Cartel (21 page)

‘How long’s she been gone for?’ Dornan asked, sipping on his black coffee. He’d added a little Scotch to it this morning. It had been an eventful weekend, to say the least.

John paced in front of him in the burlesque club’s small communal kitchen that served both the dancers and the guys behind the scenes. John worked here most days on the business side of things. It was an unspoken agreement that John spent as little time as possible in the clubhouse, while actually fulfilling the role of club president.

He was a lackey, and he knew it.

But here, in this dance club, he was in his element. He always seemed a little less stressed when he was here, and not because the dancers gave good head. No. John was a loyal man, and Dornan knew he’d never strayed from Caroline.

That undying loyalty of John’s had made it even harder for Dornan when he’d woken up that night all those years ago, half drunk, to find Caroline naked and bouncing on his dick. He’d thrown her straight off, threatened to bash her to death, but she had just laughed. Crazy bitch.

He was fairly certain John knew nothing about it, but either way, he still felt like shit every time he spoke to his friend. Some lines just weren’t to be crossed, and unwittingly, he had crossed that one.

‘A week,’ John said.

‘Divorce her,’ Dornan suggested.

John balled his fists. ‘If I divorce her she could take Juliette and run,’ he said gravely. ‘She threatens it every time we have a goddamn fight. She’s unpredictable. At least this way, I give her a little money, she goes crazy, but she always comes back.’

Dornan crossed his ankles and nodded to show he was listening. ‘Except when she doesn’t come back,’ he pointed out.

If it had been anyone else, Jimmy or Viper or any other motherfucker in the club, he would have told them to grow some balls and harden the fuck up.

But it was John. His best friend. They were like brothers.

Dornan wondered if now might be a good time to mention he had cut Caroline off, nixed her supply. He hadn’t really known how to break it to John, since he wasn’t entirely sure John knew he had been giving her a pinch here and there.

John stopped pacing and punched the doorway. Dornan didn’t try to stop him.

Sometimes, a man just needed to get his demons out.

‘I just wish …’ John said, his fist still pressed against the door he’d just assaulted.

‘You just wish?’ Dornan asked. He knew what John wished. He wished that he’d never met Dornan. He wished he’d never had the brilliant idea to be Gypsy Brothers. One dream — to ride the highways and live like transients, brothers in arms — had been shattered the moment they’d agreed to work for Il Sangue.

John took a deep breath and let his fist fall to his side.

‘I just wish she would come home,’ he said finally.

But they both knew that was not what he’d really been about to say.

Dornan’s father entered the room, quietly, like a snake. The old bastard was always ready to strike, to slither in and manipulate any situation to his own benefit. The fact he’d put his hands on Ana earlier disgusted Dornan.
Mine. She’s mine
. Despite that, Dornan both admired and detested his father. And he had long suspected that John simply hated Emilio.

‘What’s the deal?’ Dornan asked, standing as his father entered the space. John turned from his spot at the wall, nodding at Emilio in greeting. Respect was on the top of the list for the ruthless kingpin, and everybody fell into line or died at his hand.

‘John.’ Emilio nodded, acknowledging the boy who’d grown to a man beside his own son. ‘Can we have a moment?’

John nodded. ‘Yeah. Sure.’ He slid past Emilio, making his way to the office.

‘Does he know she’s in there?’ Emilio asked his son.

Dornan shrugged. ‘He will now.’

Dornan took a sip of coffee and stared out of the small window to the bleak, overcast day outside. Theirs was a stunning view of the pea-gravel parking lot that lay behind the back of the club.
Living the dream
. At least at the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse, if you went up to the roof, you had unrestricted views of the Venice Beach coastline.

No wonder he didn’t spend much time here. He always felt trapped, like a rat in a cage, spinning in his wheel as he went around and around. He didn’t know how John could stand being here all the damn time.

‘Find anything of interest?’ Dornan asked his father.

Emilio’s look was so furious it actually made Dornan take a step back. ‘Whoa, Pop,’ he protested, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘I don’t know what she did, but I swear, it wasn’t me.’

He was trying to make light of the situation, but Emilio wasn’t smiling. ‘Which whore are you talking about?’ his father asked him.

‘I don’t know,’ Dornan replied slowly. ‘Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind?’

Wordlessly, Emilio handed Dornan a piece of paper. He scanned down. There were a lot of numbers in columns, the same number often repeated twice in a row, and they all added up at the bottom to a hefty amount.

‘This is how much she’s going to save us?’ Dornan asked his father. He whistled. ‘That’s a pretty sum of money. She’ll be debt-free in a couple of years at that rate.’

Emilio snatched the paper back, his eyebrows quaking together in an expression Dornan knew and feared.

He drained the last of his coffee and was about to swallow it when his father replied.

‘This is how much that other
cunt
has siphoned out of our accounts.’

Dornan choked on the coffee mid-swallow. Slamming his mug down on the counter, he hit himself on the chest as he coughed and spluttered.

As he was catching his breath, Dornan held out a hand, gesturing for the piece of paper again. Emilio relinquished it, and Dornan read the figure at the bottom of the page with a sinking feeling in his gut.
Oh, Bella, you stupid, stupid girl.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

Emilio’s eyes burned with a rage that would not be contained until he’d tasted the accountant’s blood himself. Dornan didn’t need to hear his father say the words. He saw her fate in his black eyes.

‘Where is she?’ Dornan asked.

‘On her way,’ Emilio replied. ‘If you see her, make sure you grab the thieving bitch and let me know.’

‘Will do, Pop,’ Dornan answered, as his father stalked out of the room.

Fuck. He knew the club had been losing money, but he assumed generous waitresses overfilling drinks and stealing twenties from the register had been to blame. But Bella? He couldn’t believe it.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he murmured, shaking his head. The bitch hadn’t exactly been discreet. He’d wondered a few times at how she could afford the diamonds that she wore, but she’d assured him she had a great eye for costume jewellery, and that she was adorned in cubic zirconia.

But this … this. It made sense. They’d found the hole in their finances, and it was in the most unlikely place of all.

He felt a small pang of nostalgia; Bella gave an excellent blow job.

At least he had Mariana now.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had been wondering what kind of a man could be president of the Gypsy Brothers. The way Dornan acted, the way he moved, the fact that he was the son of the leader of the Il Sangue Cartel — all of these things told me he should have been in charge, not somebody else.

Until the day the
actual
president stormed into the office, and I understood why.

He was roughly the same height as Dornan, about six foot, with a shock of blond hair that looked like it belonged in a shampoo commercial. It was messy and unkempt, but I bet he copped shit for it from the other Gypsy Brothers anyway. He wasn’t as stocky as Dornan, but just as muscled and well-defined. He looked like a surfer trapped in biker’s clothing, or maybe a sheep dressed in wolf’s clothing, come to think of it. He was tanned, and I guessed he got to see the sun a lot more than I did.

He looked stressed, his jaw clenched tightly.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, coming to a stop in front of the desk I was working at. I looked up with uncertainty, and more than a little attitude.

‘Who are
you
?’ I echoed, placing the emphasis on the last word.

He scowled, his hazel eyes flashing in annoyance as he pointed to the prez patch that adorned his leather vest.

‘I’m the boss,’ he said, staring me down. ‘Who are you?’

My eyes darted to the door and back to him. I was starting to feel more than a little apprehensive about being stuck in this room, alone, with a Gypsy Brother. And a man who ruled over a club with such a ferocious reputation surely couldn’t be a good man, right?

‘What are you?’ He pressed. ‘An assistant? A friend of Emilio’s? What?’

Maybe he saw the panic in my eyes, I don’t know. Whatever it was, his expression softened a little; perhaps he could tell I was nervous, and that I was trying to word my response carefully.

‘I’m Ana,’ I said, giving him a small smile. ‘And I’m not sure what I am.’

There were two dead girls at his clubhouse when he arrived there later that night.

He’d taken Mariana back to the apartment, and though he’d wanted to stay with her, his life was full of obligations, like a goddamn juggling act. Everything always up in the air, and if he didn’t finely choreograph every minute of the day, it would all come crashing down on him.

He’d arrived at the clubhouse to find a black Pontiac sitting in the large garage that housed their motorcycles, the car’s windows splattered in blood, two female bodies slumped in the back seat. The stench of congealing blood filled his nostrils. When he’d said he liked blood, he did not mean like this.

Holding a rag to his nose to stifle the smell, he ripped out his cellphone and called his father. The phone rang and rang.

‘
Figlio
,’ Emilio answered after ten rings.

‘Pop,’ Dornan responded, tightly wound and ready to blow. ‘Missing something?’

Emilio chortled. ‘A favour, if you will, son. Get some of your boys to clean it out and get rid of the bitches.’

Dornan pocketed the rag and rubbed his chin, glancing again into the back seat of the car. His stomach roiled as he saw a fly crawl over one of the girl’s open mouths.

‘Weren’t these girls meant to be auctioned?’ Dornan asked, shaking his head. Fucking Emilio, always laying his dirty jobs on the club.

‘They were indeed,’ Emilio responded.

‘And?’

‘And, they were sick. They were no longer useful.’

No wonder the car stank. It was ninety degrees out and the dead girls had been in the car for a day already.

‘Right,’ Dornan said, ending the call.

He rounded up a couple of Brothers, who complained loudly but soon got to wrapping the bodies in plastic and organising for the car to be dismantled and scrapped. Dornan watched it all from the sidelines in detached horror.

It could have been her. That could have been Mariana in the back of that car, her brains blown out over the seat.

It was much, much too close for comfort.

Dornan got back to the apartment late. I’d stayed up, drinking strong coffee, on the small chance he was returning.

Yeah. I was pathetic.

But his presence was so fleeting, so addictive, that I would do anything to make sure I didn’t miss him. My ears were attuned to his footsteps, my skin to his touch. We were the dirtiest, most forbidden secret of them all.

And I loved it.

Desperation and loneliness fed the overwhelming desire inside me.

He took care of me. Made sure I ate, made sure I slept. Made my existence vastly less painful when he was in it.

He was a bad man, the worst there was.

But my heart, that treacherous thing inside my chest that sped up whenever he was around?

It wanted to betray me.

I was falling in love with a monster.

And somehow, in this new life of mine, where the old rules didn’t count and power was measured in blood and bullets?

I didn’t care.

Sex. It was the only thing that made me feel, the only thing that broke up my otherwise sad and lonely existence. And yet, I hated it every time he made me come. Hated
myself
. In the moment, I’d cry out in exquisite agony, as he fucked me or licked me or fingered me to the point of no return. But then afterwards, after he’d come inside me — it always had to be in me or on me somehow, marking me as
his
— we’d lie side by side, catching our breath, and guilt and despair would tear my soul apart piece by broken piece.

I heard the beeps of someone pressing the pin code into the keypad outside, and then a click as the front door lock disengaged. A slight creak and the door opened; another, and it closed, revealing the man who had come to consume my every thought.

I leaned forward against the kitchen counter. The travel magazine in front of me was all but forgotten as I watched my dark lover approach.

He dropped his helmet on the tiles, just like he always did. It bounced once and rolled into the corner, forgotten, as Dornan Ross moved down the dimly lit hallway towards me. He moved like a predator, that possessive lust in his black eyes that had once been a glimmer, now a forest fire that threatened to consume us both. He was drenched from the rain that had been falling all evening, a rain that still wasn’t taking the heat away. It made me feel like I was back in sticky, humid Colombia.

He was wearing new clothes. A tight black tee that hugged his defined arms, black jeans and his leather cut. Dressed all in black, he looked like the sexiest motherfucking Grim Reaper I could imagine.

He grinned as he approached me. I started to turn, to greet him, but his hands wrapped around my waist, pulling my ass firmly into his erection. Butterflies swirled in my stomach as he lifted up the bottom of my black silk nightgown, gathering the material in his hands until my panties and lower back were exposed. He squeezed his hands around my hips, rocking his hardness against me, only our clothes separating our bodies.

He reached one hand around to the front of my panties and dipped his fingers in. I shuddered as soon as his fingers brushed against me, it was so powerful.

‘I got back as quickly as I could,’ he murmured in my ear as he continued to graze his fingers along my wetness. I was breathing fast, panting under his touch. I wanted more. I wanted it all.

‘You’re so wet,’ he whispered.

There was something very wrong with me. Something dark had blossomed inside me, spreading like a cancer that obliterated everything else within. In the moments when his hands were rough against my skin, as he bent me to his own desires, I existed because of him. I existed
only
for him.

‘Do you want me?’ he asked. I nodded.

He fisted one hand in my hair and yanked; not enough to hurt, but enough to make me take notice. ‘Say it,’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ I whispered, writhing against him. ‘Yes, I want you.’

Palms flat on the counter, I couldn’t see what was happening. I could only feel as my panties were yanked down to my ankles, a knee between my legs forcing them wider apart.

Then he pushed inside me, the friction and the pressure enough to make me gasp. My nightgown still up around my waist, he dug his fingers into my skin hard enough to leave bruises as he began to move inside me. He was rough, he was fast, and it was exactly what I needed.

‘Fuck!’ I cried, as he slid deeper inside me. It felt like each stroke erased a part of me and replaced it with something new. Something dark.

Pressure had already been building inside of me, and I felt my legs drop away as the most powerful orgasm I’d ever experienced rocked through my body. I opened my mouth, letting out a guttural moan as he held me up and stopped me from falling.

‘That was fuckin’ amazing,’ I heard him say, through the haze. I dropped my forehead onto the counter, utterly exhausted, my whole body still tingling with aftershocks. He continued to thrust behind me, and I heard an unmistakable groan, followed by his strong body curled around mine.

We both struggled to catch our breath.

‘That,’ I panted, ‘
was
fucking amazing.’

He pulled out of me and laughed, spinning me around so I was facing him.

‘What’s so funny?’ I asked, crossing my legs to stop his salty fluids from running down them and onto the floor.

He kissed my forehead, an oddly intimate thing for him to do. ‘You never used to say the word fuck so much,’ he said teasingly. ‘Look what I’ve done to you.’

I felt bold. ‘You never used to smile so much,’ I countered. ‘Look at what I’ve done to you.’

Dornan just shook his head and kept on smiling.

In the shower, after Dornan had bent me over the kitchen counter and fucked me senseless, he pressed the top of my arm until he found the small rod that was embedded just under the surface.

‘How long is this good for?’ he asked me, stroking my skin with his warm fingers as water and the scent of sandalwood surrounded us.

‘Two more years,’ I said, without thinking.

‘We’ll have to make sure we get you a new one then,’ he replied, moving it underneath my skin. ‘I think I’ve got enough kids, don’t you?’ He was teasing, but I froze as his words sank in.

Two years. I’d been in the apartment for mere weeks, and I couldn’t imagine two more years of this strange and terrifying existence. I had to get out.
I was never getting out.

It was too much to bear. Instead, I focused on Dornan’s fingers as they travelled down my naked stomach and began to rub my sensitive nub again. It might have been devastating each time I let him touch me, but it was equally a welcome relief from the dark thoughts that plagued my mind. And the lighter ones, too. The ones that terrified me the most. When Dornan wasn’t there, I missed him. Longed for his touch. Craved his company. And for a girl who had watched her boyfriend bleed to death in front of her, it wasn’t acceptable to feel those things.

I tried to push down the feelings that blossomed inside me. I was determined not to let myself get sucked into the fantasy of having a man save me from his horrid father, from a life as a slave. But my heart had a life of its own, and it wandered happily even as I tried to rein it back.

He was all I had
. Those five words played on a constant loop in my mind.

During the moments in between, I cried. A lot. No amount of concealer could cover up the suitcases that had taken up permanent residence underneath my eyes. In those still moments when I was alone, I often thought of my family. I thought of my little boy, even though the mere memory of him was enough to drive me to madness. How my arms ached to hold him in them. I recalled the crumpled photograph in Murphy’s pocket and felt sick that he held that piece of my soul with him.

The next morning, I woke up alone. Loneliness and melancholy spiked in my chest, and I wondered how I would get to the office. There was a keypad that I didn’t know the code to, and if there was a fire in the apartment I actually would be burned to death. Dornan almost never gave me notice of plans, he just randomly showed up. I let myself sleep in an extra five minutes before I took a shower and dressed in work clothes.

This time, I wore panties. Emilio wasn’t getting his dirty hands near my pussy again. I had a sudden violent daydream of murdering him with a stapler as I started the coffee machine in the kitchen.

The day before, I’d worked hard to clean up the books, and what I found was very dirty indeed. Someone had made a small fortune by siphoning funds from the burlesque club and several other businesses that were fronts for the Il Sangue Cartel and for the Gypsy Brothers. I was still a little confused about the dynamic between the two, to be honest. There was no clear line delineating where one finished and the other began. Although there was no denying that Emilio was in charge of everyone. Owned everyone, with secrets and lies and threats. It sickened me. How much power, how much money and dominance, did one man actually need? And when did that need become a greed that obliterated everything in its path?

I feared he’d crossed that line a long time ago.

Soon, it was 8 a.m., and I was ready. Dressed in a sleeveless black shift dress that reached to my knees and zipped up at the back. I’d managed to get the zip three-quarters of the way up and I figured I’d ask Dornan to zip it the rest of the way up. I was standing at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee and looking at a box of Cheerios with disdain. I’d completely lost my appetite in the last few weeks.

There was a knock at the door, and without thinking, I walked towards it. It was only when I got to the door and put my hand on the handle that I realised I couldn’t open it. I didn’t have a bloody code.

It didn’t seem to matter, though. The person on the other side hit the keypad in a series of muted beeps, and I heard the lock disengage. I didn’t move. I assumed it would be Dornan.

Big. Fucking. Mistake.

Before I could slam the door shut, Murphy was inside, pushing me down the hallway with a strength I had no hope of beating. His smile was cocky and full of excitement.

‘Good
morning
,’ he proclaimed loudly, stalking me with methodical precision as I backed down the hallway. The kitchen. There were knives in the kitchen.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, trying to make sure I didn’t trip and fall on my ass. ‘How’d you even know I was here?’

‘I’m picking you up for work,
sweetie
,’ he drawled, with a saccharine sweetness that made me want to puke in my mouth. His eyes were brighter than ever this morning, his demeanour terrifying. ‘And I know everything, remember?’

‘Where’s Dornan?’ I asked, almost at the kitchen counter. Almost at the knife block. I glanced behind me. Just a few more steps —

I’d looked away for less than a second, and he’d used my inattention to pounce, grabbing my wrists and throwing me up against the counter with a ferocity that frightened me. I braced myself on the lip of the sink behind me and struggled to think of how I could get out of this.
Jesus!
I was so stupid. It could have been anyone standing out there! Someone coming to hurt me. Someone coming to kill me. Somebody coming to rape me. Murphy, who looked like he wanted to do all three.

‘Your big bad biker got called away,’ he said, his voice dripping with mockery. He might have been dying to fuck me, but he hated me, I realised. Hated me because I wouldn’t willingly give him what he wanted.

‘Emilio will expect me,’ I blurted out.

He crowded over me, forcing my top half to bend backwards uncomfortably until the back of my head was almost dipping into the cloudy dishwater I’d used to wash up earlier.

‘He’s with the big bad biker,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders as he grinned wickedly.

No. NO
. If he was telling the truth, I was alone. With him. In an apartment I couldn’t get out of.

And nobody was coming to save me.