‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He glanced at Dornan, who was dragging Murphy out the front door by his bound feet. A moment later, I heard him yelling instructions at someone over the phone.
I nodded at John, swallowing again. I’d suddenly become a mute.
He took my balled fist gently and brought it up in between us, softly unfurling my fingers one by one. He took the photograph from me as if it were a precious thing and studied it.
‘Is this your baby?’ he asked quietly.
I dissolved. I put my hands to my mouth to stifle a scream, as tears rained down my face. I couldn’t stop shaking my head. I couldn’t stop crying.
John looked sympathetic. He held the photo out to me and I took it quickly, gratefully. He waited patiently as I wiped my cheeks and took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm myself.
‘Is this going to be a problem?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘No problem. I swear.’
‘You’d better find a better hiding spot for that,’ he said, pointing to the photo.
I nodded, looking around. I couldn’t find anywhere. John plucked it from my hand and shoved it in his top pocket, just as Dornan re-entered the room.
I could tell Dornan wanted to crush me in his embrace, judging by the way he held his arms, the way his fists were balled up tight. But he couldn’t; we were a secret so forbidden, he couldn’t even embrace me in front of his best friend.
And now that friend held an even darker secret in his pocket. A piece of my past.
My son
.
John and Dornan had let me compose myself and then driven me to the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse, an impressive compound in the heart of Los Angeles. Six-foot fences topped with razor wire blocked the view from outside. The place looked like a goddamn prison, and I was terrified that once I went in, I might not get back out.
Suddenly, my little apartment on the beach seemed like the best thing that had ever happened to me.
John and Dornan walked me up to a small bedroom and left me alone, with the door locked from the outside.
I sat on a double bed that smelled like old sweat and sex and stared at the phone on the nightstand.
Mama. Papa. Karina. Pablo. Luis. Este.
I recited their names to the pounding of my heart.
I stared at the phone. I’d overheard Dornan saying that all of the burlesque club’s numbers were unlisted. Untraceable.
Would it be the same here?
Could I risk it?
I dialled the number I had learned off by heart as a young girl. My heart pounded and I watched the door as the line rang with agonising slowness. One ring. Two rings. I was about to chicken out and hang up when a female voice answered.
It was Mama. I clapped a hand over my mouth, tears springing to my eyes. I muffled a sob as she repeated the same greeting, probably thinking she was about to be connected to a call centre.
The door swung open. Fuck! Dornan rushed at me as I slammed the phone down and jumped to my feet, backing as far away as I could get.
His face was full of barely controlled rage. ‘Who was that?’ he ground out.
I hit the wall behind me. ‘I didn’t say anything,’ I stammered. ‘I swear, Dornan —’
He rounded the bed and grabbed at me, even as I foolishly tried to push him away.
‘WHO WAS IT?’ he roared, two hands going around my neck and squeezing.
I panicked, scratching at his hands with my fingernails. He didn’t budge an inch.
‘Was it your father?’ he asked through tightly gritted teeth.
I couldn’t talk, because he was strangling me to death, so I just nodded as best I could.
He loosened his grip and looked away from me for a moment, appearing to be in thought. He nodded finally, licking his lips.
He pressed me against the wall, his entire body covering me like a heavy blanket, and he shook me roughly.
‘I fucking told you, Ana,’ he breathed in my ear. ‘I warned you about contacting anyone. And you chose to disobey me? After
everything
?’
I was trying to apologise, but his hands were still around my neck. I wheezed and bucked as tears rolled down my cheeks.
He nodded again, as if affirming a thought to himself. ‘I’ll show you what happens to people who disobey, shall I? Your first and final warning, baby.’
He released me and I fell to the floor, a crumpled heap of arms and legs that had no strength anymore. I managed to push myself up to my hands and knees as I hacked up a lung. My throat felt raw, bruised. I’d have a nice handprint there in the morning, no doubt. Add that to the hickey Murphy had branded me with, and I was a freaking sideshow of bruises and abuse.
I coughed and spluttered, screaming hoassly as a hand grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled upwards. ‘Get up,’ he roared. I scrambled to my feet, stumbling blindly as he led me out of the room. My heart was beating so fast I thought I was about to pass out, but there was no time for that. I was being led deeper into the clubhouse, past men dressed in leather who averted their eyes when they saw their VP dragging a girl who was probably about to be slaughtered.
I sobbed as he continued to drag me. Down stairs and up hallways, until it seemed like we were going in circles. We were in the basement, judging by the lack of windows. Dornan stopped at a door, his hand resting on the knob as his other hand continued to pull at my hair.
‘Remember,’ he said, his voice low, ‘when people lie to us, we kill them. But if you betray me, Ana, I won’t just kill you fast. I’ll make it last for days, you hear me?’
I nodded. ‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘let’s just go. I promise I won’t do it again.’ Somehow I knew there was something awful beyond that door, and it was something that wouldn’t be able to be unseen.
Dornan appeared to calm down momentarily. I heard a scream on the other side of the door — a woman’s scream. Whoever was in there was in pain.
He seemed to think twice, the woman’s scream apparently shaking him out of his stupor.
‘Promise me,’ he said gruffly, shaking me by my hair.
‘I promise. I swear! I was just scared after what Murphy tried to do, and I slipped. Dornan, I’m sorry.’
He breathed heavily as the woman behind the door continued to wail. I cried, pressing my hands to my ears to try and drown her out. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Please, Dornan.’
The woman let out a bloodcurdling scream and Dornan snapped back to reality.
He started dragging me back down the way we’d just come, back towards people and the safety of the clubhouse. The safety. It sounded ludicrous, yet I knew it was much more preferable to be up there with those bikers than down in the basement being tortured.
Thank God.
He dragged me back to the bedroom and shut the door, pushing me onto the bed.
‘Stay here,’ he barked. He went to leave, then turned back, yanking the phone cord from the wall and taking the phone with him.
As the door slammed behind him, I began to sob heavily. Soon I was hysterical. But the last thing I needed was to attract any more attention.
I slid off the bed and crawled underneath, lying on my side among years of dust and other, nastier things. I pressed my face into my knees as I drew them up to my chest. I would hide here. I would hide here and cry and maybe nobody would ever find me.
I could only hope.
Bella was a mess. Literally. Someone had punched a couple of nails into her forehead, reducing her to a mumbling zombie. Her eyes couldn’t focus, and her blood was everywhere. Thank fuck he’d come to his senses before he’d opened the door and shown Ana. It was something she would never be able to get past. If she had seen Bella in this state, it would have ruined her.
Dornan shook his head. Whoever the fuck had done this was an evil, twisted son of a bitch. Even he couldn’t do
this
shit, and he was pretty fucked up. This had all the markings of his father. The man was as dead inside as this girl was about to be all over.
He drew his gun from his belt and shot her twice, in the heart. She died immediately, and for that, he was glad.
When Dornan came back, he was calmer, and he’d removed his shirt. I was still hiding underneath the bed. The first thing he did after locking the door behind him was push the bed to the side and crouch in front of me.
‘Come on,’ he said, offering me a hand.
I trembled at the sight of him. At the touch of his hand, I cringed.
‘I’m not asking,’ he said.
‘What did you do?’ I whispered.
He tugged my arm, and reluctantly I uncurled myself, letting him pull me to my feet.
He had ignored my question. But I’d heard two faint pops, and somehow, I knew they’d come from him.
‘Did you shoot someone?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
He set his jaw as he glanced between the door and me, his hands coming to rest possessively on my shoulders.
‘I put her out of her misery,’ he said. ‘She was too far gone. Do you understand?’
I nodded. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
But then — I remembered the papers at the burlesque club, and I choked.
‘The accountant?’ I asked, hearing the pitiful desperation in my voice. ‘It was her, wasn’t it? Oh,
God
. Oh my God.’
I broke away from him and started to pace nervously. The accountant who had cooked the books had died a horrible death.
‘She died because of me,’ I said, raking my hands through my hair. ‘I didn’t mean for her to die!’
Dornan’s hands shot out and grabbed me, pulling me to his chest in a crushing embrace. I couldn’t decide if he was trying to comfort me or just trap me.
‘I need to throw up,’ I said dully. He immediately let go of me, and I made it to the rubbish bin just in time to decide I didn’t need to be sick, after all.
I might have held some hope before, but the woman’s last death scream had wiped hope clean away, and replaced it with nothing but fear and despair.
I stood, and Dornan handed me a glass of water. I drank it all, and he took the glass from me again.
He held my shoulders as I stared up at him, I saw that animalistic look in his eyes that usually meant one thing. Oh, Jesus. I couldn’t. Not now. I burst into tears, shaking my head frantically as I pushed him away.
‘I just want to hold you,’ he said. He pressed my arms to my sides as he crushed me once more, an embrace that took away my breath and left me gasping. He kissed me on the top of my head, and I shivered at the intimacy.
He doesn’t want to fuck me
, I realised with a start, suddenly understanding that I’d misread that fierceness in his eyes. He wanted to comfort me. I pressed my face into him, breathing in the leather and salt air smell that seemed to cling to him. His arms were so strong, his embrace so tender, that it almost brought me to tears.
After a moment, he released me, tipping my chin up with his finger so I had to meet his gaze.
‘You’re so pale,’ he said, cupping my jaw in his hand. ‘You’re wasting away, Ana.’
I swallowed back the rock in my throat, a couple of tears welling out of my eye and splashing down onto my cheek.
He’s trying to protect me from this monstrous world.
That singular thought spun around and around in my head, like some grotesque merry-go-round, gaudy flashing lights in shades of bloody red. I leaned into him as he brushed his thumb against my cheek. It confused the hell out of me that he would risk everything to protect me. It made me uncomfortable, because
I liked it.
‘You never let me go outside,’ I whispered, nestling my face into his grasp. I was sad. I was so very, very sad. And I
was
pale, he was right. No sun and a life spent wallowing in the artificial world he had constructed for me meant my bronzed, sun-kissed skin had dulled to a sickly white pallor.
I was trapped. Forever. Within a world that dealt in lives and in blood. I was sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss that was claiming me, one drop of blood at a time. One day soon I was going to drown in all that blood.
He kissed me, and I hesitated a moment too long. Stupid girl. His grip on my neck tightened, becoming painful. I pleaded for him to let go with my eyes, but he didn’t waver.
‘Tell me what you’re thinking right now,’ he commanded. I was too afraid to lie. I was too afraid, in that moment, of the possibility that he was already reading my thoughts.
He loosened his grip enough for me to take in a small breath and whisper my response.
‘I’m scared,’ I said, tears slipping down my face.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ he said, pressing me to the wall, trailing rough, forceful kisses up my neck. Pressing his lips through the salty tears and onto my skin. Marking me. Because I was his.
‘What else?’ he asked, between kisses. His breath was hot on my cold skin, and I shivered violently.
I choked. ‘Don’t make me say it,’ I pleaded, utterly broken. I thought again about the dead accountant downstairs and wanted to be sick.
‘What else?’ he repeated, squeezing my neck again.
‘I think I love you,’ I whispered, bursting into tears. I didn’t know if I meant it. God, I was so close to the brink of insanity, I could feel the imaginary straitjacket being laced up at my back. But the things I felt for this man, the way he made my heart beat furiously, the thrill he sent through me whenever his fingers brushed against my skin — there was no denying the things we provoked in each other.
He smiled. A delighted look that held my entire existence within it. Because I was his. And there was nothing I could do about it. I tensed as he gripped the back of my head, relaxing when I realised he was only bringing my face to his shoulder. A gesture that was meant to be comforting.
‘Of course you do,’ he said, running his thumb along my lower lip. At that moment, there was a sharp rap on the door. I recoiled as I heard Emilio’s voice.
Dornan stepped away from me as Emilio unlocked the door, letting it swing open.
‘Am I interrupting?’ he asked, one eyebrow cocked as he looked from Dornan to me and back again.
Dornan shoved me hard enough that I hit the wall. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Can’t a man get his cock sucked in private around here?’
I fixed my face into a blank stare — my favourite expression around Emilio, it seemed — and sat back down on the edge of the bed. My cheeks burned as I waited for Emilio to hurry up and leave the room and put me out of my gut-wrenching anxiety.
‘You shot the lying bitch?’ Emilio asked Dornan, obviously referring to the accountant.
Dornan nodded, gesturing to the blood that was spattered over his skin. ‘Yeah, Pop,’ he said. ‘And now I’m gonna take a fuckin’ shower.’
He left the room, brushing past Emilio, who didn’t budge from where he stood in front of me. I didn’t dare look up at him, but the weight of his stare burned into my skin.
‘
Cholita
,’ he said finally. I pressed my palms flat on the bed on either side of me to stop them from shaking.
‘Yes, sir,’ I responded, meeting his cold black eyes.
He studied me for a long moment, while I pictured him as a rat. The long nose and the way he spoke reminded me of a rodent.
‘Are they treating you well in casa Gypsy Brother?’ He pursed his lips together as he studied me some more.
Fear prickled on my skin as I remembered all of the stories Dornan had made me memorise.
‘Please,’ I begged Emilio. ‘I don’t want to upset any of them —’
He cocked his head to the side, putting up a hand to silence me. ‘Never mind about them,’ he said. ‘The only person you need to worry about upsetting is me.’
I nodded, licking my lips. ‘I, uh, well … a lot of them like to do … strange things. Things I haven’t ever seen before.’ I was lying out loud. I’d never even seen the inside of the clubhouse until today.
He grinned like a Cheshire cat. ‘Oh?’
‘They take turns,’ I said. A total, outrageous lie. Would he buy it?
‘Do they hurt you?’ he asked, his eyes suddenly lit up like Christmas trees. He was probably going to find a blonde and get her to relieve him after he’d listened to my imaginary tales of sexual deviance and submission at the hands of his employees. I tucked a stray hair behind my ear, thanking the sweet Lord in heaven that I’d been born a brunette.
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
His mouth stretched impossibly wide, baring his teeth. He looked like he could tear me limb from limb with those teeth. Especially the fake one. I fought the urge to shudder in disgust.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Some time, I’ll have to call your father and tell him all about it.’ I looked up in confusion as he beamed down at me. ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘that’s right. They think you’re dead.’
Motherfucker.
‘I assume you know what happened to our last accountant?’ he asked casually.
It took me a moment to catch up with the change of topic. Oh, yeah. The girl downstairs who had been screaming so loud I could still hear the noise reverberating in my ears. The girl who was dead now, thanks to Dornan.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said again.
‘Let that be a warning,’ Emilio said, turning and walking to the door. ‘Let that be a lesson in what not to do, and you’ll go far.’
He closed the door behind him. As soon as he was gone I heaved a sigh of relief, slumping further down onto the bed.
This is way too precarious
, I thought to myself.
This existence is actually terrifying
.
In that moment, I longed for Dornan. He’d know what to say. He always had the words — or the touch — to take that choking loneliness away.