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It was completely fucked up, the way we went from arguing about human lives to screwing each other’s brains out, but it seemed our primary method of connecting was physical. Our love demanded to be shown, to be shared. It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t right, but it was what we had.
Dornan leaned over and kissed me as he was zipping his jeans up. The kiss quickly grew frantic. Dornan grabbed a handful of my hair and tugged me closer to him, and I moaned into his mouth.
I came to my senses. Realised what we’d just done in here, in the same car where he’d shot and killed a woman. I planted a hand on his chest and pushed, breaking the kiss.
‘I’d die without you,’ he said, releasing his grip on my hair and grasping my chin between his thumb and forefinger.
No, I thought, I’d die without you. And it wasn’t just about love. It was reality. Without him, I would have been dead a long time ago.
Just as I was opening my mouth to respond, the world exploded.
With a deafening bang, glass flew everywhere. I automatically put my hands to my face, feeling the shock of something devastating vibrating through Dornan’s entire body. Cold rain that felt like tiny shards of ice poured into the car, the driver’s side window no longer there. When the glass stopped falling and it was just the rain driving sideways into my face, I let my hands fall from my eyes, let them open.
I squinted through the icy sheets of rain that were pouring into the car.
Oh God. Dornan was bleeding. His chest was a mess of blood, the clean bullet hole cut neatly into his shirt bursting forth with dark red blood. Someone had just shot him through the fucking window, and he was literally bleeding out before my eyes.
Another shot rang out and I dove to the side as the front windscreen crashed down around us. Pain blossomed in my arm and I realised I’d been hit. I’d been shot. I fought the urge to throw up, gagging as the pain radiated through my shoulder and all the way down to my hand. I refused to look at it, though. If I looked at it I’d probably pass out, and if I passed out I’d probably die. We both would. So I swallowed back vomit and pretended it wasn’t happening as I tried to get Dornan to respond. I felt glass cutting my arms and legs, everywhere I moved causing more lacerations.
‘Baby,’ I whispered, my voice barely audible over the rain.
Nothing. His face was ashen, and he’d slumped to the side a little. I felt sorrow rise inside me as I saw what someone had done to my Dornan. His belt was still unbuckled, for Christ’s sake. They’d taken him at his most vulnerable moment and shot him from afar, like fucking cowards.
My blood was pumping hot, despite the cold. I could feel the white-hot anger searing a path through my circulatory system, my breath coming out in short, shallow pants.
‘Dornan,’ I said, a little louder this time.
Through the blistering rain, I heard the dim noise of a car door opening.
Close. Whoever it was, whoever had done this – they were close.
I didn’t want to sit up and look, though, because I might get a bullet in the face for being nosey. No, I huddled in the footwell, pulling gently on Dornan’s arm so he slid down onto his side, his arm and ribs pressing awkwardly over the glove compartment that separated our seats. It looked uncomfortable, the way he was twisted, but it was better than him being dead.
I snapped out of the haze I’d been in since the first bullet hit, reaching automatically for my purse and, within it, my gun.
Thank you for giving me a gun. Thank you for teaching me how to aim. Thank you for all of it.
Footsteps crunched over loose gravel, and my heart beat furiously. Don’t die, I silently urged Dornan. Please, don’t fucking die on me.
I’d seen enough death to last me a lifetime.
And then the gravel stopped crunching.
CHAPTER THIRTY
MARIANA
There was a woman at the window and she was aiming a gun at Dornan. Her eyes were fucking wild. Her hair was long and dark, and her black T-shirt was stuck to her. She was soaked to the bone, but that didn’t seem to be affecting her aim.
Allie.
Murphy’s crooked cop girlfriend, the bitch he was planning to run off with. My stomach lurched painfully at the realisation that she had not, in fact, taken the money I’d transferred into her bank account and run like she should have. I would have run. What an idiot.
She was a cop. She’d just shot Dornan. And now, now she was here to finish the job. To finish me.
‘Thanks for the money, cunt,’ she spat, glancing at Dornan before shifting her aim to me. Bile crept up my throat and I swallowed forcefully – a side effect of having a gun pointed at your face.
‘I’ll ask you once,’ she said, her teeth grinding each word out with measured rage. ‘Where is Christopher?’
