Then he felt like shit, because of course poor kid. John felt bad for him. He was so young, and he’d just been stolen from the only life he’d ever known. Of course John’s sweet daughter was going to try to help him. She was a little naïve when it came to club matters, his Juliette, and he had to wonder if protecting her from the worst of his role as president of the MC had unwittingly sheltered her from being safe in the midst of monsters and killers. The body count around a Sunday church meeting at the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse was in the hundreds. Thousands if you counted all the deaths from the drugs they’d sold over the years. From two guys – himself and Dornan – making some shit up on a road trip on their motorcycles, John could never have imagined that this would end up their fate.
The red tinge started to dissipate a little from John’s view of the world, and with that he pulled back onto the road and pointed his car home. He’d have to sneak in, get his face sorted and wash off the bulk of all this blood before Juliette saw and freaked out.
About thirty minutes later, he turned into his driveway, uneasiness pooling in his gut, thick and anxious, as he observed his dark, quiet house. Julz always left a light on for him.
The engine had barely stopped when John was out of the car, his legs burning as he scaled the stairs up to the front door two at a time. He burst into the unlocked door to absolute silence.
‘Juliette!’ he yelled, checking the kitchen. Empty. Living room – empty. Every room was empty.
Fuck.
She was fifteen. Sometimes she did things like ride her bike to the gas station a couple of blocks away for milk or candy, but she always left a note.
A note. Yes. It’d been dark in the kitchen – had he missed a note from her? John left his daughter’s bedroom, sensing movement as he passed his own. He stopped, pivoting and gripping the two sides of the doorframe.
A familiar sight, but one that never ceased to terrify him.
His wife, Caroline, was in the throes of a heroin high. It wasn’t hard to tell. She was on her back in the middle of their bed – a bed he hadn’t shared with her in months, opting instead to crash on the couch with a gun beside him – and she was laughing. There was something invisible on the ceiling, and it was fucking hilarious.
‘Caroline,’ he hissed. She didn’t flinch. John took a step into the room he’d long since abandoned and was immediately hit by the smell of junkie. It was a unique smell – body odour, but mixed with some kind of sweet scent, sickly, like rotting oranges. Maybe it was Caroline’s perfume. He’d never lived with another junkie to compare.
‘Hey,’ John said, more forcefully this time. He reached out to touch her arm and recoiled when he saw the fresh needle still hanging from the crook of her elbow. Fucking hell. John had no idea where she’d gotten the money for a hit. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to have to imagine his wife doing all manner of terrible things – fucking, stealing, bribing – to get the white powder she so viciously craved. He didn’t have to worry about other Gypsy Brothers, who all respected John and had far more desirable options to choose from on the female menu at the clubhouse. But there were plenty of men in Los Angeles who owed John no respect, or Caroline, for that matter. Men who would pay good money to disrespect her. All of these things crossed John’s mind as he watched Caroline laugh, her eyes rolling back in her head every so often.
He’d liked to have thought that his next move was unconscious, but it was a very deliberate one. He reached behind his back to the gun tucked snugly into his waistband and pulled it out, resting it against Caroline’s forehead. If she felt it, or even knew he was there, she didn’t show it. She was too busy focusing on something over his shoulder, something that only existed in her opiate-soaked haze.
He looked at the fit still around her arm, the needle that hadn’t quite been emptied still resting in her vein. If he pressed down, would she die? Would it be too much? Or what if he shot her in the head and made it look like she’d shot herself?
The woman whose only service to John Portland in their entire time together had been the child she bore him chose that exact moment to start a high-pitched giggle. It was loud. Frenzied, even. But her eyes weren’t laughing. They were vacant. Haunted. He didn’t need to put a bullet in her to send her to hell. She was already there.
Taking a deep breath, John put his gun back into his waistband. ‘Caroline,’ he barked, flicking his wife’s forehead with his thumb and middle finger. ‘Hey! Where’s Juliette?’
Caroline finally seemed to hear him. ‘School,’ she muttered.
John ground his back teeth in frustration. ‘It’s fucking night time, Caroline,’ he said. ‘She’s not at fucking school. Did she come see you before she left?’
Of course she would have. She was a good girl. She’d always check with whichever parent was home before she went anywhere.
Caroline sat bolt upright in bed, reaching for John’s belt buckle. ‘Twenty,’ she said. ‘Twenty.’
John had the sudden urge to smash his fist into her head so hard she’d be decapitated, but he suppressed that urge, because he wasn’t Dornan and he didn’t hurt women, even when he thought they well deserved it.
‘Dornan,’ Caroline said, and the hairs on John’s arms stood up.
‘Dornan what?’ John ground out. Dornan’s been giving you twenty dollars to suck his dick? John highly doubted it, but then he’d also doubted Dornan was capable of cold-blooded murder of a woman he’d once professed to love.
Caroline flopped onto her back again. ‘Julie’s at Dornan’s,’ she whispered, and then she passed out cold.
Fuck. Double fuck. Of all the places in the world, the one he least wanted to find his daughter was anywhere near Dornan Ross. John sped the whole short drive to his house. It was only a couple of blocks, but it felt like an eternity.
Take my cunt wife, he mused as he walked up to Dornan’s front door and knocked sharply, three sharp raps that shook the door. Burn my house to the ground. You can have everything of mine, but you cannot have my daughter.
Or my Mariana, he realised a moment later.
Dornan’s oldest son, Chad, answered the door. He opened it without a word, and John noticed his knuckles were raw and bloody. He nodded in greeting, walking past Chad and down the long hallway that demarcated the rooms in Dornan’s Spanish-style abode. So many rooms for so many sons – six there had been, and it seemed once you had six, you got one for free. At least that was the way it had gone, with Dornan stumbling upon his unknown son, his seventh progeny, the secret John had kept for sixteen years as he broke his ass sending Stephanie money to keep them from starving and losing their goddamn house, far away from Dornan’s lethal lifestyle.
John wondered how long it would be before Dornan figured out that he’d known of this seventh son all along, from the moment he’d personally purchased the pregnancy test and made Stephanie take it in a McDonald’s bathroom in West Hollywood. He couldn’t remember what the fuck he’d been doing all the way up in Wankville that day – no doubt something to do with drugs or cash or beating somebody up for payments owed – but he did remember how pale Stephanie’s face had turned when she handed him the piss stick with two lines in it. And he did remember shelling out three hundred bucks in twenties, a greyhound ticket to Colorado purchased with a fake ID, and a promise that he’d help her if she decided not to come back.
Dornan had blamed Stephanie for stealing his son away all those years ago, but if he found out his best friend was the instigator of the entire ‘Get the fuck away from the Ross Family’ plan, John knew he’d retaliate. Painfully. And Dornan knew Juliette was John’s entire existence. He’d give anything, kill anyone, for his only child.
His only child, who right now was applying an ice pack to Dornan’s nose as he sat and smoked and drank whiskey at his dining table. He grinned when he saw John, but it wasn’t a friendly gesture so much as a warning.
‘Juliette,’ John said, aiming for casual yet loving father, but ending up sounding strangled. She
turned sharply, her face drawn, concern etched in her features.
‘Hey, Dad. I’m just helping Uncle Dornan.’
John nodded, circling the pair as he moved closer. No sudden moves. What to say? He could blame their need for a hasty departure on Caroline.
‘Sweetheart, that’s nice of you, but we have to go,’ John said, his eyes never leaving Dornan’s.
Dornan smirked, putting his hand on the ice pack and pulling his head back slightly. ‘It’s okay, darlin’,’ he said, motioning towards John with a tilt of his chin, ‘your daddy seems upset.’
John ignored him. ‘Your mother’s not good,’ he said. ‘She’s sick. I need to get back to her.’
He noticed, for the first time, the kid sitting on the other side of the room. The refrigerator had been obscuring his presence, and since he hadn’t moved a muscle since John had walked in he’d attracted zero attention.
‘You been there the whole time?’ he asked Jason, who nodded. ‘Jesus. This kid here’s like a goddamn ninja.’
Juliette glanced at Jase as she dabbed antiseptic ointment onto a piece of gauze and continued to tend to the wounds John had inflicted on Dornan’s face. A cut right above his nose looked red and angry; purple shadows were starting to appear under his eyes. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it didn’t seem to worry his psychotic brother in arms, who sat still like a kid waiting for their lollipop at the fucking doctor’s surgery, getting their shots.
‘That’s my boy,’ Dornan said evenly, glancing at Jase and then back at John. ‘Stealthy, like his brothers.’ He smiled at Juliette, and it was the first gesture John had seen that seemed genuine. ‘You didn’t have to do this, sweetheart. You’re a good girl. Good to our family.’
Sweetheart. Please.
‘Juliette,’ John said. Forceful, this time. He’d rather she hated him, as long as she still listened to him. There was no time to play soft cop right now, not when Dornan could reach out and pluck out her eyeballs before John could so much as clear the space between them. Not that Dornan would hurt Juliette. She was like a daughter to him. Had been his daughter, really, for the first few months of her life, until John had been released from prison and was able to get back to the new family he’d unwittingly created when he screwed Caroline in a haze of weed and booze. He didn’t really drink anymore, because he sure as shit didn’t want to end up making that mistake twice. Having one daughter – one beautiful, smart, perfect daughter – to keep tabs on in a vicious underworld where the things you loved became your weaknesses, was hard enough without adding more to the mix.
‘Did I ever tell you the story about when you were born?’ Dornan asked Juliette, his eyes all for John.
Juliette looked kind of confused, but she could stay confused. She didn’t need to know this asshole was responsible for her survival in her first six months while her mother sold herself for blow and slept in gutters.
‘We’re going,’ John said, stepping forward and tugging Juliette’s elbow.
‘Dad!’ she protested, stumbling a little as she followed him. John turned towards the hallway and the exit it promised, but suddenly he was blocked.
By Jason.
Little bastard.
‘Did he hurt you?’ Jason asked Juliette, alarm in his eyes.
Juliette shrugged John’s hand off, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘No. I’m fine. I’ll call you later.’
Mercifully, she headed for the front door.
‘Move,’ he growled, but Jason stayed put. John’s eyebrows practically hit the roof. ‘Really, kid?’ he asked without thinking. ‘You don’t think that maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re worried about violence against women?’
Jason sagged immediately, letting him pass. John felt shitty for delivering such a low blow – the poor kid – but desperate times and all that. By the time he got outside, Juliette was already sitting in the passenger seat, her arms folded tightly across her chest and her eyes shiny with tears. She always got upset if she saw John hurt. It frightened her, and rightly so. She shouldn’t have to worry about her parents not making it home. Shouldn’t have to be tricked into leaving the house with Dornan, an obvious and cruel move to fuck with John. His heart was torn up at how Juliette was worrying in the seat beside him, yet wouldn’t say a word.
John made the quick decision not to go straight home – in his fantasy, Caroline might have more time to miraculously die before they arrived to find her – and instead drove towards Hermosa Beach. It was a little over thirty minutes to get there with no traffic, and thankfully there was none this late at night.
He could tell that Juliette was too cut up to ask where they were going. John said nothing. Eventually, after about fifteen minutes of silence, she cleared her throat.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked quietly.
‘For a father–daughter drive,’ John replied. ‘Humour your old man.’
‘You’re not even that old,’ Julz said, fiddling with her jacket sleeve. ‘I don’t know why you always say that.’
He snorted. ‘It’s all about how old you feel. I feel like I’m about a hundred right now.’
Juliette seemed to digest that. ‘It’s because you never get any sleep, Daddy,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re always busy worrying about everybody else.’
She was a smart girl. It broke his black heart that she noticed so much.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ John said, making the turn that would take them to Hermosa. It was utterly desolate on the streets of LA tonight. He hadn’t seen it this quiet in forever.
‘You hungry, kiddo?’ he asked. He hadn’t taken her shopping for groceries in a week or so, and they were down to pop tarts and long-life milk. Juliette never complained, and John barely remembered to eat these days.
‘Starving,’ Juliette replied. ‘Your face, though.’
John waved his hand dismissively. ‘We’ll get a booth in back.’
He cleaned his face up as best he could with some water and napkins before he headed into the diner. It was one of those old mom and pop style diners, covered in a layer of grease, and with management who had seen John come in bloody and hungry more than once. He led Julz straight to one of the booths in back – dark, away from the windows.
They ordered quickly: a steak for John, who was still feeling off after the whole fight and only picked at his food, and apple pie with ice cream for Julz. As she was shovelling pie, John set his knife and fork down and tried to formulate a question that wouldn’t make her shut down.
‘Did you hit Uncle Dornan?’ she asked around a mouthful of pie, before he’d even decided what to ask her.
His mouth opened, but no words came out. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. ‘Yeah,’ he said, finally. ‘I did.’
Juliette nodded. ‘He must have deserved it,’ she said, taking another bite. ‘You only hurt people if they deserve it.’
John scrubbed his palm across his mouth, his brain screaming for words that would divert the attention from what he was. A lowlife fucking criminal.
‘Was it because of what happened in Colorado?’ she asked softly, not looking him in the eye this time. ‘With Jase and his mom?’
John’s stomach knotted painfully. ‘What do you know about that?’ he asked. ‘You shouldn’t know anything about that.’
Juliette placed her fork on her empty plate and straightened in her side of the booth. ‘Jason told me,’ she said. ‘He needed to tell somebody, Dad.’
She was right. The poor kid did need somebody to confide in. But why did it have to be his daughter? Why couldn’t it be anyone else?
‘You’d think he would be talking to his brothers,’ John said tightly, gripping his steak knife so hard he had to set it down. Juliette went quiet.
‘What?’ John prompted.
‘The boys aren’t nice to him,’ she said to the table.
Jesus. Open a can of worms and watch them wriggle out. ‘What do you mean?’ John asked tiredly. He couldn’t beli
eve he’d disassociated himself from the boy’s plight so brutally, but he was just trying to survive here. Dornan’s youngest son was a liability. John might’ve funded his survival for the better part of sixteen years, even as he grew in his mother’s womb, but he was terrified at the thought of taking the boy when they left LA. Almost like Dornan would be able to seek out his own blood, his DNA, easier and more swiftly than if the boy was not an issue.
‘The boys have always been good to me,’ Julz said softly, referring collectively to Dornan’s six other sons, who ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-four. ‘But they’re really scary, Dad. They hung Jason off a bridge by his feet and he says he almost fell.’
‘What kind of bridge?’ John asked.
‘The I-5,’ Juliette replied.
‘Shit!’ John said. ‘They hung him over the fu– the goddamn freeway by his feet?’
‘Yeah. He could’ve died, Dad. I wish he could come live with us.’
John made a growling sound under his breath. ‘No daughter of mine will ever be living with one of Dornan’s sons.’
Juliette settled back in her seat, a wry smile on her lips. ‘You won’t say that when I marry him,’ she said, and John didn’t know what to say to that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MARIANA
Dornan had tried to call three times.
Each time, I’d let it go to voicemail, but then I realised that if I didn’t call him back and talk to him, he’d damn well show up at the apartment.
I couldn’t bear for him to be in the apartment with me. He was still living between two houses, spending most nights with his sons in the house he’d shared with his wife, and even though she’d moved out, I had definitely not moved in. With all of his kids there – he had seven, all boys, a number that still made me cringe – I refused to move into a mad house filled with teenagers and testosterone. And so far, he’d acquiesced. Hadn’t packed my stuff up and told me I didn’t have a choice. I think, after Stephanie’s death, Dornan Ross had decided that walking on eggshells was going to be the way to win me back.
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