Zero Hour (Gypsy Brothers #8)

by Lili St. Germain

  “Five more minutes,” I say to Luis. “Five more, and I’m going back there to find them.”

  Luis nods. Sometimes I think he’d do anything I say. I wonder why. I’ve done nothing for him during the time we’ve know each other except be a needy pain in the ass. I think he’s sentimental, or something. I think he knows how much his mama loved Jase and I. He wants to be a part of the action, and so far he’s been front and center.

  “You think this is going to work tonight?” I ask Luis.

  He shrugs. “I certainly fucking hope so, bebé.”

  I square my shoulders. “I’m tired of waiting. I’m going in. Wait for me?”

  Luis shrugs in agreement and watches me as I go searching for Jase and his pretty FBI pal.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JASE

  I’d been out of the cell, that dank fuckhole my father kept me in, for a couple months, and my crazy was just getting started. I was on fire with rage and sex feeding my every move. I was banned from Va Va Voom, the strip club run by the Gypsies, after I almost killed a girl while I was fucking her. In the ass. In a booth. While I wrapped her stockings around her neck and pulled until she turned blue underneath me.

  So what does a sex-crazed, psychotic guy do when he’s been denied the free pussy he’s always been able to access?

  He finds more pussy. Better pussy. Pussy that likes to be choked, even if you have to pay handsomely for the privilege of a little violence.

  I ended up stumbling upon The Black Heart by chance, after the DEA agent whose number I’d memorized agreed to meet with me. Amanda Hoyne. I still remember the hours I’d spent in the dark, in the hole, reciting the number John had given me before I shot him dead. Amanda Hoyne. She was the one I could trust.

  So I met Amanda Hoyne, and it turns out I was way above her fucking pay grade. It was her, ironically, who directed me to the club and to her DEA superior. She met me in a bar in West Hollywood, took one look at me and handed me a matte black business card with an address printed on the back and a picture of an anatomical black heart, arteries and all, the edges embossed and raised slightly from the rest of the card. The first chance I got, I went to that club, and in hindsight they were obviously expecting me, because I didn’t need a password, or ID, or even a smile. I just asked for Isobel Sazerac and waltzed in like I owned the place. I didn’t know back then if she was somebody I could trust, but my curiosity about The Black Heart and my raging desire to fuck somebody in the dark until they passed out won out over everything else.

  They let me in, and next thing I knew I had my pants around my ankles and my hands around the throat of the prettiest little submissive I’d ever seen, while she swallowed my cock. There was no chase. No force. No dubious consent. The women (and men) who visited The Black Heart were there because they were as devious and as disturbed as me. The tighter I squeezed, the faster they climaxed. The harder I fucked them, the more they asked me to do it again. There was no shame. No bullets.

  No Dornan, unless you counted me, and the way I was starting to become him.

  I’d been going to The Black Heart for a couple months, just a few times a week to keep my demons at bay while I figured out what the hell my next move against my father would be, when I finally did the deed with Isobel. Before then, we’d talk, and she’d promise me all kinds of things that sounded interesting and dubious, like avenging Juliette’s death and making my father and brothers pay for their sins. She was talking jail time. I figured that was a good starting point. Once I contained them, then I could work on extinguishing them. Once we screwed the first time, it was like a race to see who could be the kinkiest, the most perverted. She had a particular fondness for sex swings and blindfolds, now that I remember.

  So to be here, back in this club, is the weirdest fucking experience. I’m trying so, so hard to focus on what Isobel’s telling me about the DEA’s shady operations and how Fitz is likely using us as bait that he’ll then trade off to the Cartel, and I’m getting about ninety percent of what she’s saying, but the other ten percent is getting lost as I watch the scene unfolding over her shoulder.

  See, the front room of The Black Heart is for fucking and dancing and drinking. Plain and simple. But the back area—walled off and behind a wall of extra security—is the place where you can indulge almost any desire.

  And right behind Isobel, I’m watching two guys dominate a girl who looks very similar to Juliette. Not as pretty, but superficially similar. Long legs, hips and ass to hold onto, a generous rack that long brown strands cascade down onto. She’s being fucked in the front and the back, and the guys are taking turns choking her with a silk tie.

  “You want to swap seats?” Isobel asks, craning her neck over her shoulder.

  I shake my head, shifting to try and stop my raging hard-on from breaking through my boxers and into the night.

  “You know, this is the first time we’ve met here and not touched each other,” she says, grinning wryly. “To think how far we’ve come.”

  I snort. “You mean you’re not still roaming the halls of The Black Heart, waiting for me to come back?”

  “Ha,” she says, finishing the drink she’s been cradling for our entire conversation. “They have sex clubs in San Francisco, Jason. They have men there, too. Good-looking ones.”

  “I bet they do,” I reply.

  “We done here?”

  I nod. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for coming,” she mimics me, scowling for good measure. Then the scowl morphs into a smile as she reaches her stiletto out and kicks my shin. “I missed you,” she says. “I’m glad you found her again. What was it like when you realized it was her?”

  I smile faintly, remembering the moment I stopped seeing Sammi and started seeing Juliette under the plastic surgery and the tattoo and the hair dye. It was almost instant. Once I’d seen her again as Juliette, it could never be unseen.

  “It was like waking up from the worst nightmare you’ve ever had,” I murmur.

  She seems to like it when I say that. Of course she would. She’s one of the people who saw all the worst parts of my soul.

  “I have to go,” Isobel says, standing. “Call me after whatever goes down, goes down. I know nothing. We never spoke. Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give me a head start before you leave. If anyone sees us leaving together who knows anything, we’re both fucked.”

  “Got it.”

  Isobel leaves, patting my shoulder as she departs. And in my rational brain, I know I should follow her. I know I should get out of this room and at least hang with Luis and Julz for five minutes until Isobel’s had a chance to get away from the place.

  But the scene unfolding in front of me is so fucking mesmerizing, I can’t move.

  The two guys are being rough with the girl who’s sandwiched between them. Like, really rough. One of them is biting every inch of her exposed skin, the other choking her until she sags between them and then slapping her until she comes to. He slaps her really hard, and my cock jumps in my boxers.

  Jesus, fuck, I have to get out of here.

  I can’t move.

  My hands are shaking.

  My hands are shaking and my mouth is dry. I want to do what they’re doing. I want to go over and wrap my hands around that girl’s neck and squeeze until she passes out.

  “Jase,” a voice says beside me, and I just about jump out of my fucking seat.

  It’s Julz. Her eyes are as round as dinner plates as she watches what I’m watching. I thought she’d turn away in disgust or demand that we leave, but she’s just as captivated as me.

  “That looks hot,” she says, and I can hardly believe my ears.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s hot. What they’re doing. Don’t you think?” Her last sentence is tinged with uncertainty, like I’ve just caught her doing something she’s not supposed to be doing.

  I break my focus on the threesome in front of us to study Juliette. I stand, moving
behind her, pressing my rock-hard cock into her back as she stands straighter.

  “You like the look of that?” I whisper in her ear. “Which part?”

  She swallows hard, her breathing speeding up. “The biting,” she says quietly. “The silk tie. The—violence in their touch.”

  I take a deep breath. Fuck it. My meeting with Isobel was quick, and there’s a very good chance we might be dead by tomorrow.

  “Anything about what they’re doing that you don’t like?”

  She shakes her head. “Nope.”

  Growling under my breath, I take Juliette’s upper arm and start half-walking, half-dragging her deeper into the labyrinth of private rooms that people pay thousands of dollars to hire out by the hour: safe spaces to explore their wildest fantasies, their most taboo desires. I try the first handle, but it’s locked. The second gives, and I push it open with lightning speed, hauling Juliette into the room and locking the door behind her.

  I don’t even stop to see what kind of furniture the room consists of. I throw Juliette on the floor and pounce on her like I’m a lion and she’s my catch.

  My dick’s inside her within three seconds of the door closing, even though it’s dark in here, the only light from a couple of candles throwing off weak light. It could be the middle of the day and I wouldn’t have a clue, because all I can see is Juliette Portland underneath me, her legs spread and her pussy full of me. I put my hands around her neck. I want to squeeze. I want to choke her so fucking badly. Goddamn it! I stop grinding my cock into her. I just stop.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper in the dark. “Julz, the things I used to do in this place—I used to hurt people and get off on it. I don’t want to hurt you, baby.”

  She reaches up and grabs hold of my face; I can just make out her eyes, her pupils almost swallowing any trace of green.

  “Jase,” she breathes. “What if I want you to hurt me?”

  I’m dubious. There’s hurting and there’s hurting. She feels my uncertainty; she must.

  “Fuck me,” she says. “Bite me. Make me bleed. Choke me. I’m yours. I trust you.”

  And goddamn if that isn’t the hottest thing I’ve heard in my entire existence.

  I do what she says. I fuck her. I bite her. And then I take her back to the place we’re staying and I do it again. I fuck her. I choke her. I love her in the only way I know how.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JULIETTE

  My phone vibrates on the nightstand. I think about ignoring it, but I can’t. Not when it could be something important. Something life and death.

  Then again, what isn’t life and death in our existence?

  I grab at the phone and turn it over in my hand, squinting at the screen. My heart leaps into my mouth when I see Agent Dunn’s cell number come up. She’s using her burner phone to call mine. I haven’t spoken to her in months, not since we were in Colorado and she tipped me off about the Cartel closing ranks on us. That was the first time we’d had to run, but it wasn’t the last.

  I press the green button and bring the phone to my ear, almost in slow motion.

  “Hello?” I hear a voice down the other end. It’s Agent Dunn. Though she’s technically with the CIA, and the CIA controls the Gypsy Brothers MC and the Il Sangue Cartel, she’s more trustworthy than most, but that doesn’t exactly mean a lot to me right now.

  “Yes?” I say, my voice hoarse. I watch the steady rise and fall of Jase’s chest as he sleeps beside me. It’s the first time he’s slept soundly beside me in a very long time. I guess he needs a rest after all of the things we just did. Honestly, my mind is still reeling from the violent fucking I’ve just been given; I’m so sore I doubt I’ll be walking properly in the morning, and my chest and thighs are covered in hickeys and bite marks. My scalp is sore and tingling from where Jase pulled my hair.

  It was, hands down, the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.

  I can’t think about that now, though. I’ve got to talk to Agent Dunn.

  “What’s going on,” I ask. “Everything okay?”

  “Are you with Jason Ross?” she asks, her tone scaring me.

  “I’m alone,” I say, padding into the bathroom that adjoins our temporary room and closing the door. I close the toilet lid and sit on it, draping a towel over my legs to stave off the cold morning air. The sun’s just starting to peek over the horizon, and I’m annoyed she’s called so early.

  Still. Must be urgent. Sounds urgent.

  “If anyone finds out I called you, I’ll lose my kid and my job,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say. “You know you can trust me. At least, I hope you do.” And it’s true, she can trust me. After what went down in Furnace Creek, I developed a newfound respect for Agent Dunn. She might have started off as a pain in my ass, but she became useful in the end. And the fact she tipped us off about the Cartel and the CIA coming for us in Colorado—well, I trust her.

  “What’s going on? How bad is it?”

  She’s quiet. Now I’m really worried.

  “You know we found several bodies buried on Emilio Ross’s estate in San Diego, yes?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my mouth suddenly very dry. “I saw it on the news.”

  “Juliette, I don’t even know if I should be telling you this, but we’ve done DNA testing on them, finally, and we found something.”

  “Is the punchline coming soon?” I ask. “What’d you find?”

  I can hear her hesitation. “The bodies were female, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six. They found DNA inside the women. Semen. These women had been raped and killed.”

  “Jesus,” I say. “Dornan’s DNA?”

  “No,” Agent Dunn breathes. “Not Dornan’s. Jason’s.”

  I stand up and push the bathroom door open to see the man I love is awake and staring straight back at me from the edge of our bed. The bed still marked with our blood from the love bites we gave each other just hours ago.

  Oh, God.

  “You’re positive?” I ask her, as I hold Jase’s gaze.

  “It was a clean match,” she says. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

  “How many?” I ask her. I’m not sure if I want to know.

  She tells me. And I wish she hadn’t.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I have to go.”

  I don’t wait for her to answer; I end the call, still not taking my eyes from Jase.

  “I’m done waiting,” I say to him, my voice too calm, my hands too steady.

  “You tell me what happened in that place you call the hole. You tell me, or so help me God, I will never speak to you again.”

  Jase’s eyes narrow. He stands and comes towards me; I step back. “Don’t touch me,” I say. “Just start talking.”

  “Sure, I’ll talk,” he says. “On one condition.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JULIETTE

  “You answer one question,” Jase says to me, “and I’ll tell you everything that happened while you were gone and I was underground for three fucking years. One question.”

  “Ask me,” I reply. “Ask me. I’ll tell you anything.”

  “Where do you go?” he asks slowly, his eyes boring into me.

  I expected it to be something entirely different. Something about the drugs or the pregnancy or fucking Dornan. Anything.

  “What do you mean? Where do I go when?”

  His fingers tighten at his sides, forming fists.

  “When you blank out. When you go away. You’re with him, aren’t you?”

  I take a step back. I feel like I’ve been punched. I don’t respond. I don’t even say who do you mean, because we both know who we’re talking about here.

  “Hey,” Jase snaps. “I want you to answer me.”

  I can’t breathe. It’s like Dornan’s in the room. I feel his warm breath on my neck, the way he always tasted the same in my mouth. Like salt and cigarettes.

  “Answer me,” Jase growls.

  I break. “W
hat?” I hiss. “What do you want from me? Do you want me to lie? I was supposed to kill him, and that was meant to be the end of it.”

  Jase looks like he’s about to hit another wall. Or me.

  “He’s dead,” he spits. “He’s dead, but you’re the one who’s gone. I need you to come back. I need you to come back to me.”

  “I don’t know how!” I yell.

  “You’re not trying!” he explodes. “You just sit here, in your dark little universe, thinking about him! Did you think about him while I was fucking you last night? Huh?”

  I don’t even know where this is coming from. I thought after what we’d just done in that bedroom, that things might get better.

  “I try,” I reply. “I try! Every time I fucking try you’re here, and you look—” Oh, fuck. This is going somewhere very, very bad. I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want to cry. I’m so fucking tired of crying. Emilio’s compound. Jase’s DNA. I think I’m going to throw up.

  Through my splayed fingers, I see Jase rub his chin, visibly agitated. “I look just like him. Right?”

  Right.

  “I didn’t say that,” I whisper. Just like him.

  “Oh, yes, you did. That’s exactly what you were going to say. What is it, huh? My eyes? You want me to burn my fucking eyes out? What else, huh? WHAT ELSE?” Jase is angry. He’s so, so angry. And I don’t know what to do to fix it this time.

  “Please, just stop.” I’m begging.

  “So you can’t talk to me. You can’t look at me. But you can fuck me. You don’t mind me tying you to a bed and fucking you, and hurting you, but you can’t tell me the truth. Right? What is this? Please, fucking please, just help me to understand.”

  “I loved him!” I cry. “I loved him! He was like my father, before I even knew my father. He was my protector. He was the one I went to when I had a problem and I didn’t want my parents to know. And he always loved me back. He always fixed things. My own mother didn’t know what to do with me, and he was always there and I loved him.”