I really hope Dornan doesn’t ask to see Donny. Stupid, dead Donny, hacked and slashed, the only thing he’d be useful for at this point perhaps being wrapped into dog food packaging.
On the bright side, I found my gun.
I’m slowing Jase down considerably, not least because I refuse to let him carry me. It’s not a pride thing. It’s because he’s already tried to pick me up a few times, and no matter which way we try it, the pressure on my stab wound is almost unbearable. I’d much rather stumble along beside him, using the wall as a support on my other side.
There’s a popping noise up ahead, and Jase grabs my arm, stopping me in my tracks. “Stay here,” he hisses, holding his gun out in front of him. I raise my own gun, nodding as he advances down the hallway and around a corner. I’ll stay here. He’s not very far away, maybe a few steps, and I can still make out his shadow as he positions himself around the corner, probably to get a better view.
But then I hear it.
I hear crying.
A little girl is crying.
“Jase!” I whisper.
I have to find her, before Dornan hurts her. Maybe he already has.
“Jase!” I repeat urgently. I can’t make out his shadow anymore, and my heart leaps into my throat.
What do I do? Stay here, listen to the increasingly loud wailing of a child who needs to be saved? Or go, towards her voice, with my gun and my bullets and hope to hell I can get her out of here?
God, I really wish Jase was here. Still clinging to the sound of the little girl’s crying, I creep up the hall in the direction Jase went. I round the corner.
He’s not there.
Fuck!
I make a split-second decision. Jase has disappeared. I can hear the little girl’s crying get more panicked.
I choose the intersecting hallway, the one we haven’t ventured down yet.
I hope like hell I’m not making the wrong decision, but Jase is gone, and what other choice do I have?
I use the wall for support, clinging to it with one hand; my other hand is holding my gun, my wrist pressed tight to my bleeding stab wound. Fucking Donny. I’m glad he’s dead, and I’m even happier that Jase killed him. It was about his turn for some bloody retribution.
The girl’s voice gets clearer. She’s not just crying. She’s saying something.
She’s saying, “Daddy.”
Oh my God. Elliot.
I walk faster, limping along the wall. Several times I have to stop and wipe my blood from my hand and the gun, it gets so slippery in my grasp. I really wish I had five minutes to bandage myself up right now, but that’s a luxury for afterwards.
For now, I’ll just hope that I don’t pass out before I have a chance to finish this. Donny’s dead, Blondie’s out for the count, and if I can just get to Dornan, I’ll have my chance at taking him out.
I can’t say I’m not terrified. But I’ve been waiting for my chance at destroying him for over six years, and that moment just arrived with a bang.
I clutch my stab wound as I make my way down the hall, stopping several times when the pain threatens to turn the lights out on me and send me into unconsciousness. I cling to the damp wall with torn fingernails, trying desperately to stem the steady flow of blood with my other hand.
A sob dies in my throat when I glimpse her through an open door. Elliot’s little girl. She’s only three, and she’s covered in blood as she stands in the middle of an empty room, sobbing.
I inch cautiously into the room; the first thing greeting me as I step inside is Elliot’s unconscious form, slumped on the ground.
Shit!
And beside him, Kayla’s sobbing her little heart out. She’s such a beautiful child; her dark blonde ringlets are more knotted than the last time I saw her, and her pink capped-sleeve dress is spattered with what I assume is her daddy’s blood. I’m reaching for her when suddenly, I’m stopped cold by the click of a gun’s hammer being cocked.
I raise my eyes slowly, unwilling to back away from Elliot and his daughter, but also powerless to go any closer without scoping out the threat.
And threat he is, standing at the far end of the room, his white shirt torn in places and untucked over black pants. He’s wearing a suit and tie to his death.
Or to mine.
“I knew you’d come,” Dornan taunts, a little behind Kayla and to the right, his gun firmly pressed to Amy’s head. No wonder I didn’t hear Amy’s cries — she’s gagged with enough duct tape to wrap about fifty Christmas presents. Her hands are taped behind her, and she’s freaking out, her eyes bulging with the exertion of hyperventilating through her blood-caked nose. She’s breathing rapidly, shallow little pants, her sleeveless top damp in a V at the middle with her own nervous sweat, her denim skirt covered in dirt and blood.
And Elliot. Jesus fucking Christ. We got so close, and now he’s on the floor in front of me, unmoving, a puddle of his blood slowly moving across the concrete floor.
No. He can’t be dead. If he’s dead, I’m going to shoot myself after I’m done with Dornan.
“You didn’t give me much choice,” I say finally, shifting my attention from Elliot.
“My daddy won’t wake up,” Kayla sobs, looking up at me. My heart breaks into a million fucking pieces as I swallow a scream rising in my own throat. I can’t lose it, not now.
I need to get these girls out of here.
“Gun,” Dornan says. “Drop it, and I’ll let these girls go.”
I clench my jaw, tasting blood in my mouth. “I don’t believe you.”
He shakes Amy forcefully. “Gun. Now. Or I blow her fuckin’ brains out.”
With great reluctance, I toss my gun. It lands at Dornan’s feet with a loud clatter.
Jase, where are you, where the fuck are you?
Much to my disbelief, Dornan pulls a switchblade from his jeans with his free hand and cuts through Amy’s wrist tape. She pulls the rest of the tape from her wrists and then her mouth, rushing down to Kayla and scooping her up. She stands, looking to Dornan for further instruction. I get that. I wouldn’t be able to turn my back and run from a man like Dornan if he had a gun in his hand.
Especially if I was carrying my child in my arms.
“Take her,” Dornan says, stepping over Elliot and pressing his gun to my head. I sway on my feet a little, but Dornan wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me into him so my face is pressed into his shoulder, holding me strong. A wave of revulsion passes over me at his possessive embrace, especially when he grins down at me.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he murmurs, his voice rough and ominous, and in his eyes I see my own death.
I crane my head to the side, not daring to struggle until these girls are far away from this room, and see Amy looking down at Elliot on the ground.
“Not him,” Dornan snaps, motioning her out. “Go now, before I change my mind.”
She grips Kayla tighter and runs. I hear her footsteps pounding the concrete floor as she runs away to safety.
I breathe a sigh of relief for her as I look down at Elliot.
“Let him go,” I say, even though he’s out of it and couldn’t leave the room himself. “He’s not part of this.”
“He helped you kill my sons,” Dornan grinds out, digging his gun into my throat. “He stays.”
“You said you’d let him go!” I cry. “You lied!”
He looks furious. “I didn’t fuckin’ lie. I said two for two. Where the fuck is Donny?”
He throws me and I fall to my knees, the concrete hard and unforgiving under my broken body. I yelp as I roll onto my side, my knife wound smacking against the floor. Pain ricochets through my body and I swear I can feel the blood pumping faster from my stomach at the sudden exertion.
“Don’t fucking touch her, old man,” Jase says as he enters the room, brandishing the knife he used to kill Donny, his face covered in his dead brother’s blood.
Dornan’s eyes go wide for a moment as he takes in his son. He looks from m
e to Jase, his mouth twisted into a frown.
“You got a gun, son?” he taunts, his voice smoke and gravel. “Cause I do, and it’s full of fucking bullets. You think you can cut me with that knife quicker than I can fill this bitch full of lead?”
Jase takes another step towards us. “Let her go, Dornan. You don’t want to hurt her.”
Dornan chuckles. “Oh, I want to hurt her. I wanna hear her scream as I’m fucking killing her, piece by piece.”
Lovely.
“Dad,” Jase says, and the word sounds so unnatural coming from him.
Dornan takes the gun from my throat and aims it at Jase. “Don’t you ever fucking call me that. You don’t get to call me that.”
Jase drops the knife to his side. “All these years you tried to get me to be your son, and now you don’t want me to call you dad? Seems pretty ironic, don’t you think?”
Dornan grimaces. “Where’s your brother?” he says. And in his eyes, he already knows.
Jase smiles darkly, pulling something from his pocket, the knife still loose at his other side. He tosses something small at Dornan’s feet, where it rolls before coming to a stop next to Dornan’s shiny black shoe.
It’s Donny’s eye.
His bloody fucking eyeball.
Dornan baulks, making a choking sound as he looks from the eyeball at his feet back to Jase.
“Didn’t you hear him screaming, dad?” Jase riles him. “Didn’t you hear him beg?”
“You motherfucker,” Dornan spits, shaking the gun at him. “I’m gonna fucking kill you, you little bastard.”
Oh God, Oh God. He can’t shoot Jase. He won’t shoot Jase, will he?
“I’m your only living son,” Jase says, his words mirroring my panicked thoughts. “You won’t shoot me, will you Pop?”
He steps closer again, his grip tightening around the knife.
Dornan shoots him.
I scream at the same time Jase’s chest explodes in a burst of red.
Jase flies backwards, crashing to the ground. He isn’t moving. His eyes are closed. There’s so much blood.
I drop to my knees, instinctively crawling towards him.
“No,” I whimper, “no no no!”
A hand fists in my hair and yanks me backwards, making me scream again.
“Get up,” Dornan grates, his voice low and barely controlled. “I’m not finished with you yet.”
Jase. Elliot. They’re both on the ground, neither of them are moving, and this is the worst possible way this could have gone down.
They’re going to die. I’m going to die.
It’s all been for nothing.
I stagger to my feet, my side hurting so, so badly. Without thinking, I put my hand over my stab wound, trying to stem the flow of bleeding
Big mistake.
Dornan’s dark eyes light up as he takes hold of my wrists and slams me against the wall. I see stars as the back of my head cracks against hard concrete, pinned as I continue to bleed.
“What’s this, then?” he asks, his voice almost gentle as he takes both wrists in one hand and uses the other to lift the hem of my t-shirt, exposing the inch-long wound in my side. Another scar to add to the collection. He caresses the spot where my blood is still steadily leaking out, and then he takes two fingers and pushes them inside the hole the knife left behind.
I scream, sagging to the side as I retch violently. He lets go of me and I slide down the wall, meeting the ground with a thud.
I’m getting back to a sitting position when he stands above me, one foot on either side of me. Beyond, I can see Elliot, who hasn’t moved a muscle. He’s out for the count. He’s bleeding.
He’s dying.
Jase, too, a few feet to Elliot’s left.
I have to do something, or both of them are going to die. We are all going to die.
And if we all die and Dornan lives, everyone else we love is going to suffer.
I spot my gun a few feet away and look back to Dornan. He smiles at me, baring his teeth like he’s going to rip into me with them, tear my flesh from my bones and devour me alive. He holds my gaze as he takes the blood-soaked fingers he just had inside my stab wound and puts them in his mouth, sucking them slowly.
“Your blood’s even better than your fuckin’ tears, baby girl,” he grins, watching me with interest as I back away on my hands and heels. It hurts so much I want to scream, but I force myself back, my hand itching it’s so close to the gun I earlier tossed at Dornan’s feet.
“You want a taste,” he says, getting down on his knees so he’s straddling my hips. He takes his licked-clean fingers and pushes them back into my wound a second time. I groan loudly, every nerve in my body screaming at the sudden invasion. He digs around more this time, getting his fingers as deep as he can before withdrawing them.
He reaches up to my face with his clean hand, squeezing my jaw hard so I open my mouth. He slides his fingers, soaked with my blood, into my mouth as far as they’ll go. I choke as my own blood drips down the back of my throat, and that makes him laugh.
“What do you think?” he asks. “Should we taste his blood next?” He’s talking about Elliot. “You can get on your knees and lick it up off the fuckin’ floor.”
He’s distracted by the thought of me lapping Elliot’s blood up off the dirty floor? Whatever. He’s distracted, and that makes him loosen his grip that’s forcing my jaw open. I bite down on his fingers as hard as I possibly can, my stomach lurching as blood gushes down my throat and I feel hard bone between my teeth.
Dornan roars, pulling his fingers from my mouth as he uses his other hand to smack me a backhander that almost knocks me out. I fly to the side, landing heavily. Thank you. He dives for me, grabbing hold of my ankle as I close my fingers around my gun and spin to face him.
He crash-tackles me at the same time that I blindly pull the trigger, aware only that the gun is pointed in his general direction but nothing more. The gun kicks back in my hands, Dornan jerks back slightly, but gravity ensures that his tackle is completed. His full weight smashes into me, knocking the gun from my hands and me flat on my back, with his weight suffocating me.
He groans. “You shot me. You fuckin’ shot me, you stupid bitch.”
He’s bleeding. I try to shove him off me, but he head-butts me, driving his forehead into my mouth. I see stars, my jaw aching and my teeth loose as Dornan rolls to the side, black-red blood blossoming from a hole in his shirt just below his ribs.
It’s like a target. I ball my hand up into a fist and smash it into where I’ve shot him, as hard as I possibly can. He lets out a guttural howl, snaking his fingers into my hair and yanking my head up before slamming it back down into the ground.
“You.Fucking.Cunt.,” he growls, slamming my head into the ground with each word.
If he keeps smashing my head into the ground I’m going to pass out, and if I pass out, I’m going to die.
And I refuse to die.
I reach for Dornan’s bullet wound and punch my fist into it again. He howls, rolling away, and I take that split second to roll the opposite way, getting to my knees and crawling away towards Elliot. The room spins around me as I reach up to the back of my head and find fresh blood seeping from my scalp.
As I’m reaching Elliot I hear the slow click of a gun being cocked and I turn my attention back to Dornan. He’s in terrible shape. His face is pale and he, too, looks like he’s had the life sucked out of him. He looks as bad as I feel: bleeding, broken, ready to pass out. It’s only now that I realize he’s limping, dragging his left leg. I look closer, seeing the wet patch above his knee, almost impossible to see on the black fabric of his pants.
I smile. “He shot you, didn’t he?” I say.
Dornan grimaces, turning his head to the side as he aims at me.
“Don’t move, bitch,” he says.
I force myself to breathe, tiny, shallow breaths, as I drag myself closer to Elliot. With one hand over my stomach I manage to get to a kneeling position
next to him.
“You won’t shoot me,” I say, rolling Elliot over with great difficulty. Oh, Jesus. He’s been shot in the chest. It looks bad. Really bad. His blood is everywhere, making my knees slip as I try to wriggle closer.
“Yes, I fucking will,” he says, shaking the gun.
“You won’t,” I say, looking down at Elliot’s pale face. “You’re not finished with me yet, are you, Dornan? You’re not going to shoot me.”
He makes a choking noise, blood appearing at his lip. I look at him, fascinated. The bullet I fired must have hit his lung if he’s coughing up blood right now.
“Are you sorry?” I ask suddenly. I’m so close to passing out. So close. The room spins for a second. I don’t have long. Jase and Elliot have even less time, if they’re even still alive.
They have to be alive.
“Sorry for what?” Dornan asks, coughing as he spits more blood on the floor beside him. His shirt is a mess. He’s bleeding, and he’s bleeding good.
I level my eyes at him and really look at him. Just me and him. Juliette Portland and Dornan Ross, in one spectacular face-off. Only one of us is going to leave this room alive, I know this now, and I hope to fuck that it’s going to be me that leaves without the aid of a body bag.
“Are you sorry for killing my father?” I ask him. I want to know. I need to know.
He sneers. “You think you can trust the man you grew up with. The man who you would bet everything on. Your best friend in the goddamn world. And then he goes and fucks you over. Steals your woman. Steals your money. Steals your son.” His hand shakes as he holds his chest, and he makes a choking noise deep in his throat as he glances at Jase. Blood. Dornan’s drowning slowly in his own blood, judging by the way he’s coughing it up and the neat bullet hole in his shirt that’s now soaking red.
I might not even have to kill him. He might just lie down and die.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 61