Cartel (8 page)

She was pretty, but he’d seen pretty. Dornan Ross, vice-president of the Gypsy Brothers motorcycle club, had seen hundreds of pretty girls, broken and abused, usually by someone else but occasionally by him. As soon as the little minx had opened her mouth, his dick had twitched in his jeans at the thought of all the deplorable things he could do to her. She had sass, and spunk, and something else that he couldn’t quite figure out.

She’s a survivor
. The phrase jumped into his head. She wasn’t like the girls they typically had under these circumstances.

Women in the Gypsy Brothers world were divided firmly into three camps: Old ladies, who were wives or partners of the bikers and not to be shared around. Usually, they weren’t welcome at the club, but occasionally they wheedled their way in. Then there were party girls, who were usually young and fucking stupid, and would pretty much let you stick it anywhere you wanted. Dornan had his favourites, the ones he used and abused, and he didn’t feel guilty about it one little bit, because they chose to stay. They each got their pay-off in some way — drugs, protection, the thrill of danger. Sometimes they left the club, and other times, if they were found to have divulged club information — hell, even if they had
seen
something potentially incriminating — they were taken up to the roof of the clubhouse and given a bullet. Quick, efficient, and more often than not, nobody even reported them as missing, let alone actually
missed
them.

Yeah, it was a pretty bleak way to handle things, but the smart ones stayed alive because they knew what would happen if they stepped out of line.

Which made Dornan consider the third group of women who were frequently around the club compound.

The transients. The ones who didn’t belong there. The ones who made him slightly uncomfortable, the ones his father insisted on dealing in.

The slaves.

Human trafficking was a nicer term for what they were doing with those girls, but not by much. Typically the girls were an in-and-out job, a truck or a boat or a carload that needed to go from point A to point B; usually teenage girls from out of state or, less frequently, from overseas. Sometimes, the girls would beg him to help them, and it broke his fucking heart every time he turned a blind eye to what his father was doing.

But he still did it, and so he was an asshole. He accepted that. It was part of who he was.

John Portland didn’t like it. He was Dornan’s best friend and the president of the Gypsy Brothers, and he abhorred the practice of taking these young girls and forcing them into a life of prostitution or drug smuggling. He wanted to fucking save everyone all the time. Dornan often had to remind him that his role as president was largely symbolic; he was not the one in charge.

It hadn’t always been that way. The club had been just that — a club. Not a gang. Not organised crime. Just riding, free as birds, setting up camp and sleeping under the stars. They’d both ditched school in favour of seeing the world, riding their Triumphs across the USA, along Route 66 and beyond.

It had been John who suggested the name Gypsy Brothers. They’d jokingly tossed a coin and declared the winner the president, the loser VP. John had called heads, and the coin landed heads up. They’d cut lines into the flesh of their palms with a pocketknife and sealed the deal with a handshake marked in blood. Blood Brothers. Gypsy Brothers who travelled the roads, and had each other’s backs.

And then everything had gone to shit. They’d returned home to LA to find Dornan’s girlfriend, Lucy, pregnant with his baby, John’s younger sister needing cancer treatment that he couldn’t afford, and Dornan’s mafioso father finally having caught up to his wayward son.

It was a complete clusterfuck. John’s sister wasn’t even eighteen, yet she was riddled with cancer. Full of cancer and no insurance meant one thing: John needed money, a lot of money, and fast.

It had seemed straightforward at the time. A road trip, a simple swap. Drugs for cash. But once Emilio had them under his thumb, it happened time and time again. The Gypsy Brothers club expanded to deal with the mounting work Emilio was throwing at them. Dornan liked to claim it was his family obligation, but really, he knew he couldn’t argue. His father was a stone-cold killer from old-school
Italia
, and Dornan had always known that he would be called to the darkness one day. He’d felt that familiar violence bubble under his skin more than once.

He just didn’t realise his best friend would end up as deep in the blood of innocents as him.

Lucy had crafted the Gypsy Brothers patches and the leather cut-off jackets that John and Dornan wore with pride. Lucy loved to fucking sew, especially when she was eight months pregnant and could barely move. It drove Dornan insane; every time he walked around the house barefoot he’d step on a goddamn sewing pin, sticking precariously out of the carpet. That had been before everything really went to shit, though. Once things got crazy and she was washing blood and pieces of brain matter out of her husband’s clothes on a semi-regular basis, she’d stopped sewing.

It had started in the simplest, most innocent of ways; two friends, drinking beers by an open fire, shooting the shit and talking about how their lives might turn out. Things had been good then. Simple. Fun.

And now … now, the Gypsy Brothers dealt in the darkest of sins. They stole lives and they ended them, and they did a damn fine job of both. Dornan sometimes wondered how things would have turned out if he had just kept riding, had never returned home, had never accepted his father’s offer of cash to help John’s sister in return for their souls.

The saddest thing of all was that she died anyway.

She died and Lucy ended up divorcing his ass, two kids and one affair later. So Dornan rarely thought about the old days. Rarely thought about the way he and John had signed their lives away, because, in the end, it had all been for nothing.

It wasn’t that difficult to ride with a raging hard-on — unless the reason for that hard-on was seated behind you, her delicious warmth pressed up against the small of your back with her legs draped over your bike.

Dornan figured he must’ve had a guardian angel for the ride from San Diego, because there was no blood left in his head to help him think straight. It was all directed into his lap, dangerously close to the girl’s small hands as she clung to him. At one point, when they reached open road and opened up their bikes, she held onto him so hard, her nails were gouging through his leather cut and t-shirt and into the firm flesh of his torso. He didn’t say anything, though.

He enjoyed the pain.

Just before Tijuana, the boys broke up into several smaller groups to avoid attention. The bright lights of the San Ysidro border crossing that straddled Mexico and the United States marked the almost-there point, and Dornan was glad for that. He loved being on the bike, but there was shit to do to sort out this coke shortage, plus his dick wasn’t showing any signs of calming down.

He revved his engine and made the turn into the road that led to his father’s compound, and with one hand he reached behind and pulled the girl closer to him, so her heat was jammed up tight against his back. He thought he felt her gasp, and that only excited him more.

From what his father had said, this girl was going to be staying with them for a
very
long time. It made him fucking ashamed that he was looking forward to her captivity.

The ride had been hellish. With no reference to time or indication of how far we had left to travel, I had had no choice but to hold on to Dornan or let go and smash myself to pieces on the highway behind the bikes. Not being able to see anything was the worst part, and it made me feel ill, but I couldn’t be sick in the narrow confines of the helmet. I doubted they’d stop to let me clean myself if I threw up, so I clenched my teeth and swallowed down my nausea for what seemed like hours.

And then, finally, the bikes slowed to a stop. Dornan patted my hand and someone else hooked their hands under my arms, pulling me off the bike. I stood on legs that threatened to dissolve underneath me, supporting myself against the bike with one shaking arm. I was sore, I was tired, and the only thing I’d eaten since I had arrived in the States — a greasy burger and fries — sat in my stomach like a rock that wanted to come back up.

My hands itched to pull up the visor, but I didn’t touch it. A cool chill settled on my skin and I guessed that it must have been evening wherever we were.

‘C’mon,’ Dornan said, taking my wrist and guiding me up a flight of stairs, into what I assumed was some kind of building, and back down another flight of stairs. My stomach flipped nervously as I wondered where we were going and what was about to happen.

What
did
happen to slave girls, anyway?

Was he going to beat me? Force himself on me? The shock of Este’s death and the past twenty-four hours were still clinging to my consciousness and making me act in a kind of weird, detached way that was completely foreign to me. I was normally feisty, determined and demanding. Not a meek, quiet girl who let herself be blindfolded and led into the pits of hell.

Este. I
ached
to weep for him, to unleash my anger with fists to the walls, to smash my knuckles into something until they bled. I wanted to hurt something, or someone. I wanted to hurt my father. But he wasn’t here, so maybe I could hurt Dornan, instead. A door slammed and the helmet was finally removed.

‘You didn’t tell me you were taking me to the Hilton,’ I drawled, turning my head to take in the small room we were in. Dornan set the suitcase Murphy had purchased and filled with clothes in my size on the ground. I guessed one of the other bikers had brought it. ‘I gotta take a piss,’ he said, turning to leave the room.

‘Nice,’ I replied, my eyes burning under the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. ‘Thanks for the information overload.’

He smiled, one hand on the door knob.

‘Wait,’ I said, sounding much too desperate for my liking.

He stopped, but didn’t turn around.

‘Will you … will you come back?’ I didn’t want to be with him, but I wanted to be alone even less. And I figured I was going to be here a good long while, so I’d better start off on the right foot with Dornan before Murphy reappeared or Emilio decided I was better off dead.

There was something about Dornan, something different. I was afraid of him, but not in the same way that I was afraid of Emilio or Murphy. It was a different fear.

How silly I was. I should have feared him the most, because he would be the one to destroy me in the end.

But I
was
silly, and foolish, and grieving. I didn’t want to be alone.

‘Do you want me to come back?’ he asked.

I did. But why? Because I liked him? No. I hated him and everything he stood for.

But I was afraid. Of the dark. Of the quiet. Of the possibility that once he left the room and slammed the door shut behind him, I’d be forgotten, clawing at the walls for days and weeks until my throat stopped being able to scream and I lay down and died. What if they just left me here to rot?

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

He let his hand drop from the door handle and turned slowly, meeting my eyes with what could only be described as a predatory gaze. He had something on me, even if it was as insignificant as my terror of being alone, and he
knew
it. He trailed his eyes down to my chest, over my waist and down to my feet, before repeating the journey in reverse.

I stood rooted to the spot as he dragged a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lit up, drawing in a long, apparently satisfying breath. He took two steps, bridging the gap between us as he offered me the cigarette, blowing smoke in my face.

He grinned, rolling the cigarette between two fingers in front of my face.

‘You know,’ he said slyly, ‘I’m not here to save you, Ana.’

Devastation squeezed at my chest as I accepted the cigarette, my skin burning where it touched his.
Nobody can save me now.

Placing the cigarette to my lips, I took a long, steady drag and blew a cloud of smoke right back at him.

‘That’s okay,
Papi
,’ I replied, tapping ash onto the ground as unexpected spikes of something ran down my spine in a shiver. ‘I’m not here to be saved.’

He took the cigarette back, smiling at me in the dark.

He didn’t care that he was married, or that she was his captive. When she stuck his cigarette between her lips and inhaled, it took every ounce of Dornan’s willpower not to press her up against the wall and suck the smoke right out of her mouth as he devoured her. Instead, he settled for studying every inch of her with his ravenous eyes, as she spoke in that sexy little accent and slow-blinked those big eyes at him.

And
she had asked him to come back
. His dick was practically trying to jump out of his pants and into her, and he bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself.

He found himself dreaming up scenarios to extend his father’s business trip in Bogota, ways to have this girl to himself for a few days instead of just a few more hours. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to run his hands down those smooth brown arms that’d been wrapped around him for almost an hour, and he wanted to brush his fingertips against those lush rosebud lips that made the difference between her being pretty and being beautiful.

Beautiful
. He realised it had been forever since he’d thought a woman beautiful. He’d seen plenty of pretty girls, plenty of sexy women. But truly
beautiful
women were few and far between in his world. It was too violent, too bloody, too masochistic for beautiful women to survive, and so they somehow knew to stay away.

But she had offered herself to his father, a willing captive, in exchange for the safety of her parents and siblings. It impressed him. It intrigued the hell out of him. Dornan respected his father, but if the right person came along and wanted to take Emilio out, Dornan would probably load the bullets into the gun and hand it to them himself.

Yeah, he had issues. Didn’t everyone, though? He saw the haunted look in this girl’s eyes and knew that it was unintentional. She thought she was being cocky, a smartass, and for the most part that was what he saw. But there was something else in her gaze, in those big, almond-shaped eyes that begged him to stay with her.

Sadness. Wisdom. She was older than her nineteen years, much older. He wondered about the things she had seen that would make her like that, and he vowed to keep her close until he knew all of her precious secrets.

But for now? For now, he was going to take a piss before he exploded. Then, he was going to take a long, hot shower and beat one out. He was going to close his eyes and imagine that it was her pink lips at the end of his dick as he took the edge off. He needed to get her out of his goddamn brain for two minutes so he could focus on business.

And the business was particularly demanding of his focus today. Ana’s father had lost a shitload of cocaine to the DEA, and Emilio’s carefully supplied network was screaming for product that they didn’t have. The coke trade that was the foundation for everything Emilio and Dornan did was a beast, and the beast was screaming to be fed.

Despite Ana’s request, he didn’t go back into the room immediately after using the bathroom down the hall. Instead, he made the somewhat reluctant pilgrimage upstairs to the kitchen, from where his mother had been banished in anticipation of a heated meeting with some of the Cartel’s main players. His uncle Julian was sitting at the long oak dining table, next to Emilio, who was at the head of the table. Of course. The old man took every chance he could get to assert his position of power, and remind everyone else they were beneath him.

Dornan found it both annoying and fascinating.

‘You just get in?’ Dornan asked, confused.

He nodded a greeting at Julian as he watched his father stab a cherry tomato and devour it.

Dornan thought of what he’d just done. He had picked the girl up with a contingent of his men because Emilio had told him he’d be away for a few more days, and couldn’t do it himself. And now here he was, in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table eating fucking tomato salad and arugula.

Emilio shrugged, chewing on a mouthful of food.

‘Where is everyone?’ Dornan asked, more than a little irritated.

His father shrugged again, and Dornan bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood. His fucking father was infuriating.

Dornan turned and left the room, not bothering to look back. He’d learned over the years that it was so much easier to walk away from his father. Every other motherfucker who annoyed him had to answer to him, but Daddy dearest was sadly off limits. After all, Emilio was the man who ensured their shady world kept turning.

Dornan left the kitchen, letting the heavy door close behind him as he stalked across the foyer. Tall double doors with brass handles reached up in front of him, and he grabbed both handles at the same time, flinging them open onto the verandah that flanked the front of the house.

A sea of motorcycles greeted him, but no Gypsy Brothers to accompany them. What the fuck? A dozen guys in leathers weren’t easy to miss. He looked to his left, noticing two cars had been pulled out of the three-car garage and parked in front of the closed doors. Bingo.

He covered the distance between the house and garage quickly, throwing open the single service door to the garage that sat right next to the first of three tilt-doors. The smell of sex immediately invaded his nostrils, entirely unwelcome since it wasn’t him who was taking part in the act.

The garage was massive. It was slightly insulting that Emilio chose to banish any of Dornan’s crew to the garage instead of letting them into the house, but right now Dornan couldn’t fault his father. He raised his eyebrows as he saw one of the young Mexican women who cleaned for his father, completely naked on the hood of his mother’s Mercedes. The poor woman would have a heart attack if she saw how her car was being corrupted. The chick on the hood, the girl who dusted his mother’s blinds and washed their fucking towels, had her legs spread wide and one of his guys was mouth-fucking her. She moaned loudly, throwing her head back as she said something unintelligible in Spanish. She looked like she was having a fine time.

Dornan stepped closer and cleared his throat, the woman’s body shuddering at the same time as she opened her eyes, the shock on her face almost comedic. She slammed a hand over her mouth and locked eyes with Dornan, stifling a loud moan as she came.

Her cheeks went bright red and she looked down at the Gypsy Brother between her legs, trying to bat him away with her free hand. Apparently Viper was too far into what he was doing to even realise his boss was standing behind him. He stood up, not paying attention to the chick’s expression as she covered her face in shame, pulling her hips closer to him and slamming himself into her.

‘Vipe,’ Dornan said pointedly.

Viper jumped so high in the air he almost took the chick off the hood of the car.

‘Fuck!’ he yelled in surprise, falling on top of the car’s hood and making the woman scream as he no doubt gave her his all.

‘Vipe,’ Dornan repeated, starting to get angry. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Viper pushed himself up on the hood of the car so he wasn’t crushing the woman, a sheepish look on his face. ‘I was waitin’ for you, D,’ he said, continuing to thrust.

Dornan sighed. ‘You’ve got two minutes to get out of that woman and into the kitchen. You can fuck the help after we’ve sorted this coke situation.’

‘I figured you’d be banging that one we just picked up,’ Vipe said.

Dornan chose not to answer. ‘You get your jizz on my mother’s car, I’ll cut your nuts off myself.’

He left Viper to his business and stalked back into the house. There was only one other place his boys would be. He burst back into the front doors, taking a sharp right down the hallway until he reached a door at the end. He threw the door open and what he saw made him want to laugh until he cried.

His mother had insisted on having her sitting room made big enough to accommodate their large extended family. It was an impressive room, all high ceilings and wing-backed brown leather chairs nestled between overstuffed sofas. His mother sat in her own custom recliner, an espresso balanced expertly between her thumb and forefinger.

That wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was the twelve Gypsy Brothers sitting around awkwardly sipping on coffees.

‘Ma,’ Dornan chided. ‘What the hell are you doin’ back here with this lot?’ His mother, a short, blonde woman in her fifties, raised one manicured eyebrow as she extended a slender arm to her mouth and sipped her coffee.

‘The boys have been filling me in on your latest endeavours,’ she said, her Queens accent as strong as it had ever been, even though she’d been in San Diego for the better part of thirty-five years. ‘Seems your father’s gotten himself into a dire situation.’

Dornan balled his fists angrily, glaring at the brothers. ‘Everybody,’ he said, deadly calm. ‘Get the fuck out of this room and into the kitchen. Now.’

Most of them appeared grateful as they dumped their cups on the coffee table and high-tailed it out of the room in a stampede of leather and heavy footsteps. Once the last Gypsy Brother had vacated the room, Dornan turned to face his mother. She made no move to stand as her son towered over her.

‘You know,’ she said, glancing down into her coffee, ‘I used to take you and your brother to the park when you were little. You liked the swings the best. When it was time to go home, you’d scream and beg me to stay.’

Dornan softened slightly; he never could stay angry at his mother, even though she did have a nasty habit of sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. He already had Emilio breathing down his neck with every step he took. He didn’t need his mother keeping tabs on the club as well.

‘I’d pick you up in my arms and carry you away. You were probably only three or four.’ Her blue eyes sparkled as she reminisced. ‘You used to yell, “Help! Mommy, help me!”’

Dornan’s mouth twitched up at the memory.

‘You looked nothing like me,’ she said, some of the joy having leaked out of her voice. ‘You were all your father. Still are.’

Something inside Dornan’s chest buzzed painfully as he crouched down in front of his mother.

‘Ma,’ he said gently, trying to catch her gaze.

Her blue eyes filled with water as she finally made eye contact with him.

‘Not like your brother,’ she whispered. ‘He was just like me. Just like me.’

Dornan recalled a small boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. A boy who never got old enough to leave high school before he was gunned down on his way from school as retribution for something Dornan couldn’t even remember anymore. A casualty of the war that never seemed to end.

‘Ma,’ he repeated softly, taking her free hand and squeezing it between his own palms.

‘I worry about you,’ she said plainly, her eyes still glassy. ‘You’re all I’ve got left.’

Such a display of emotion was rare from his mother; she almost always maintained a ruthless calm that served her well. Her reputation was that of a woman to be feared, a cartel queen who has earned her right alongside the king. But here, now, Dornan saw the fear inside his mother’s eyes, and that fear pulled at him.

‘You don’t need to worry,’ Dornan said, giving her hand one last squeeze before he placed it back in her lap.

He stood and turned to leave, her final words like a knife in his chest.

‘That’s what your brother said,’ she murmured.

His mother’s vulnerability had rattled him. Still, there was business to attend to, so Dornan did what he was best at: pushing away everything else and focusing on the task at hand. He’d become adept at compartmentalising things after Raph had died. If he didn’t push the dark things down into the abyss inside him, he’d be eaten alive by rage.

In the kitchen, things were finally happening. Emilio still presided over the head of the table, Julian by his side. Dornan’s men sat and stood around a spot beside Emilio that was obviously meant for him. Dornan glanced at the empty seat beside his father before taking a spot at the opposite end of the table, directly opposite his father.

‘What’d I miss?’ Dornan asked, folding his arms across the Gypsy Brothers crest that adorned the leather cut he wore.

His father turned his eyes up to acknowledge him before returning to the map in front of him. ‘Los Angeles,’ he said briskly. ‘Who else do we know who supplies?’

Dornan frowned. ‘That’s the thing about a monopoly,’ he answered. ‘Nobody else supplies, Pop. We’re it.’

Emilio didn’t look impressed.

‘We’ve got a shipment of meth coming, right?’

Emilio continued to stare at his son, a small shrug of his shoulder the only indication he had heard the question.

‘We push that,’ Dornan suggested. ‘Discounted until we can get our coke situation covered.’

Emilio grunted. His indifference infuriated Dornan.

‘We done here?’ Dornan asked. ‘These boys can accompany the shipment personally this time. It’s due tonight, is it not?’

‘Midnight,’ Emilio answered. ‘At the dock.’

Dornan nodded. When no one moved, he threw his hands up.

‘Everyone get that? Nine o’clock at the dock.’ He glanced at his watch, seeing they still had a few hours to kill. ‘Leave now. Go get something to eat. I’ll see you boys out there.’

Viper, who’d been silent until this point, suddenly spoke up. ‘You’re not coming with us, D?’

Dornan shook his head, avoiding his father’s amused stare. ‘I said, I’ll meet you there. Get out of here, all of you.’

They filed out of the room, the heavy kitchen door slamming after them. Dornan pressed his palms flat on the table and studied his father.

‘Was there something else?’ Emilio asked, looking up from the papers in front of him.

Dornan shook his head, pressing off the table with his hands and leaving the room.

But he’d lied. There was something else. Her name was Mariana.

And she’d asked him to come back.

Dornan didn’t enter her room once he was downstairs. Instead, he stood outside the door, pressing his eye to the peephole that showed a fish-eye view of the small room. Yeah, he was a fucking pervert. It didn’t bother him. She was a grown woman, and she had asked him to come back.