Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (60 page)

EIGHT

We walk into a room, and what a greeting the Skullz Cartel members give us.

We’re on a large, stuffy patio dotted with wicker pool furniture that looks like it’s seen better days. To our left, a large rectangular pool shimmers in the bright light, a refreshing oasis that I’d give my left arm to be able to jump into right now.

Except, you know, the guys with the guns.

I see at least twenty sub-machine guns aimed at us before I decide to stop counting.
Fuck.
Behind the sea of gun power are members of the Skullz. Some are young and muscled, some are old and chubby, and all of them are heavily tattooed. Some are dressed in jeans and shirts, others in their bathing suits, drops of water still clinging to their skin.

Apparently, we’re interrupting their afternoon swim.

I pull Agent Dunn towards me, using her as a human shield of sorts. I don’t particularly want anyone to shoot her, but I want them to shoot me even less. Luis and Jase let go of Donny at the same time, and he crashes to the floor in an undignified heap. Luis puts his palms up in a show of surrender, and a gang member steps forward to relieve him of the gun strapped over his back. Once he’s rid of the gun, he points slowly towards his back.

He’s wearing a slimline black backpack I didn’t notice earlier. The same guy who took his gun also removes his backpack and tosses it towards the center of the crowd of Skullz members.

One guy lowers his gun and steps closer to us, his swagger and composure suggesting he’s the boss. You can always spot the boss in a crowd like this. He’s usually the one who looks the smartest. The stupid ones always get themselves killed before too long.

He holsters his gun — an impressive-looking gold-plated revolver — before picking up the backpack and walking right up to me, his gold-brown eyes burning into me as he approaches. He comes so close I can smell the tobacco on his breath. He looks to be Colombian, around forty, his face relatively unmarred. A couple light scars across his forehead, but nothing to suggest he’s a serious fighter. Hell, I’ve probably got more battle scars than him. He’s sporting a neatly trimmed beard that looks like it gets a thousand brush strokes every morning and night. Seriously, this guy’s facial hair looks like it’s spun out of fucking black diamonds or something. And above that, his skin! It’s caramel colored, and the softest skin I’ve ever seen on a man.

I bet people give him shit for being so pretty.

I bet he shoots them when they do.

As he studies my face, I see another guy take Jase’s pistol and pat him down. I let go of Agent Dunn and raise my hands as he hands off the backpack to another dude and cracks his knuckles loudly.

“Pepito,” Luis says, addressing the guy who looks like he’s about to either molest me or knock me out. “Friend, we’re not looking for trouble. We just need a place to hide out for a few hours until our ride gets here.”

Pepito largely ignores Luis, focusing on me. Of course.

“You got a weapon, girl?” he asks, his English clear despite his thick accent.

“Sure,” I reply.

He smiles slyly. “You sure don’t look like a CIA agent,” he says, skimming his fingers over my shoulders and down my sides. At the rate he’s going, this is going to be the most drawn-out pat-down search in history.

I glance over at Jase, who looks like he’s about to kill every man in the room with the psychic force of his indignation and rage. “I’m not,” I reply. “I just liked the jacket.”

He sniggers, continuing to run his hands all over me. I resist the urge to tell him where my gun is. Better for him to think I’m not affronted by his roving hands. Which are not that bad, tell the truth. At least he’s being gentle while he feels me up.

“It’s in her pocket,” Jase says caustically, “so you can get your fucking hands off her ass.”

Shit, Jase! Not cool. Not cool.

I glance down at Pepito. He seems amused by Jase’s outburst.

“I’m looking for a wire,” he replies cheerily, removing his hands. “You must understand, landing on our roof in the middle of our afternoon swim is highly uncouth, si?” But at the same time, he reaches a hand into each jacket pocket, locating the gun and removing it from my person.

Jase doesn’t answer him.

“Si,” I interject hurriedly. It was highly fucking reckless and dangerous, to be fair. If someone landed a chopper on my roof, I’d probably shoot first and ask questions later. So, in a way, these guys are doing us a massive favor by not killing us on sight.

“But, you’re right. I shouldn’t touch your little girlfriend here.”

Jase relaxes a fraction.

Pepito steps back, a twisted grin on his face that tells me he’s got something worse in store.

“You don’t want me to touch her, fine.” He looks at me. “Strip.”

My arms are so tired from being held up in the air, and now he wants me to strip? In front of all these dudes?

For fuck’s sake. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I need to mainline some coffee to keep me going. There are at least twenty dudes crammed under this pavilion, and now Pepito wants me to strip.

I think the universe delights in tormenting me.

“Is that entirely necessary?” I ask tiredly. “I mean, I was fine for you to keep fondling me.”

“Strip,” he repeats, and this time, the grin is gone. Vanished. Oh. He’s one of those types. A Jekyll and Hyde. A Dornan. Happy and amused one minute, baying for your blood the next.

Delightful.

“All of you, fucking strip,” he demands, waving my gun at the lineup of us. I roll my eyes and start shrugging out of the CIA jacket I swiped from Agent Dunn. I look to her to see she’s in shock, her mouth hanging half open, her entire body unmoving except for the little sips of air she’s taking in.

She’d better not pass out. I wouldn’t want to be an unconscious, pretty female in a roomful of Skullz.

I glance across to Luis and Jase, and an overwhelming apprehension squeezes at my throat as I watch them slowly take off their t-shirts and reveal their enormous back tattoos. GYPSY BROTHERS. We’re screwed. We are so screwed.

Oh, hell. If they don’t shoot them right now, it’s a fucking Christmas miracle.

One of the guys behind Jase starts pointing excitedly at his back and neck. “Pepito!” I remember the Ross family crest on Jase’s neck and cringe inwardly.

Pepito forgets me for the moment, so I stop unbuttoning my dress. It’s half open, and you can see the scalloped edges of my black lace bra, but hopefully not much else. Pepito focuses his attention on Jase and Luis, and my hand aches without a gun in it to provide some kind of defense.

“You two, turn around,” he says.

I see Jase’s face fall with defeat as he turns around slowly, the tattoo on his back a blinking fucking beacon of doom. A sick feeling twists in my gut as I remember the day his brothers held him down and forced him to receive the large tattoo. Even when you’re willing, ink that big and cumbersome is brutal. When you’re fighting to get loose the entire time, your body ends up going into a kind of shock that’s similar to the after-effects of being tortured for a prolonged period of time.

I know, because it was the same night I met him, covered in his dead mother’s blood and fighting Dornan every step of the way as he dragged his newfound son into the clubhouse. I still remember wiping the blood from his skin once they were finally finished with branding him as a Gypsy Brother seven years ago.

That was the night I decided I wanted him to be mine.

“It’s not what you think, amigo,” Luis says desperately. “Check the backpack. There’s cash, plenty of cash. We just need cover for a few hours, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

“I’m not your amigo,” Pepito says darkly. “And I don’t need fucking Gypsies coming into my house uninvited and shooting their mouths at me!”

Just when I think they’ve forgotten about it, Pepito plucks the briefcase up from its spot on the floor between myself and Agent Dunn. “What’s in the briefcase?” he asks, fixing me with a steely stare.

“Nothing for you,” I answer.

He appears to think that over for a moment before jabbing me in the ribs with my own gun. Well, with Agent Dunn’s gun, if we’re being specific. “Did I say you could stop? Get that fucking dress off, bitch.”

Reluctantly, I start undoing the rest of my buttons as Pepito watches me.

“What about you?” he says. “You got a Gypsy tramp stamp like your boys here?”

I shrug out of my dress and toss it to him, reduced to a bra and panties as I spread my palms in a concerted shrug. “Used to,” I say, watching his eyes with a morbid satisfaction as they take in the horrid scarring along the side of my torso. He’s shocked, and that somehow gives me the validation I need. “Dornan Ross cut it off before he killed my daughter. After he killed my father. He’s taken almost everyone I’ve ever loved.”

Pepito backs up a step, still holding tightly to my dress in one hand, Agent Dunn’s gun in the other.

“That
hijo de puta
killed your kid? He did this to you?”

Sorrow rips through me like wildfire, but I keep my face poker straight. “Yes. And worse.”

“We’re not with the Gypsies,” Luis says. “Pepito, I told you, we’re against the Gypsies!”

“Shut up,” he says, returning his attention to me. He steps closer again, the briefcase still in hand.

“You don’t cry when you talk about it, so why should I believe you? Mothers should cry. You’re not a mother.”

His words are brutal, but he can’t stop looking down at the scarring that adorns my hip and waist, the eternal reminder of Dornan Ross’s power over me and my existence. Marred flesh that should be rounded and full, stretched with a growing baby.

Flesh that sits flat, no life within, nothing inside except a memory of what used to be.

“I don’t know you,” I reply quietly. “I only give my tears to people I trust.”

“What’s in the briefcase?” he repeats.

“I’m on my way to kill Dornan,” I say resolutely.

“What’s in the briefcase?” he asks a third time.

“My daughter,” I reply finally, wishing that I didn’t have to share this. Share her. “Or, what’s left of her.”

Pepito drops the briefcase on the floor like it’s made of fire, where it bursts open, a small white box bouncing onto the tiles unharmed. I don’t care that twenty guns are trained on me, or that I’m almost naked. I don’t care about anything other than that box. I dive for it, scooping it up and clutching it to my chest, and not one person tries to stop me.

NINE

Pepito, as it turns out, is an amiable kind of guy once he gets to know you. Once he figures out you aren’t dropping by to kill him. Yeah, turns out he’s actually a decent motherfucker.

He gives me my dress back and clicks his fingers, gesturing to the rest of the group to lower their weapons.

“These people are our allies!” he declares. “We will give them sanctuary for the night. Everyone, leave us. I must talk to these young ones and discover the rest of their story. Any enemy of Dornan Ross is a friend of mine.”

The relief on my face must be palpable; Pepito laughs and slaps me on the back. “Come!” he says loudly, talking to all of us. “Into the air conditioning.”

“What should we do with him?” Luis asks Jase, who shrugs.

Pepito glances down at Donny, forgotten until now. “He one of yours?” he asks Jase, looking from Donny’s family crest to Jase’s and back again.

Jase shakes his head emphatically. “He’s one of Dornan’s. He’s our hostage.”

“As is she,” I chime in, jabbing a thumb in Agent Dunn’s direction.

“Well, she was kind of obvious,” Pepito says, his eyes roving over Agent Dunn. “You need us to secure them for the night for you?”

“No, thank you.” I shake my head emphatically. I mightn’t like Agent Dunn, but I don’t want to throw her to the wolves. She’s been well behaved, and I don’t intend on letting her out of my sight in this compound of angry, gun-slinging men.

And I’d love them to take Donny for a couple of hours, but they’ll probably kill him, and we need him alive.

Pepito shrugs and walks through the parted throng of Cartel members to a set of arched double doors that leads into his impressive fortress. I gather up the briefcase and slip the little white box inside, clicking it shut as I follow along wearing nothing but my Victoria’s Secret underwear, my dress bunched up under my arm. They’ve all seen everything already. I’m much more concerned with protecting the briefcase and its contents than recovering my modesty.

We file into the house behind Pepito and around a sharp turn that leads us to a large, cavernous space fitted with crystal chandeliers and leopard skin rugs, filled with sleek, lowline leather sofas and a curved coffee table made entirely of clear glass.

“Please, sit,” Pepito says, gesturing to the couches. I wait for Jase to sit and choose a spot beside him, tugging Dunn down on my other side. Luis dumps Donny on the floor before sitting on the coffee table in front of him. Pepito calls something unintelligible out the door before coming to sit to my left, our crazy cacophony of characters gathered before him.

I shrug back into my dress and start buttoning up as a maid bustles into the room, carrying a tray of ice-filled glasses and a bottle of tequila. She sets the tray in the middle of the glass coffee table and leaves. Pepito pours himself a tequila on the rocks before gesturing for us to do the same. None of us move.

“Now,” Pepito says, nursing his tequila. “I would like to hear more of these injustices you speak of. Please, tell me what the Gypsy Brothers have done to each of you.” He points at Luis. “You start.”

“Dornan Ross took our parents from us, all of us,” he says darkly. “My mother, his mother,” he points to Jase, “her father,” he points at me. “Their bebé,” he adds, looking at Jase and I with a pained expression.

Pepito takes that in, swirling the clear fluid in his glass as he ponders our losses. I stare at my hands and will them not to shake while I think of the phantom movements low in my belly that still hit me randomly, the moments when I forget that I am empty and not carrying a child anymore.

“A little bird tells me you were the one to kill Emilio Ross,” Pepito says to Luis, any trace of casual gone from his expression. “Is this true?”

Luis nods. “Yes.”

“But not his crazy cholo son, no?”

Luis shakes his head. “No. Not yet.”

Pepito sits back, resting his glass on the arm of his seat. “You realize, having Dornan in charge of Il Sangue has fucked things up for me. Emilio was a ruthless motherfucker, but we had an agreement of sorts. A truce. Dornan comes in and starts killing off my men before his father’s body is even cold. This has caused me much trouble.”

“He won’t be a problem anymore,” I interrupt. “We’re on our way to kill him.”

Donny chooses that exact moment to open his eyes and sit up. He spits a mouthful of blood out on the tiles before fixing me with a crazed grin.

“You’re not gonna kill him,” he sneers, shaking his head. “He’s gonna kill you, you little cunt.”

“Is that the only swear word you guys know?” I respond stiffly. “Because really, there are so many more things you could call me.”

“Cunt’s the first word that comes to mind,” Donny huffs, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Especially since I’ll never forget breaking your sweet virgin cunt while you screamed underneath me.” He spits more blood from his mouth, and some dribbles down onto his white dress shirt, now stained and disheveled, while inside my chest, I hurt. I ache. I thought their words couldn’t hurt me anymore, but today, for some reason, his snide remark has burrowed through my armor and stabbed itself straight into my heart. The part of me that’s still that fifteen-year-old girl screams inside as he makes jokes about the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced, the night when seven men I called family almost killed me with their hate and their rage.

I remain still, watching on in detachment as Jase stands up and flies at Donny, kicking him hard enough in the ribs to make him sprawl out on his back. He begins to cough as Jase steps next to him and places a black boot over his older brother’s throat, pressing down enough to make Donny squirm.

“Don’t talk,” Jase says, “Don’t say one more fucking word. I will end you, do you understand?”

Donny chuckles and chokes at the same time. “She took me to her junior prom,” he wheezes. “Remember that, Julie? You were so ready for me. And then this fucker came along and stole you.”

I raise my eyebrows; that’s not the way it happened. Donny and Chad were posted on the door of the hall by my father to make sure nothing untoward happened at the dance. They were there to spy on me, not fucking date me.

“That’s not the way I remember it,” I respond dully.

“Oh, come on, Julie!” he protests. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like it when it was my turn to fuck you! I know you wanted me.”

Jase presses his boot down further and Donny starts struggling wildly, no longer able to breathe. My cheeks burn as I remember how much I categorically did
not
want the scars they gave me that day.

Pepito looks at me pointedly. “This man raped you?”

I nod.

“And others?”

I nod again.

“When was this?”

I take in a shaky breath
. Stay calm, stay composed, do not let them see your weakness.
I steel myself and meet Pepito’s inquisitive stare.

“I was fifteen,” I respond, my voice only wavering a little. “There were seven of them. Dornan Ross and his sons. It was payback for my father falling in love with the wrong woman.”

Pepito’s jaw clenches; he looks like he’s about to break his own jaw with the force of his bite-down. I don’t look away; I hold his gaze, because I will not show weakness.

“My mama was raped,” Pepito says. “She had me nine months later. She could have cast me into the street but she kept me. Loved me.  I found my father when I was eighteen and slit his throat while he slept.”

I don’t trust Pepito, but I like him even more now.

“So tell me,” Pepito says. “What do you think is a fitting punishment for a dirty fucker who rapes kids?”

I can’t help it; I smile. “I can think of a few things.”