Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (24 page)

TWELVE

It takes three hours to drive to our destination. Three hours of silence, peppered with the occasional awkward small talk started by me and ended by him.

It’s a far cry from the passionate kisses and long talks I’ve shared with Jase in the past few months, and it makes my heart hurt.

“Where are we going?” I ask, two hours into the journey.

“Mexico,” Jase answers in monotone.

“I don’t have a passport,” I remind him. “What are you planning on doing, anyway?”

He turns to glare at me as we speed down the freeway. “That depends.”

The hairs on the back of my arms bristle, and I suddenly feel very cold. “Depends on what?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer me. I sit patiently for five minutes, my hands in my lap, but his taunting is driving me crazy, and I haven’t forgotten that I’m now essentially a prisoner. Before, I was trapped by Dornan, but at least I had Jase to look out for me, to make sure I didn’t die.

Now, it seems like he’d be the first to pull the trigger if it came to that.

“Please talk to me,” I plead, imploring him with my eyes.

He glances at me like I’m a dead piece of road kill smooshed on the side of the road and flicks his gaze back to the road. “I don’t have anything to say,” he replies stonily.

Panic bubbles in my chest and I feel like it’s getting harder to breathe. That stupid buzzing in my ears and in my stomach is back again, like a bunch of angry wasps are attacking me from the inside, laying painful stings laced with poison within me.

I want to cry, I feel so helpless. He’s going to figure me out. He’s going to figure out that I’m the girl he thought dead for six long years, and he’s going to realize I killed his brothers, and he’s probably going to shoot me in the head.

“I grew up in a place just like this,” I say softly, brushing my fingers against the window. I can’t bear the tense silence between us for one more minute, and even if he tells me to shut up, I at least need to fill some of the moments in between now and then with words and noise.

“Oh, yeah?” Jase smirks. “A rival club? Do tell. My dad would love to hear all about that.”

I tip my head forward so that my forehead rests against the passenger side window, the slight vibration of the road buzzing faintly against my skin.

“My dad was in a club just like this,” I say, smiling sadly at memories of happier days. “Not a rival club, no. He didn’t die in a car accident. He was murdered.”

Jase sucks in a deep breath but doesn’t say anything.

“Since he died, I’ve just been trying to keep out of trouble.”

“Let me guess,” Jase says, throwing me a look. “Trouble just seems to find you.”

I shake my head. “No, I definitely go looking for the trouble,” I reply. “I find it before it finds me.”

“I still don’t get you,” he says, drumming his fingers against the gear shifter between us. “When you’re with me, you act like this victim of circumstance, but then you go back to him, and you act as though you
like
it.”

I squeeze the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger and exhale audibly. “I’m incredibly fucked up. Another thing about the way I grew up. People like me? We aren’t normal. We’re twisted.”

“Is that why you’re with him? Because you have
daddy issues
?” His casual question and sneer is like a slap in the face.

“Yeah,” I say honestly. “Something like that.”

Nobody speaks for a few moments.

“I told you I’d help you leave,” Jase says bitterly.

“I know,” I say, staring at my hands.

“I don’t even know who you are,” he spits. “You’re screwing a cop.”

“I’m not,” I say.

“I don’t believe anything you say any more. Just stop talking.”

We keep travelling, emotion biting at me the entire time. I feel constantly on the verge of tears, the handbag resting against my foot practically burning my skin with the truth of its deadly contents. Suddenly, I feel like I have to tell him something, let him know that I do feel something strongly for him. I get all choked up, blinking back tears and wishing for my sunglasses. I keep swallowing, choking a little, my face turned away from him so he can’t see my pain.

I look up with a start as I realize we have stopped, and are sitting stationary in the emergency lane.

“Why are we stopped?” I ask, wiping my face.

He doesn’t respond for a moment.

Then, “Sammi,” he says gently, a soft hand on my arm.

I frown, looking at him over my shoulder, my cheeks burning. I don’t want him to see me like this.

“Sammi,” he says, and even though it’s not my real name, the emotion I can hear behind his voice makes me lose it. Because I realize,
this is it
. This could be the end for us. The last shared moment, the final frontier of Sammi and Jase.

When I say I lose it, I fucking lose it. I double over, the ache in my stomach like a million stabbing knives, hot, constant and burning. I unleash what feels like a lifetime of tears, stored up and ready to rain. Which they do—on my knees, on the tops of my thighs, all over my hands—as I ugly cry.

“Jesus, Sammi,” Jase says, looking around outside before placing his hands on my back. “I’m sorry.”

I start to hyperventilate, not wanting this moment to finish, not wanting his hand to pull away from my skin. Because when he takes his hand away and steers the car back onto the road, that will really be the end.

I am about to extinguish his entire family, and nothing will ever be the same.

As I continue to suck in shallow, ragged gulps of air, still doubled over with my cheek pressed to my knees, Jase places his hands on my shoulders and pulls me up and toward him. He studies my tear-streaked face and must assume that I’m being genuine, because he pulls me into his arms, my face pressed into his shoulder, one hand running through my loose hair.

“Hey, hey,” he soothes gently. “It’s okay. Whatever happened, you’re okay right now.”

I pull back so that we’re eye-to eye.

“Please don’t hate me,” I say, sobbing as I speak. “I know this whole situation is incredibly fucked up. I see the way you look at me. The way you ask yourself what the hell I’m doing with him!” My voice is rising now, getting louder and more panicked with each word, but I can’t stop the avalanche that tumbles out of my mouth. “I promise I’ll explain everything to you one day, Jase. One day really soon. And you might understand me, or you might just hate me. But right now, I can’t bear it if you hate me, Jason. Not now.
Please?
”

“I don’t hate you,” he says, wiping my tears away with his large, warm hands. “Some days I want to hate you, and other days I want to take you away from all of this. From him. I can’t figure you out, Sammi, and I hate that you’re keeping shit from me, but I don’t hate you, okay?”

I nod in response, because I can’t say what I’m thinking.

You don’t hate me. But you will.

It’s only a matter of time.

THIRTEEN

A little while after our strange exchange, I compose myself and Jase drives the car back onto the busy freeway. Without me asking, he stops silently at a gas station a few miles down the road.

“Go wash your face,” he says. “You’re all blotchy. Dornan will kill me if he thinks I made you cry.”

He’s being nice to me again, and it’s even worse than if he was being mean to me. Now, I feel like I’ve manipulated him into rescinding his suspicions, albeit temporarily, by having a massive tantrum in his car.

Truth is, I’d been holding those tears in for a very, very long time. Six years, to be exact.

I wash my face and pat it dry with a paper towel, reapplying my makeup afterward.

We don’t say anything else on the way to our destination. After a short while, Jase slows the car and turns into a large, circular driveway that sits in front of an impressive mansion, dotted with Gypsy Brothers motorcycles. We’re only a few miles at most from the Mexican border crossing, and I have to wonder if this house has a secret tunnel or something to the other side. I soon dismiss that suspicion when I see the elderly man standing on the balcony of the second floor, talking to Dornan.

Emilio
.

“Where are we?” I ask Jase, peering up at the two men as they smoke cigars and talk with animated hands.

“This is Dornan’s father’s house,” Jase says, looking up at the men with an unreadable expression.

“So, he’s your grandfather?” I ask, even though I know. I’ve met the man. He’s the man in the shadows who guarded the doors and watched silently from the edge of the stage at Va Va Voom, as Dornan and his sons took everything from me six years ago.

“I suppose he is,” Jase says, clearly not excited by that piece of information.

Jase doesn’t make a move to get out of the car, so I don’t, either. I mentally catalog my surroundings, in case I need to draw on the information later. There are tall towers on each corner of the square parcel of land, each one housing a guard dressed in full black garb, sporting a machine gun each.

Delightful.

Jase raises his hand to open his door and I shoot out my own hand, stopping him.

“Wait,” I say weakly. He turns to me, his face blank, his features controlled.

I take the hand closest to me and squeeze it affectionately.

“Just…I wish things were different, you know?”

He looks down at my hand before placing his other palm on top and patting me gently.

“Yeah,” he says, a look of resignation in his eyes.

He gets out of the car and I follow slowly, clutching my handbag to my side protectively.

It’s hot down here in Tijuana, hot and smoggy. And I thought L.A. had a smog problem. It’s got nothing on the thick, stale air that sticks to my skin and makes me feel dirty the moment I’m out of the car. The reality of having thousands of cars pass through a narrow border crossing every hour, I suppose.

Dornan spots us and acknowledges us with a thrust of his chin, taking a puff on his cigar as he listens to his father speak. I glance at Emilio quickly, taking in his expensive designer suit and gray hair, and wonder how the son of an Italian drug lord managed to become the leader of the Gypsy Brothers MC.

But I know, of course. I know exactly how he did it. He just killed and killed until he had all the power. It’s the simplest way to rise to the top.

Eliminate the competition.

Jase makes his way up a long set of smooth stone stairs that lead to double front doors, waiting for me to catch up before he knocks. A young girl, dressed in a maid’s uniform of black and white opens the door before his hand is even back at his side. I guess that they have been waiting for us.

“They’re upstairs,” the girl says, pointing to the ornate staircase in front of us that curves up to a second level.

We walk through a fancy-looking foyer before climbing the stairs, and I wonder if I’ve ever been in a house dripping with as much money as this one. It’s dirty money, though—you can tell by the flecks of plaster gouged out of the walls that are so obviously bullet holes, and the way the maid scurries around like her very life depends on her standard of work.
It probably does.
My heart sinks when I realize she’s probably a slave of some kind. Trapped in this house and owned by Emilio. He’s a sick bastard like that. I was always terrified to go near him as a child.

When we get to the top of the stairs, I spot Dornan through an open door. He’s standing out on the balcony still, talking with his father, but he stops long enough to wink at me. Something thrills through me and I beam back at him, feeling adrenalin course through my veins anew.

He breaks away from his father and ventures inside, his cigar still in his mouth. He puffs on it a few times before removing it, snapping the fingers on his other hand to get the attention of the other brothers, who are standing and lounging around the large formal lounge room, looking angry and bored.

Always with the looking bored, these brothers.

Jase charges into the room beside me. “Sorry, pop,” he says. “Traffic was shit.”

Dornan nods, shrugging his shoulders. “Can’t drive a car through the middle of everyone like you can with a bike,” he says, placating Jase, who relaxes visibly.

“Right,” Dornan says, and every son is hanging off his word. “Nonno has some things he wants to say to you all.”

Emilio steps into the room from the balcony, his cigar by his side. He brushes past Dornan and comes to a stop in front of me, his gaze raking over me like I’m a piece of road kill that’s stinking the place up.

“Who the fuck is she?” he asks with a heavy Italian accent, breathing dirty cigar smoke in my face. His gold tooth glints in the dappled sunlight that filters into the dim room, and I have to fight not to shudder. I remember that tooth, that evil smirk, so damn well.

“Sammi,” Dornan supplies.

“Well? What the fuck is she doing in my house?”

“Padre, please,” Dornan says, herding him away. “Sammi, go downstairs. Emanuela will show you where to wait for us.”

I turn on my heel and leave the room, closing the door behind me, the ghost of a smile at my lips.

An hour later, I’m standing on the balcony that juts out from a large guest bedroom that feels cold and clinical, all white walls and high ceilings. The sun is starting to fade on the horizon, and I can only assume that Dornan and his sons are either planning to strike tonight once it is dark, or wait until morning. If they strike the Colombians’ warehouse tonight, I’ll miss my chance to get alone with their motorcycles and insert my bombs, and this will all be wasted time.

God, I hope I can get alone with those bikes for five goddamn minutes.

Waiting. Watching the door. Elliot’s homemade bombs burning a hole in my handbag, or at least that’s what it feels like.

It’s still so risky. I know that no matter what, I can’t join them on the ride. Even if there’s a fake passport for me, which is entirely possible, if I have to go anywhere near that border crossing, I’ll be found out. I might be able to fool Dornan and his sons, but I can’t fool sniffer dogs, X-ray machines, and armed policemen.

I hear footsteps approach the door, and I know it’s Dornan before he even appears in the doorway. Something about his walk, the way his boots hit the floor, the cocky arrogance that says he owns wherever he is, all vibrates through every step he takes.

Well, those steps are numbered. He’s going to die tonight. And my nightmare is finally going to be over.

He closes the door behind him and drops his pack onto the bed with a thud. Without speaking, he walks up behind me, pressing his hard body into the back of mine.

He slides one hand under my shirt, playing with my nipple, and squeezes my chin with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. Pulling me, he guides me to face him, his charcoal eyes ablaze with a vendetta of his own.

“Looks like someone stole your bikes,” I say, gesturing to the empty driveway. Of course they haven’t been stolen; I saw Donny and Jase wheeling them all around the corner and out of sight a few minutes ago.

“They’re locked away in the garage for the night,” Dornan says. “We don’t need anyone seeing us here and getting ahead of us.”

In the garage.
Thank you, sir, for that crucial piece of information.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I say, before he crashes his lips to mine. He tastes like beer and cigar, not entirely unpleasant tastes themselves, but of course, it is unpleasant, because it’s
him
.

“Oh yeah?” he rumbles, all honey and gravel in his throat. I can’t quite believe that this will be the last time I hear his voice. The last time he puts his hands on me. The last time he gets to openly fondle me on a balcony where anyone could see us.

“Mmm-hmm,” I answer, swirling my tongue around his, feeling a little screwed up at how much his imminent death is getting me off.  Jesus Christ, I am so messed up in the head.

He unbuttons the top of my jeans and tugs the zipper down slowly, pressing his hand into my jeans and pulling my panties to the side. I’m wet already, thrilled and turned on by the prospect that his life is in my hands, instead of the other way around.

“Ohh,” I gasp as he pushes his fingers inside me.

“So fucking tight,” he groans, working his fingers fast. My cheeks blaze as I steal a glance around, noting that anyone could see us.

He withdraws his fingers and grabs the top of my arm, dragging me inside.

“Strip,” he commands, unzipping his jeans and palming his erection. I do as he says, throwing my shirt and jeans in the corner so that I am wearing only my bra.

“Lay on your stomach,” he orders. “Ass in the air.” I do as he says, obeying, always obeying.

Not for long.

I lay there anticipating his next move, my pussy pounding at the thought of what’s about to happen.

He doesn’t disappoint. He leans in close and pushes himself inside of me, and I cry out, full to bursting with the devil himself inside me.

A few hard strokes and he suddenly pulls out, wrenching on my arm so that I flip onto my back.

“Wider,” he says, pushing my knees apart until my hips scream in pain. He sinks his dick into me, hard and fast, and it isn’t long before he shudders and goes still, his eyes rolling back in his head as he shoots his load into me.

For the last time.
God, I hope so
.

We doze off, limbs entangled, or at least he does while I pretend to. I lay there for hours, the hazy aftermath of sex wearing off and leaving in its wake, sadness and despair. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m going to have a fucking breakdown, and I suck in lungfuls of air to try and stop my tears from coming.

But come they do, streaming down my face in giant waterfalls. I’ve become so accustomed to fucking the man who raped me and destroyed everything, in my quest to destroy
him
, that I’ve forgotten what normal feels like.

It’s at that exact moment that I realize how much I fucking hate myself. It’s no wonder both Elliot and Jase can’t stand me, or the things I’ve done. The way I’ve been living. The way I’ve never let myself think past the next dead body, but I do think about it now, and it looks just as bleak, cold and unforgiving as Dornan’s eyes when he looks at me.

And it’s also when I realize that even when Dornan and his sons die, I won’t be rid of this horrid feeling that permeates every cell in my body. This filth. If I was one of those stereotypical rape victims in a TV show, I’d scrub myself raw and cry myself stupid in a scalding hot shower, but I’ve done that a million times over the past six years, and it’s never,
ever
worked.

So I do what will make me feel better instead. I untangle myself ever so gently, making sure I don’t rouse Dornan from his sleep, and tiptoe into the bathroom. After I splash water on my face, I feel a little better. I study my naked form in the large mirror behind the sink, still seeing ribs and hipbones jutting out painfully. The bite mark on my breast has turned purple and bruised, looking garish in comparison to the rest of my skin. I’ve lost that suntanned glow that I had when I arrived in L.A., and my skin just looks pasty and unhealthy.

I dress silently, pulling a black nightgown over my head and using my ninja stealth skills to soundlessly pick up my handbag. The heavy explosives shift against each other in the bottom of the bag, and I glance at Dornan to make sure he is still fast asleep. He doesn’t move, and I step slowly and silently toward the door, my gaze never leaving his face.