Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series

by Lili St. Germain

“You want a little bump to take the edge off?” he asks, offering me the white powder.

  My first reaction is to push it away and tell him to fuck off. But my arm is heavy and the words die in my throat as I zone in on the very thing that could take this pain away.

  Something brushes against the inside of my abdomen and I snap out of my daydream. I launch myself off the bed again and back to the round porthole again, pressing my shoulders against the curve of the wall.

  “Okay, okay,” he says, putting his hands in front of him in a sign of peace. He drops the baggie back into his pocket and crosses his arms across his chest.

  “You change your mind? You tell me.”

  I nod thankfully, my throat painfully dry as I attempt to speak. “Why…why didn’t you tell me you were one of the good guys?”

  He cuts me in half with the intensity of his stare. He’s amused, too, the ghost of a smirk twitching at his mouth.

  “I didn’t know if I’d be able to get you out, Giulietta.” He pulls out a cigarette and puts it between his teeth, holding it there for a moment before he glances at my midsection. Sighing, he tucks the cigarette behind his ear and shoves the packet back into his jacket pocket.

  “Why did you care if I got out?” I ask. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Ah, but I do know you,” he says, nodding as if he’s privy to some great big secret I don’t know about. Which pisses me off.

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “You another Ross brother I don’t know about? You don’t look like the rest of them.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “Not me, bebé. I’m not related to that pig.”

  “The pig you killed, or his son?” I ask, referring to Emilio and Dornan.

  He snorts. “None of them.”

  My chest constricts. “You are related to her somehow. I know it.”

  His expression tightens; for a moment I think he’s angry with me, until he reaches down into his T-shirt and pulls out a locket attached to a thin gold chain. I frown, confused.

  “You enjoy wearing women’s jewelry?”

  He flips the locket open and holds it up for me to look at. I have to crane my neck closer to make out the faces on the faded photograph inside. Three teenagers who look like siblings with their matching noses and chins.

  My heart skips a beat as I recognize one of them.

  Mariana. Of course. I knew I’d been right.

  I look at Luis, stunned, as he closes the locket again and tucks it back under his shirt.

  “My mama,” he says, his voice thick with passion, his blue eyes ablaze with fury.

  I nod slowly, my head whirling.

  “She spoke about you,” I whisper. Memories of the past slam into me like a car knocking the wind from me and tossing me high into the air. I can’t get enough air into my lungs as I remember those final few days before hell descended upon us all, when we still truly believed we would escape the vicious hold of the Gypsy Brothers.

  That admission surprises him. His eyebrows practically hit the roof. “She did?”

  I nod. “She didn’t say your name. But she told me. She told me about her baby boy with the big blue eyes.”

  He swipes a hand over his bald, bronze-colored skull, averting those big blue eyes away.

  “I knew there was something about you,” I say, the first real thing I’ve said in hours. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  He smiles, giving me a sidelong glance that’s almost…shy. Which is funny, given that he’s seen me naked on more than one occasion and even worse than that. He’s seen the things Dornan did to me, the dark moments after he forced himself on me. Luis has seen me have a complete fucking meltdown while I screamed at my mother. He’s watched me be tortured and he’s fed me when I was about to pass out from hunger.

  “Why you?” I ask suddenly.

  His lips curl into a knowing smile. “You know how hard it is to break someone out of a prison? Like a real, legit prison?”

  I shrug.

  “It’s very fucking hard, bebé. And it’s a piece of cake compared to the things we had to do to get you out of that hellhole.”

  I chew on my lip, mulling that over. My arms are itching like crazy, in fact, my entire body is screaming to be scratched, for me to rake my nails across crawling flesh until bright red blood springs forth in jagged lines. But I restrain myself for the moment. I don’t want to show Luis how much he’s right. How much my veins are screaming, sizzling on shot nerve endings, dying for something to soothe, for something to help me forget.

  He sees right through me. He watches my fingers as they tremble, as I make tight fists with them and then loosen them again, and I know he sees the truth.

  He takes the baggie of heroin out again and tosses it at me. Stepping over to the door, he flips the lock, then comes back to me, a syringe materializing in his hand.

  “We’ll wean you off slowly,” he says, looking badass in his leather, his blood-spattered white T-shirt, and needle in his hand. He holds it like it’s a weapon, and in another place it would be.

  For Dornan, it was, anyway.

  ***

  The gear is good. Better than good. As soon as it enters my vein I feel a rush, a burst of stars that appear behind my eyelids and make them droop. I sag to the side and feel hands stop me from sliding to the floor.

  Though, with the heroin kicking around inside me, I honestly wouldn’t give a fuck if I did fall down.

  Something troubling gnaws at the edge of the bliss, and this is how I know he’s given me less than Dornan did. A troubling thought rears its head—if I died, if my heart ceases to beat, even momentarily, what did that do to the baby?

  I make a mental note to think about that later. I can’t focus on anything right now, and I think I’m giggling, the sound muffled with my face pressed against Luis’s shoulder.

  Strong arms loop around me and pick me up easily—much, much too easily. I am skin and bone. I sigh, letting the bed swallow me up as Luis deposits me under the covers and pulls them up to my chin.

  “You’ll be okay, mamacita,” he says, but I’m already fading into the blissful void, and I’m frozen, unable to reply.

  THREE

  A noise rouses me from sleep, the scrape of a door hinge that needs oil.

  I sit up in bed, my hair still plastered to my forehead, the comforter too warm, but without it too cold. I peer at the figure in the dark, trying to decide it it’s Luis or Elliot.

  It’s too tall to be Luis.

  “Elliot?” I whisper.

  I reach over and flick on the bedside lamp, bathing the small room in an eerie yellow glow.

  And my stomach seizes.

  “You can’t be here,” I say, panicking, sliding myself over to the far side of the bed. I don’t have anywhere to go—even if I could somehow maneuver myself out the window, I’d be dropping into an icy sea and drowned before I could second-guess myself.

  Jase is an imposing figure any day, but usually it’s not me who is afraid of him. But now, with the revelation he killed my father, I am terrified. I am angry. I am despondent. I am so completely fucked up, and I don’t even know where to begin.

  I swallow, tasting the last remnants of heroin, oily and bitter on the back of my throat. “What do you want?” I ask weakly, the heroin still dulling my senses. I am two steps behind, too slow to catch up, and I pray he doesn’t notice.

  In the dark, I pray he doesn’t notice the fresh needle puncture in my arm.

  He’s dressed in jeans, his chest bare. He stands on one side of the bed as I crawl off the opposite side and stand.

  It’s the most confusing standoff I think I’ve ever had.

  I love him. I do. But that alone is not enough, not anymore.

  “I want to talk,” he says finally. His voice is cloaked in sorrow, the muted light casting all kinds of weird shadows around the room.

  “Please go away,” I whisper.

  “Juliette,” he says. My heart breaks at the sorrow in his voice.

  “
You killed him,” I whisper. “How am I ever going to forget that, Jase?”

  Pain blooms in his eyes.

  “You’re not,” he says quietly. “You won’t.”

  And in that moment, I know.

  We’ve survived everything so far.

  But we won’t survive this.

  He walks toward the door, and for a moment I am relieved.

  But he doesn’t walk out. No. He closes the door instead, with an air of finality that says he won’t be opening it again any time soon. I stare in horror as his hand rests on the handle a beat too long, before he turns to face me again.

  “Get out,” I say, louder this time. My heart is going insane inside my ribcage. I am afraid of the man I love. It’s unbearable.

  He looks terribly sad. There are circles under his eyes, and his hair looks as messy as mine feels. There’s three-day old stubble on his face that he scratches absently, reminding me of his father.

  That reminder—it sickens me.

  “I…killed him because he was going to die anyway,” he says sadly. The effort it takes for him to say killed is like a shard of glass stabbing into my heart.

  How dare he.

  “It doesn’t matter!” I cry, picking up the thing closest to me—a fucking pillow—and hurling it at him across the bed. I begin to cry.

  “I hate you,” I sob brokenly, as the pillow bounces off him and lands on the floor. “I trusted you. I made love to you, I told you every shitty fucking secret I had. I gave it all to you, and you knew all along that you killed him? You must have been laughing at me this whole time behind my back.”

  He’s moving slowly to the end of the bed, trying to be subtle so I don’t notice him rounding toward me.

  “Stop,” I say, pointing at him. “Stay there.”

  He doesn’t stop.

  I scream.

  He looks surprised. His eyes light up in surprise.

  “Shut up,” he hisses.

  I take another breath. “Elliot!” I scream.

  He rushes me, coming around the bed, all arms and hands, pushing me against the curved hull of the boat with one hand and slapping the other across my mouth. My screams die as he seals my mouth shut.

  I stare at him with as much hate as I can muster.

  “What the fuck?” The door crashes open to reveal Elliot, dressed in blue boxer shorts with neon-yellow stars printed all over them. He’s holding his gun in front of him, and his light brown hair is all mussed-up.

  “Oh,” he says, lowering his gun.

  Jase takes his hand from my mouth like he’s been caught with it in the cookie jar, running his fingers through his hair as he takes a step back.

  I give Jase the most withering glare. “Get out, Jason.”

  He doesn’t move. “You killed four of my brothers,” he says through gritted teeth, “and I gave you the benefit of the doubt, Julz. I let you explain. And I’d really fucking appreciate if you’d listen to me for five fucking minutes. Can you do that?”

  “That depends,” I shoot back, fucking furious. I’m yelling and throwing my arms around and I don’t even care how overbearing I might appear. “Did my father beat you and rape you until he thought you were dead? Because if he did, I’d really fucking like to know, Jase.”

  They both stare at me, stunned.

  “What!” I demand.

  Elliot looks awkward, scratching his chin with the butt of his gun. “Maybe you should hear the guy out,” he says. “I believe him when he says it wasn’t his fault, and I fucking hate the guy.”

  My thoughts whir; I can hear them hurtling around in my mind. Not his fault? Killed my father. Having his baby. Too hard. Too much.

  “It was a mercy killing, Juliette,” Elliot adds softly, his voice thick with sleep. “Not a murder.”

  I soften at Elliot’s words. Knowing how much he hates Jase, knowing how hard it must be to defend the man who ruined our relationship just because he existed and my heart couldn’t forget him. I feel like a fucking idiot.

  “Is that true?” I ask Jase softly, shifting my attention to him.

  He nods.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Jase, slower this time.

  He laughs mirthlessly. He raises his hands at me like he’s going to shake me by the shoulders, but clenches them instead as he pivots and paces.

  “I TRIED to tell you,” he yells. “If you’d shut up for five fucking minutes, I’m TRYING to tell you what happened!”

  Dazed, and on the verge of tears, I sit on the end of the bed where Luis and I spoke a few hours ago. When Luis shot you up, you mean, my conscience screams inside my head. I shiver, two fingers pinching the delicate skin in the crook my elbow that’s now marked and bruised from the needle he gave me. I take a deep, ragged breath, steeling myself for what comes next.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m listening.”

  He turns again, pressing one hand against the wall where I was just leaning. He licks his lips, his eyes are red and glossy. He looks terrible, and yet I know I look so much worse. He can’t even look at me, addressing the wall instead.

  “John and Mariana were taken by the Sangue Cartel,” he begins, his words slow and faltering. “The Cartel and The Gypsy Brothers. It was a complete clusterfuck. Dornan found out what they’d done, and after he took you, after…” he draws in an angry breath, every visible muscle in his body tight to the point I think he’ll snap, “after they killed you, they took me. I saw them. He…shot your dad, Julz. He shot him…Jesus.” He scrubs his eyes angrily, and Elliot shifts uncomfortably next to me on bare feet, his gun held down at his side.

  “Tell me,” I press him.

  He clears his throat. “Dornan shot John, and he put him in that room. That room where you were.”

  Jesus. The room I spent three months of my life in—living a nightmare—was the room where my father died?

  “He was bleeding, real bad. It was everywhere. And then Dornan threw me in that room,” he shudders. “And threw a gun in behind me.”

  I can feel my palms turn slick with sweat as I listen. I want this to stop, yet I need to know what happened.

  “Your dad, he was dying, Julz. Where Dornan shot him? He said it was for betraying him. For screwing Dornan’s girlfriend behind his back. He shot him there so he’d never screw anyone ever again.”

  I want to be sick. I imagine Dornan pressing his gun into my father’s lap, the fear he must have felt. The deafening blast, the agonizing pain. My poor father. My poor fucking father.

  “Your dad was so brave, Julz,” he says, choking up. “The dude had just been shot in the dick, and instead of freaking out, he was trying to make me feel better. Trying to help me out.”

  “What happened?” I breathe. “I need to know it. All of it.”

  He steadies himself, looking at me for the first time since he started his macabre confessional.

  “He’d lost a lot of blood,” Jase says softly. “And he was in a lot of pain. People think when you’re shot the pain gets better when you go into shock, but not that kind of pain. It’s with you until you pass out, or until you die.”

  I nod, swallowing thickly; I know that kind of pain too well. Its remnants are written along my disfigured flesh. A pain that doesn’t allow you to pass out.

  A pain that seems to last forever.

  “He told me a phone number. A name. I memorized them. I recited them to myself for three fucking years. Amanda Hoyne. Nine-seven-five-three-three-zero-five.”

  “The DEA contact?” I guess.

  He nods. “Even in his final hours, your dad was more worried about me than himself.”

  Of course he would have been. He died trying to get us out of the hell that was the Gypsy Brothers. He did everything for me, for Mariana, for Jase. For us all.

  It can’t all be for nothing, surely. That would be too cruel.

  “He was in so much pain,” Jase says, his words almost dream-like. They roll over me, like water, like fire.

  “Dornan had sa
id to me, only one of us would be coming out of that room alive. And that it was up to me to prove myself. To show I could be…a Gypsy Brother.” His eyes flash with emotion - hatred for Dornan?

  I cry, then. “He made you prove yourself because you didn’t rape me,” I say emptily.

  He nods. “Yes, he did.”

  “My father told you to do it.” It’s the most logical explanation. Deep shame bursts inside my chest. I didn’t trust Jase when he needed me the most. He didn’t murder my father. He ended his suffering.

  “Your father took the gun from me, and I begged him to kill me. After what I’d seen—after watching you die—I didn’t want to live, not as a son of that motherfucker. But your dad, he told me I’d be able to get Dornan back one day. He gave me what I needed to bring them all down. A contact. Some fucking hope.”

  I’m shivering violently as I watch Jase’s anguished speech.

  “Your father smiled, even though he was in pain, and he said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jason. Do you know where I’ve been shot? I’m going to die anyway.’ He’d already made up his mind.”

  “I begged John, but he took my hand, and wrapped it around the gun. He put it to his temple, and he squeezed the trigger. And he died, in my arms.”

  Jase finally looks at me, probably expecting anger. Instead, all I feel is devastation.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

  Oh, god. I had told him earlier he was just like Dornan.

  Elliot leaves the room, just like that. He must see the resignation on my face, the acceptance. It was a mercy killing.

  I reach out for him, the boy I love. The boy I’ve always loved. Hands stretched out in front of me, and I cannot bear to go one more second without his skin against mine. I tell him I’m sorry, over and over again as he crushes me in his arms.

  He whispers to me that it’s okay, that he’s missed me, and that he’s so fucking glad I’m here, now, with him.

  He holds me for a long time. And it feels right. It feels better than anything.

  I am safe. I am loved.

  Maybe everything will finally be all right, at least our screwed-up version of all right. We can get through anything. Our love survived beyond death, so we can survive this.