Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (57 page)

If I had any remnants of doubt about killing Dornan before? They’re gone, bled from me in the moments after our daughter was born, still and dead, in the early hours of the morning when the world was still dark.

He took her from me. From us. And I cannot rest until he’s dead and buried, a rotting corpse in the cold ground, a memory and nothing more.

Dornan Ross needs to burn for the things he’s done.

Agent Dumbass follows his partner out of the room and pulls the door shut. I immediately stand up and go to the door, testing the handle. Locked from the outside.
Of course
. I go back to my chair, collecting the pen someone so thoughtfully left for me and shoving it into my pocket. You know, just in case I need to stab somebody sometime soon.

Which, as it turns out, is sooner than I’d anticipated.

About an hour later, Agent Bitch sticks her head back into the room. “Your lawyer’s on the way,” she says, closing the door behind her again.

This could be anyone. A cop posing as a lawyer to get a confession on tape. A hit man, sent by the Gypsy Brothers or the Cartel. I’m like a sitting duck in here, and I don’t like it one tiny bit.

But what greets me isn’t any of those things.

It’s so much worse.

I don’t move an inch as the door swings open and he walks into the room. Dressed in a suit I’ve seen before, clutching a black leather briefcase by his side. He looks positively fucking amused.

“Well,” I say bitterly, “they’ll let any motherfucker take the bar these days.”

That makes Donny laugh.

TWO

Donovan “Donny” Ross laughs, but there is no trace of pleasure in the strangled noise that comes from his throat. It’s a painful laugh, weighed down by death and despair.

My laugh probably doesn’t sound that different, come to think of it.

“Well, stand up,” he says. “I’ve missed my little sis.”

I glare at him, standing abruptly so that my metal chair falls behind me.

“Relax,” he soothes, motioning for me to sit down. “I didn’t come here to hurt you, Julie.” He throws the briefcase onto the table that separates us and shoves his hands in his pants pockets. Pants that look ridiculous on him. He might think he’s dressed for success, but from where I’m standing he looks like a gangster, the long suit sleeves and white collared shirt underneath concealing some of his tattoos, but not the ones on his neck and hands. He’s got matching tattoos on the fingers of both hands, VITA and MORS. Life and death. I remember them well. They were on his hands six years ago.

I’m sure you didn’t come here to hurt m
e, I think, pissed that he’s used the element of surprise to get me while I’m trapped. Stuck in a goddamned interrogation room inside a US air base with nowhere to go.

“What are you doing here, Donny?” I ask, my heart thudding as I watch him pace casually. As if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

As if he hasn’t just lost five brothers and a grandfather in the bloody battle that we’re still stuck in the middle of.

“Just a little business trip,” he says flippantly, his smile never reaching his dead black eyes, eyes that match Dornan’s perfectly. He’s just a younger version of his father, really.

“Oh,” I reply, “I thought you’d be at another funeral.” I throw him a fuck-you smile, full of sweetness and hate.

He doesn’t reply.

“You’re dressed for it,” I continue, acutely aware of both the pen in my pocket and the empty Coke can near my left hand. “Your family plot must be overflowing,” I say. Press those goddamn buttons. Come on, asshole, if you’re here to dance, let’s fucking
dance
.

“I hear cremation is much more efficient,” Donny says somberly, clicking the briefcase open and removing something.

A box.

A box full of ashes.

My daughter.

I can’t help it. I buckle at the sight of my daughter’s remains in his hands, my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that tries to escape me. I back up against the far wall as he places the box beside his briefcase and snaps it shut again.

I can’t even rush over and try to grab it, because I can’t risk him spilling one precious bit of those ashes. Can’t fathom what he’s going to do to them. Please, please, don’t hurt them. That box and a set of footprints on paper are all I have left of the baby who held on through every horrid bit of torment Dornan inflicted upon my body during the months I was his captive.

“I came for what you owe my father,” he murmurs. “And instead, I found this.” He runs one finger along the top of the box, and I can’t see or hear anything else except him, except this here and now.

Everything I’ve managed to suppress for the past couple of hours comes crashing back into me with an intensity that physically hurts me. It’s like I’m dying, one painful moment at a time.

“You lost his baby?” he asks, patting the box. “Daddy will be so angry.”

Kill him. I have got to kill him. He cannot live.

“She was never his baby,” I seethe, composing myself somewhat as the sadness engulfing me is temporarily drowned by the rage that rattles inside my chest. The rage that I need to finish this. To finish
him
.

“She?” Donny asks, tilting his head to the side. “Hmph. Dornan always wanted a daughter. I mean, he had you, but look what you went and did.”

Goddamnit! Why did I tell him that?

“Not his daughter,” I argue, shaking with anger and terror. “I was already pregnant.”

“Daughter, granddaughter,” he shrugs, waving his hand in a noncommittal gesture. “It’s all the same, really. She came from Dornan. She
belonged
to him. And you lost her, you pathetic, fucking
junkie
.”

He lets his hand drop from the box, and it’s a visceral relief for his hand to be off that box that contains the burnt remains of all of my hopes and dreams. He doesn’t have the right to even touch her, to be anywhere near her.

“I told him to be careful with you. That you’d end up like your fucking mother,” he says, stalking around the table and towards me. Shit! He comes at me like a snake, so quick and without warning that I don’t have time to react. Not that it’d matter. I never was able to fight him off, not physically. Not six years ago, not now.

I back away, but there’s nowhere to go. We’re in a square box with a table and a chair, and there’s nowhere left to go.

I scream as a hand closes around my neck. He squeezes hard, cutting off my air supply, crowding me with his body so there is nothing else but him.

How did he get in here? That bitch agent must really be in with the Cartel. And I don’t believe for a moment what she said about the Cartel working for the CIA. Nope. I think she’s on his payroll.

I claw at his death grip, feeling Donny’s warm blood underneath my fingernails as I gouge at his flesh, but he doesn’t even flinch. He laughs as he squeezes harder, and white dots start to float lazily in my vision.

He’s going to kill me
.

I go limp for a moment, tired and just completely over this relentless war that has consumed my entire existence, until I think of Jase.

He can’t have Jase. No. He can’t take Jase from me. I love him too much to let that happen to my precious boy.

I kick and punch and gouge, but it’s no use. It’s like trying to fight off a brick wall. Nothing happens when I hit him.

I am going to die here, and I didn’t even fight back. I am pathetic, just like he said.

My lungs burn with emptiness. I need air. But I am smothering within his grip.

My eyelids are drooping when I hear the door burst open. The two agents hurry in, and Donny drops me like I’m made of fire.

“What did I say!” Agent Dunn screams at him. I imagine his smirk, but I can’t see it, because I’m on the ground, and Agent Dumbass is shaking me awake.

“You said don’t kill her,” Donny scoffs. “I was just playing.”

“Time for a recess,” Dunn says to him. He starts to protest but she isn’t having any of it.

I see Agent Bitch escort Donny from the room, the door slamming in their wake. The male agent brushes hair from my face and pats me on the cheek.

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

I feel really, really bad for what I’m about to do. I mean, no doubt the guy is working for the Cartel, but he seems like a stupid oaf, harmless really. I remind myself that he’s the enemy as I whisper something unintelligible to him.

“What?” he asks, coming closer and putting his ear near my mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, as I bring up the pen and drive it into the meaty hollow of his throat, cringing as I strike gold and hit his windpipe. He gasps — or, he tries to gasp, but nothing happens. Shit, I hope I haven’t killed him. Both of his hands come up to his throat and he attempts to pull the pen out. I use this opportunity to shove him to the side and reach over him, unclipping the holster at his hip and sliding the gun out. He takes one hand from his throat and swings his arm around, but the shock of being stabbed in the throat makes him clumsy and foolish. I parry his blow easily, bringing the gun up and aiming it at him as I rise to my feet.

“Get up,” I hiss.

He glances up at me with wet eyes, a sickening rasp coming from the pen in his throat. He’s trying to pull it out.

“Don’t pull it out,” I caution. “If you pull it out, you won’t be able to breathe. It’s keeping you from bleeding out.”

He stops trying to pull at the pen and nods minutely, his movement hampered by the Bic ballpoint in his throat. Poor guy. That’s got to hurt like a bitch.

I look at his wound, suddenly deflated. I was planning on taking him as a hostage, but the guy won’t be conscious much longer.

“Are you afraid of blood?” I ask incredulously. He’s as white as a sheet and shaking. I mean, I did just stab him in his neck, but that’s no reason to pass out on me.

If I’d done the same thing to Dornan, he probably wouldn’t even flinch.

“Hey!” I urge, snapping my fingers in front of his face. “Stay with me, dude. I’m not going to kill you. Christ.”

He’s really struggling. But I don’t have time to think about him right now. Jase. I have got to get to Jase, and get out of here, and get to Elliot, and get Elliot’s ex-girlfriend and daughter back. And then kill Dornan. And then bury my daughter properly.

And then go on a fucking vacation.

My eyes fall on the briefcase Donny left on the table. My poor baby’s ashes are in there. I won’t let him take them back.

“Give me your cell phone,” I hiss at the agent. In the end, I have to crouch down again and dig around in his pockets, because the guy isn’t hearing a word I say. He’s deep in the throes of panic, breathing heavily — or at least, trying to breathe. Guilt stabs me again as I watch blood trickle down his neck and beneath his white shirt, soaking the material.

I yank his cell phone out and flip it open. Dialing Elliot’s number, I can only pray that he is the one who picks up.

“Yes?” he answers, before I’ve even heard the line ring.

“Elliot?!” I cry.

“Julz!” he says urgently. “Where are you? Are you with them?”

My heart sinks. “No,” I say quietly. “Jase and I are in some kind of air base. We were taken from the house. I don’t know where Luis is. And Elliot,” I glance down at the agent on the floor, “these people are CIA.”

Elliot lets out a long breath. “He has my baby, Julz. My girls. He has my girls.”

My eyes well up with tears, my gaze falling on the briefcase again. Dornan killed my baby. I won’t let him take Elliot’s too.

I’d rather die than anything happen to her. Especially because, whatever happens to her would be a sick gesture to send a message to me.

“Elliot, where are you?” I choke.

“The Nebraska house,” he says, his voice sounding odd. “I’m waiting for that fucker to call me. We’re supposed to do a trade.”

My blood runs cold. “A trade?”

“A trade,” he repeats. “Dornan says he’ll let the girls go if I go with him.”

I lean against the wall, suddenly terrified all over again. This new terror snakes around my heart and squeezes, until it feels like little bits of my soul start to break off and splinter.

For the first time, I start to think that Dornan is going to win this war. And that thought, that notion, is unrecognizable. He can’t win, not after everything he’s done to all of us. Not after the sins he has committed. Not after the lives he has destroyed.

“Don’t go,” I say softly. “It’s a trick. He won’t let them go. He’ll kill you, but he won’t let them go.”

“Juliette,” he grinds out, and his words are tinged with what sounds like grief and anger, “I don’t know what else to do. I’ve played all my cards. I’ve got nothing left to fight him with. Either way,
I’m going to lose
.”

“No,” I protest.

“I have to keep this line open,” he says, his voice abruptly changing to guarded, closed off.

“We’re coming to you,” I say urgently, and I don’t know how, but somehow, I have to get there and help Elliot get his ex and daughter out of Dornan’s grip before he decides to use them to teach us all a lesson.

“Juliette?” Elliot says.

“No,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare say goodbye. I am coming to help you.
I am coming to kill him
.”

The line goes dead.