTEEN
It’s so fucking loud, I feel like my ears are going to start bleeding. I wiggle my head forcefully, but those headphones are shoved deep into my ears, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting them out without the use of my hands.
And it doesn’t stop. For fucking hours. I listen to the entire, ear-shattering, vomit-inducing album, which might be fine at a regular volume—if you love death metal, which I do not—but at full volume it makes me wish I were already dead.
There’s nothing I can do to escape the noise, until eventually it feels like the screaming and the notes become a part of me, trapped like waspish, screaming, vengeful ghosts in the darkest recesses of my mind.
Finally, after what seems like days but what is probably just a few hours, I feel warm fingers at my ears. My eyes fly open and I see The Prospect standing above me, holding one of the ear buds up to his ear to see what I’ve been listening to.
“Damn,” he says, shaking his head. “That shit is terrible.”
Tears of relief burn my eyes and I blink them away impatiently, hardly able to hear him through the music which still seems to be bouncing around in my head. I feel like it’ll be there forever, and the thought makes my stomach turn.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, and he smiles in response.
“I told you I was a nice guy,” he whispers. “You want something to eat?”
I nod enthusiastically, starving and on a wicked comedown from that last dose of heroin, and wait as patiently as I can while he undoes the scarf around my wrists. He helps me to sit up and I massage my numb wrists as he does.
He places a paper bag in front of me. McDonalds. My eyes light up as I imagine the fat and grease that might be in the bag. I look at him for approval and he gestures, smiling.
“Gee,” he says, as I snatch up a cardboard box of fries and start stuffing them into my mouth. “I’ve never seen a girl get so turned on by fast food.”
I ignore him until I’m done, first the fries, then a cheeseburger that practically melts in my mouth. In less than five minutes, there’s not a crumb left. As soon as I’ve finished the food he hands me a Coke—cold and icy—and I sip on the sugary drink like it’s liquid gold.
When I’m finished, I wipe my mouth with a napkin and crunch the rubbish into a ball. “Thank you,” I say, and I really am so fucking thankful it hurts.
The events that happened last time I saw him slam into me, and I frown, remembering poor Violetta on her knees.
“You made that poor girl suck your dick,” I say to him.
He frowns. “Dornan made that poor girl suck my dick.” He corrects me. “It wasn’t exactly a turn-on, or didn’t you notice?”
I nod reluctantly. “Dornan makes people do a lot of things they don’t want to do.”
He lets me use the bathroom and drink some water before he leaves. He looks at the bed uneasily, but I’m lying on my back before he can even ask, my arms stretched above me.
Obedient little slave I am. I disgust myself.
He looks relieved at my cooperation as he re-knots the silk scarf around my wrists, tugging it to make sure it’s
tight. I’m fine, until he places the iPod back on my chest and moves the ear buds toward my ears.
He must see the look of horror on my face because he pauses, patting my shoulder awkwardly.
“I have to put it back on,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”
I nod bravely, but I start crying. A concerned expression flickers across his face.
“Hang in there. I’ll turn it down a little,” he whispers in my ear, so faintly I can barely hear it. “It’ll all be over soon.”
He leans back and I stare at him, hardly daring to believe what he’s saying.
“What?” I mouth, barely above a whisper. He shakes his head, pointing to his ear and then to the door. I know exactly what he’s getting at. It’s exactly the same thing Jase tried to tell me when he was in here. Someone is outside the room, and they’re listening. They both seemed comfortable to gesture though, which tells me there are no cameras in the room.
The Prospect pats my shoulder again affectionately, and the small gesture makes me burst into tears. Looking like he’s handing me a death sentence, he gently nestles the ear buds back into my ears and presses play.
This time, the music takes me on a journey. First, I cry. Get rid of every tear that’s still inside of me. Then, I seethe; my anger only helped along by the lyrics in the death metal songs that blast at my eardrums. More than once, I imagine my eardrums have burst and splattered blood everywhere. But it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me.
After what I estimate to be a few hours, I come to a point of acceptance. Staring at the pressed ceiling above me, I can finally separate myself from the thrashing music, can finally decipher my own thoughts. The heroin has worn off too, and no doubt the sugary cola has given my brain a bit of a boost.
And the thoughts that occupy my mind are intriguing indeed.
My thoughts wander towards the night I was here last. The last time Dornan fucked me as Sammi. Afterward, I’d been bleeding. At the time, I’d assumed it was his rough treatment of me, but it soon became apparent that my period had started. I’d spent the first few days at Jase’s apartment with the most wicked cramps.
And then, the week after, we had made love.
Unprotected.
At least twice.
And I’d stopped taking my contraceptive pills the day I blasted those bombs and blew the front of this fucking room to smithereens.
And after that? I’d been down here at least a month before Dornan raped me.
Yet I started throwing up before he raped me.
My mind struggles to do the math, to believe that this might actually be real, that I’m not just making shit up in a state of delusion, but as I analyze everything, the dates and the circumstances and everything and I come to one shocking, stunning conclusion that could change everything.
This baby inside me isn’t Dornan’s.
It’s Jase’s.
EIGHTEEN
My mind still reeling from the realization that I’m probably carrying Jase’s baby, I barely even hear the pops of gunfire that start in the background of my death metal marathon. In fact, I don’t notice them at all until the glass in one of the French door splinters, a neat hole in it thanks to the stray bullet that’s just lodged itself in the wall above me.
I gasp as bits of plaster from the wall rain down on my face and chest like snow. Someone is shooting at the house.
My concern turns to excitement as I repeat that thought inside my head.
Someone is shooting at the house.
The prospect’s final words come back to me, then. It’ll all be over soon. Is this what he meant? I struggle against my restraints, but all I succeed in doing is making them tighter. By some small mercy, though, one of the ear buds dislodges from my ear.
Awesome. I can hear gunshots in one ear and the unintelligible screaming of death metal in the other. I’m not sure which one is worse.
The Prospect flings the door open and marches in, avoiding eye contact as he undoes my hands. I squeeze my hands to get the blood flowing as he hauls me to my feet. “What’s happening?” I ask sharply, eyeing the bullet hole in the window with alarm. Another bullet whizzes past my head and hits the wall just as he pulls me toward the door, and I shriek. That one was way too close for comfort.
“We’re being shot at. Until it’s safe, you have to go back downstairs.”
He pulls me into the hallway and wrenches the door shut behind us, glancing furtively up and down the long corridor.
“Come on.”
I plant my feet, unwilling to move until he tells me what’s going on. “Who’s shooting?” I demand. “And where are you taking me? If you think I’m going back to that fucking room—”
“That’s exactly where you’re going,” a voice says behind me. I jolt, turning around to see my lover standing there, but he’s not that man at the moment. He’s somebody else right now.
“Jase?” I say breathlessly.
He looks like the grim reaper, dressed entirely in black and holding an assault rifle in his hand, his expression tight and focused.
At this point, I don’t know if he’s here to save my life, or take my life.
“Walk,” he says, pushing me with the tip of his rifle.
“You won’t shoot me,” I say, instantly regretting my choice of words.
“I will if he doesn’t,” The Prospect says, leveling his own handgun at me. “Boss says we gotta keep you safe. So hurry the fuck up and move!”
Fuck. I start walking, my own heartbeat thumping wildly in my ears. I want to turn and scream at Jase—I’m so fucking confused—but the gunfire all around us is only getting louder and more frequent, and I seem to have lost the ability to think for myself. The startling realization I had while bound and stuck listening to the death metal comes back to kick me in the guts, literally. I gasp as I feel something push against my thin skin from the inside.
Holy shit. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was the baby kicking. Isn’t it too soon for that?
A few minutes later, we’re back in that dank little dungeon. I stop in the doorway, staring painfully at the bare bed where Dornan tied me down and raped me. Where he excised my flesh. Where he marked me and shot me full of drugs and tried to destroy me.
I think of the poor baby who was in my womb that entire time, and I wonder how anything could possibly survive such a prolonged onslaught.
Still. I’m here. I’m not dead yet.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask the guys as I’m pushed into the room. They ignore me, The Prospect nodding at Jase before leaving the room.
“Where is he going?” I ask Jase worriedly. “Jason, what the hell is happening?”
He strides over to me, his cheeks flushed, his presence overpowering. “Listen to me,” he says desperately. “If anyone comes in here, you’re scared of me. Terrified. Do you understand?”
I nod. It’s true. I am scared of him.
Jase looks around the room, as if only now realizing where he is. “Jesus,” he chokes. “This is where you’ve been this entire time?”
I can’t help myself. I’m a bitch and I shouldn’t say it, but I do.
“Why didn’t you come and save me?” I ask brokenly.
Jase grabs my arms and shakes me. “You ran away!” he says, his eyes wild and glassy. “I didn’t even know he had you. And then Elliot called me—”
“Elliot called you?” I interrupt. “Elliot’s here?” Oh Jesus, this is getting worse by the second. “Jason, what the hell is going on?”
Jase motions for me to stay put, stepping out into the hallway and glancing around before coming back to join me, where I stay rooted to the spot. I’m so confused right now, and if Jase isn’t here to help me, he’d better just shoot me in the face right here and now.
“Listen to me,” Jase says quietly, looking at the doorway over his shoulder. “Three years, I was in here. In this goddamn room. After I watched your father die…after he died in my arms…they brought me down here. Shut the doo
r. And left me. I tried to wipe away his blood, but it dried on my skin. Seeped into my pores, until finally, it was like it became a part of me. He became a part of me.”
“You’re not the only one who wanted revenge, sweet girl. I thirsted for it the way a dying man in the desert thirsts for water. I wanted it so badly. I fought. I resisted. I fucking raged. But three years may as well be three hundred. May as well be forever.”
I think of the three months I spent in this room, and how I might die here, tonight.
I don’t want to die.
I’ve never wanted to live more than I do right now.
“I don’t know how you survived,” I whisper, my heart breaking.
He smiles sadly. “I thought of you. And how much I loved you. And how, when I finally got out, I was going to kill every last fucking Gypsy Brother for what they did to us.”
I inhale sharply. “So what happened?”
He shrugs. “I made them believe I was brainwashed. That I was one of them. I got the tattoos, I rode the bike, I—” he hesitates painfully, “—killed enough people to prove myself worthy to them.”
I glance at the door worriedly as more gunshots ring out, closer this time.
“If you knew what I’d done—” he says brokenly.
“Stop,” I say. “I killed four of your brothers. I know what it means to have to kill somebody. But I’m confused. You say you were out for three years, Jase. Why not kill them? Why take your place as Dornan’s son?”
He grits his teeth. “I almost killed them all, once. But then I met a man who offered to help me give them something worse than death.”
My eyebrows shoot up in anticipation and disbelief.
“Julz,” he says. “I’m working with the DEA. And can I just say; they’re pretty fucking pissed that a girl came in and started killing off Gypsy Brothers and ruining their massive case.”
I swallow thickly. Of course. I knew there had to be a reason why he was so eager to stay with the club after everything that happened. Relief spreads through my limbs, joining the panic and fear that already resides there.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 42