Zero Hour (Gypsy Brothers #8)

by Lili St. Germain

  Jase growls, picking up the water glass beside him and throwing it as hard as he can at the wall. It shatters, bits of plaster and porcelain flying everywhere. I take a deep breath. “You want me to stop?”

  He glares at me. “No.”

  “He just … it was like he changed, from one hour to the next. He was someone who loved me, and then he wasn’t. And I miss him. Not the person who did all those things to me. I miss the man who brought me home from the hospital. I miss the man who protected me. I miss knowing who I am, where my place is in the world. I’m not anybody. I don’t have a name. I don’t have a home. I don’t have anything. I wish I could take those bullets back, because I don’t want him dead. I want him here, so I can ask him why.”

  “You know why,” Jase says. “You know why he did that. He did that to ruin your father, because some fucking woman chose your father over him, and he couldn’t live with that. So he took you, and he turned you into a sacrificial vessel for everything anyone had ever done wrong by him. Everything. And afterwards, when he thought you were dead, he realized what a colossal fucking mistake he’d made. He wished he could take it back, okay?” Jase’s eyes are wild. “He told me he was sorry for what he did. He told me he wished he could take it back. And I believed him. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Jase is covering his face with his hands now. He’s shaking his head, and then he looks up again at me, his eyes so fucking sad, but more worrying than that, they’re resigned.

  “You promised you’d tell me,” I say.

  He looks up at the ceiling.

  “Nothing you did will change the way I feel about you!” I say. “But if you don’t tell me, I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how to trust you if you can’t trust me with this. What did you do?”

  He looks back at me and his eyes are red and glossy, his jaw set. He grabs my wrists, squeezing so hard it hurts, but I’m not afraid.

  “I love you,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “I love you and I want you to know that, because you’re going to hate me in a moment.”

  “Jason.”

  He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I killed your father.”

  “I know that. It was a mercy killing. I forgive you.”

  His hands continue to squeeze my wrists. He’s so close I can see the wet spots in the corners of his eyes, where the tears want to spill out. He won’t open his eyes. Won’t look at me.

  “After I killed him, after they told me you were dead, they gave me something to make me sleep. Everything was dark, and cold, and I didn’t understand. I thought that maybe I was dead, too. But I wasn’t. I was alive, I was very much alive. When I woke up it was still dark. It was always dark.”

  He’s whispering all of this. He hasn’t opened his eyes, and he hasn’t let go of my wrists. He leans his head forward, his forehead touching against mine.

  “My father and Chad tied me to a chair and put a sock in my mouth. I fought them, Juliette, I fought so hard, but there were always too many of them. It was never a fair fight.”

  My chest constricts as I remember being held down by them. He’s right. There were always more of them. It was never a fair fight. His fingers keep squeezing my wrists so hard, I can’t feel my hands anymore.

  “My father brought a girl into my dark little room and made her … suck me while he held a gun to her head. She was scared. We were both so scared. I tried to scream but the sock—I couldn’t make her stop. I couldn’t make him stop.”

  He tied me to a chair, too. I wasn’t really his daughter, but Jase was really his son.

  “I didn’t finish. I didn’t even get hard. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. Because all I could see was you and what they did to you. He made me keep my eyes open. He said he’d shoot her if I didn’t watch the screen.”

  The screen?

  “I watched it every day, every single day. The tape went for two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes before it cut out. It always cut out when you were crying. When you were begging me to help you.”

  I choke on a sob as what he’s telling me sinks in. Oh God. Oh God. It wasn’t enough that Dornan recorded them raping me. He made Jase watch it every day for three years.

  “I did what he said. I turned into a monster. I hurt those girls, a different one every day. I fucked them and I bit them and I made them bleed. As long as I did what he said, he let them go. He killed the first girl, and Chad killed the last. Did they find both of their bodies?”

  I sigh, the weight of reality almost too much to bear.

  “Not two bodies,” I whisper. “They found more than two bodies.”

  Jase’s eyes fly open. I can see all the blood vessels in the whites of his eyes as he pulls his head away from mine. They’re angry eyes. Even the tiny veins in his beautiful eyes are full of the rage and grief he carries inside him like a cancer.

  “What?”

  I can’t tell him. I have to tell him.

  “Jason,” I say softly. “He didn’t let them go. They’ve found sixteen girls buried in your grandfather’s compound so far. He didn’t let any of them go.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JASE

  There’s an angry buzz in my head. It’s getting louder, and more painful, like someone’s drilling into my skull. I can’t hear anything except the words Juliette’s just spoken to me.

  Sixteen

  Six-fucking-teen!

  She’s talking, but I can’t hear her. The words are all garbled.

  I get up. I lock myself in the bathroom as my vision clouds red.

  I lean on the basin and stare at myself in the large mirror.

  Sixteen.

  I try to remember their faces. Some are there, in my memory. Some I didn’t even get to see—I just felt them underneath me as I hurt them in the dark.

  I think how the last thing they saw before they died was me.

  I’m a monster.

  Of course I look just like Dornan.

  I’ve become him.

  I make my hand into a fist and smash it into my reflection. The glass splinters, but it doesn’t break. So I do it again. And again. It must be tempered glass, because the cracks I’m smashing into it don’t spread and splinter.

  I do it again. And again. My fist is a mess of blood, running down my arm and splattering on my face, but I don’t stop. I don’t ever want to see that face again.

  The violence soothes me. With every punch, there’s more blood, and my hearing starts to return in waves.

  Juliette’s on the other side of the door. She’s screaming at me to open up, and she’s kicking the door.

  My girl just found out the worst, most depraved things I’ve ever done, and instead of running away, she’s kicking the goddamn door down to try and get to me.

  “Jason!” She screams. “Open this door right fucking now or I’m shooting it open!”

  I stop pummeling the glass. I look at the door in disbelief.

  “You’re not going to shoot the door open to get in here,” I call out to her, panting after the sudden exertion. “I’m no good for you, Julz. You deserve better. Just go. Just walk away from me.”

  “Get away from the door, Jase,” she yells.

  And she shoots the goddamn lock out of the door.

  “Fuck!” I yell, as she kicks the door open and drops her gun onto the tiled floor. She flies at me, launching into my arms as she wraps her legs around my hips and her arms around my neck.

  She’s crying as she kisses me. She’s getting my blood on her.

  “You stupid man,” she says, breaking the kiss long enough to rear back and slap me across the face. Then she kisses me again, her salty tears running into my mouth.

  “Julz,” I protest, turning my head to the side to break the kiss.

  “Don’t you dare tell me to walk away,” she says, grabbing my face in her hands and forcing me to look at her. Her green eyes are blazing.

  “Don’t you dare tell me I deserve better. I deserve to be
happy, and you make me happy. Don’t ever tell me to walk away.”

  Fuck.

  “I’m crazy, Juliette,” I confess. “I’ve got this poison inside of me. This darkness that I don’t know how to fight.”

  She shakes her head, tears pouring from her eyes. Seriously, between her eyes and my hand, there's blood and tears everywhere.

  “Don’t fight it,” she whispers. “Give me your darkness. Give it to me, and I’ll give mine to you. I am never walking away from you.”

  She’s so fucking angry. So beautiful.

  “No more secrets,” she says. “I want you. All of you. Every little piece.”

  I walk her backwards, so her ass is resting against the wall.

  “Why would you want me?” I ask her, hot water stinging my eyes. “I’m no good.”

  She swallows thickly, resting her hand over my heart. “Because you are good. Because you’re mine. Because we belong to each other. Because I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I love you because you’re you.”

  She’s so angry, and I’m so fucking relieved. My beautiful girl is angry, and she’s full of life again for the first time since Dornan died. And she’s telling me, from the very depths of her soul, that she loves me, more than anything, even though she knows everything now.

  The weighted stone that’s been knotted around my heart, dragging me down every fucking day for years, breaks. I feel the weight lift, and it’s terrifying. I feel like I could fly. She loves me. And I believe her.

  I push her into the wall, kissing her like I’m a dying man and she’s the thing that’ll save me. Because she is the thing that will save me. She always has been.

  My beautiful, vengeful girl.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JULIETTE

  “We should have done this at night,” Jase says, peering through the scope on the rocket launcher as he chews gum nervously.

  I look through my own scope, excited and terrified of the firepower I’ve got in front of me. We’re in four locations—Elliot in an office building that directly overlooks the side fire escape of the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse, Luis parked across the road running surveillance, Tommy crouched on the roof of a cafe behind the club, and Jase and I in a vacant second-floor apartment directly across from the main building entrance to round out the circle we’ve created. I love how I’m the only one who needs a partner, but Elliot’s assured me it’s because I’m a good aim. While Elliot, Luis and Tommy are tasked with blowing up the building in general, Jase and I have the responsibility of wasting anyone who might seek to escape when the first round of explosive charges are fired inside the building. Each of us is wearing an earpiece and dressed in black combat wear, and I’ve got to say, I feel like Lara Fucking Croft right now.

  Our firepower might seem like overkill, but it’s for good reason—the moment the Gypsies catch sight of where they’re being attacked from, they’ll retaliate. And none of us are particularly keen to get shot today.

  Jase is pacing nervously at the window because we’re five minutes from show time. We’ve been here all morning, waiting for the last stragglers to arrive at the clubhouse for their weekly meeting. These motherfuckers aren’t going to be chasing us anymore. We’ll deal with this lot, and then we’ll deal with Julian Ross and the Cartel—a slightly larger task, but we’re up for it—and then we’ll all finally be able to move on without fear. Without running. Without having to hide in the dark.

  “Four minutes,” Elliot’s voice comes over the earpiece I’m wearing.

  I adjust my hair. Wipe my palms on my pants. Stare outside and imagine the carnage that's about to unfold.

  “Three minutes,” Elliot says. Jase is sporting an identical earpiece beside me, and he steps away from his rocket launcher at the three-minute announcement, our eyes meeting.

  “You look fucking beautiful right now,” he says, his eyes taking in my black outfit, the long plait he put in my hair so it wouldn’t get in the way, the smile I’m wearing like I’m a fucking jack-o-lantern on Halloween.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” I reply, smirking as he rearranges his pants. “Don’t let that thing hit the trigger by accident,” I say.

  He laughs, pulling me to his chest and kissing me like it's the first time he’s ever laid his hands on me before. Like it’s the last.

  It had better fucking not be the last.

  Elliot calls the last minutes out.

  Two minutes.

  One.

  At thirty seconds, we stuff our ears full of earplugs.

  At twenty seconds, I place my finger on the trigger of my rocket launcher.

  Five seconds.

  Four.

  I take a deep breath in.

  Three.

  Two.

  I let my breath out until there’s nothing left.

  One.

  None. No seconds left. We all do the thing we were meant to do. We all fire in the right spots, and we don’t stop unless we’re reloading. We all do our job. I shoot until I lose count of how many rocket-propelled explosives I’ve loaded and launched. My head starts to buzz under the constant reverberation of the firing sound, the earplugs acting much like a bandaid over a bullet wound. And within five tiny, insignificant minutes, the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse has exploded in a brilliant display of orange fireballs and black smoke, and nobody is trying to run out of the exits.

  We did it. We ended the Gypsy Brothers.

  We’re almost free.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JULIETTE

  We’re all on tenterhooks. Well, Jase and I are. I’m assuming the other three are as well, judging by the rapid breathing I can hear over the radio.

  “Any movement?” I ask.

  “None here,” Elliot’s voice crackles.

  “Clear here,” Tommy chimes in.

  “Clear here, too,” Luis says.

  “We’re clear in front,” Jase says.

  “Well, lady and gentlemen, it was a pleasure doing business,” Elliot says. “We’ve got about two minutes to get the fuck out of here. You know what to do.”

  Jase rips his earpiece out and turns to me, the look on his face priceless. He looks like he’s the cat that got the cream, and I must look the same, because that's how I feel.

  I was wrong. Not all vengeance is hollow. I feel like, for once in so very long, I can see the light at the end of this dark tunnel.

  We make quick work of breaking our weapons down—Jase has to help me with the rocket launcher, because I’ve forgotten already how it packs away into its bag—and then he’s opening the door of the apartment, gesturing for me to wait while he checks the hallway.

  I close the window we’ve been using to fire out of, sling my bag full of heavy artillery over my shoulder and look back to Jase. He’s still framed by the open door, but he’s facing away from me.

  “We clear?” I whisper.

  I see him press a palm to his neck as he stumbles. He looks…drunk.

  “Hey!” I hiss. “Jase!”

  Something doesn’t feel right. Jase rounds the corner abruptly so he’s in the hallway, out of my line of sight, and that’s when I reach back into the bag I’m carrying to grab my gun. Weapon firmly in hand, I tentatively inch out into the hallway.

  “Jase?”

  He’s on the ground, two feet away, knocked the fuck out. “Jase!” I say, rushing to him. Before I can get down to him, though, something presses over my face. A hand. A hand wrapped in a leather glove. A second hand grabs my wrist - the one attached to my gun-holding hand—and bends it back until I lose my grip on the butt of the gun. It falls to the ground and the mystery attacker’s foot kicks it away, sending it in the opposite direction of an unconscious Jase. Fuck!

  A strong arm wraps around my waist and yanks me backward. The leather-covered hand presses tightly against my nose and mouth, cutting off every bit of air. I freeze for a split second, like a deer in headlights, and then I go wild. The hallway is narrow, allowing me to kick my legs up and brace my he
els on the wall for a moment before I push back with every ounce of strength I possess. Whoever has hold of me is at least a head taller than me, so I push back and up, smashing the back of my head against the nose of my captor with a satisfying crunch. I groan, seeing stars as the arms around me loosen enough for me to slide down and out of their crushing grip.

  I stay low, crawling on my hands and knees until I’m clear, and then I get to my feet, turning to see my attacker. He’s white. Mid-forties. Wearing a suit and tie that look like they’ve seen better days. And he’s got a strange-looking gun slung over his shoulder. It’s long and skinny and has animal stickers plastered all up the barrel.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I ask.

  Behind him, another figure steps out of the apartment next to the one we were just in. Oh, shit.

  “It doesn’t matter who he is,” Julian Ross says, smiling wide as he steps over Jase like he’s not even there. “What matters is who I am. You remember me, Juliette?”

  I take him in as I assess the situation: we’re fucked. Unless I can take on both of these guys, we are royally fucked. Julian Ross looks as sharp as ever, a younger version of his dead brother Emilio. He’s got the same dark eyes and Italian features the males of this family share, but his face is more craggy and lined with a difficult life, his nose larger and crooked, his hair fairer and his fingers adorned with gold rings. He looks like your typical Mafioso, dripping in gold and Armani.

  I open my mouth to answer him, but no words come out. Because there’s something stinging my neck, like a wasp driving its tail into my flesh.

  I put my hand to my neck, feeling something thin and hard. Trying not to gag, I pull at the plastic until it comes away in my hand.

  A tranquilizer dart. Now I get why the guy’s gun looks weird. It’s a tranquilizer gun, designed for taking down a dog or a small bear.

  “You feeling okay, Miss Portland?” Julian asks, coming closer. Coming for me. My vision starts to blur as I look between the dart in my hand and the man rapidly closing in on me.