Cartel

  We didn’t even need to speak. He had lied to his father to protect me.

  Was this some kind of test? An elaborate ruse to catch me out?

  Dornan turned and grabbed a stack of manila folders from the desk, thrusting them at me. ‘Here,’ he said.

  ‘Uhhh … thank you?’ I replied, taking the large pile of haphazard papers and cardboard.

  I looked around the room, wondering where I should sit.

  Dornan pointed to a small table in the corner. ‘Set up over there,’ he said.

  I started to walk towards the desk, stopping when Emilio addressed me.

  ‘You’ve become very compliant in just a few weeks, Ana,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Seems like the Gypsy Brothers have fucked the fight out of you.’

  I was about to open my mouth and reply when Dornan beat me to it.

  ‘I’ve been reminding her about her poor dead boyfriend,’ he said, trailing his fingers through my hair and giving a hard jerk on the ends.

  A chill swept over me and I stumbled as he pulled at my hair. The folders in my arms went flying, landing in a mess all over the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammered, getting to my knees and collecting papers. Emilio stepped on one that I was about to grab.

  ‘Skirt up,’ he said. ‘We need something to look at while you clean up your mess.’

  Gritting my teeth, I let go of the papers and sat up on my knees, hiking my pencil skirt up above my hips so it sat bunched around my waist. Cool air rushed around my ass and I felt my cheeks burn in embarrassment. I had been expressly ordered not to wear panties this morning. Now, I knew why.

  So I could be humiliated.

  I continued to collect the papers as quickly as I could, feeling two sets of black eyes staring at my ass.

  After I’d rearranged the stack of documents I went to stand up.

  ‘Wait,’ Emilio said.

  I stayed where I was, not game enough to look at him.

  Dornan cleared his throat but said nothing.

  ‘Face to the floor,’ Emilio ordered, walking around behind me. ‘Hands by your sides.’

  I did what I was told. I didn’t want him to kick me between the legs. I didn’t want to make him angry at me when I was this vulnerable in front of him.

  I pressed my forehead to the musty carpet, hoping I wouldn’t catch herpes from it. I ground my teeth as I felt a hand grab each of my ass cheeks and spread them apart.

  I choked a little on a cry. I was still tender down there. My eyes watered as fingers touched and probed, like I was being prepared for a fucking pap smear.

  ‘Have you been a good girl, cholita?’ Emilio asked, as he pressed his fingers against me.

  I whimpered at his touch. It wasn’t like Dornan’s. It didn’t make me want to move closer.

  It made me want to die.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, fresh tears stinging my eyes.

  He patted my left ass cheek, a strange gesture, then pulled my skirt down so I was covered again.

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ he said. ‘You may get up now.’

  I felt Dornan’s eyes on me as I stood and pulled my skirt back down to cover myself. But I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I stared at the floor as anger and disgust burned between my legs and in twin pools of flame on my cheeks.

  You’re nothing. You’re mine.

  Dornan might have taken me away from his father’s cruel grip, but there was no mistaking the fact that Emilio still owned me.

  Two hours later, and I was wading knee deep in shit. In corruption and double-accounting that was cleverly disguised, but not cleverly enough for a girl who specialised in it. I’d been doing it in my father’s business ventures for years, managing to scrabble money from people who thought they owed it to us when they actually didn’t. The accounts were a mess, but the same, seemingly innocuous deductions were taking place twice over and then over again.

  ‘Find anything useful?’ Emilio asked.

  I snapped my gaze to him. I hadn’t even been aware he was in the room. I fought the rising terror in my throat as I remembered what a spiteful, strong-willed girl I had been the night I met him.

  I didn’t know where she was anymore. I craved her, but I knew if she showed her face too many times, I’d end up dead.

  Submission it was, then. Even the word tasted like a lie.

  He must have seen the apprehension in my face because he pulled up a chair and sat across from me.

  ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.

  I swallowed. ‘Please don’t kick me in the ribs for telling you,’ I said, handing him a piece of paper I’d used to tally all of the dodgy figures I’d found so far. ‘But someone is stealing from you.’

  He appeared calm. But something about his expression told me I’d surprised him.

  ‘This much?’ he asked, pointing to the figure at the bottom of the page.

  I nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I’m only halfway through the stack, so it could go higher.’

  I called him ‘sir’ because I refused to call him ‘master’. I hoped that he wouldn’t notice.

  Something flashed in his eyes. He was pissed. His annoyance made me want to laugh hysterically. But I clamped that down.

  I refused to let myself become the target of his rage.

  Another thought occurred to me, too late to make a difference.

  Whoever had been in charge of the accounts was probably going to die, very soon and likely very painfully.

  I had just handed Emilio the death sentence of someone who I didn’t even know.

  It had been a test. It was always a test and, this time, I had passed.

  But who would die as a result?

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Dornan

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Mariana

  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.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Dornan

  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 a
nd 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.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Mariana

  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.