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‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?’ John asked, making sure to use his pleasant voice. Unlike Dornan, who liked to ask questions with his fists, John always opted for tact and friendliness as a first resort. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it just bought an extra five minutes before shit got crazy and fists became essential.
‘A dead baby,’ Mariana was muttering as she paced. ‘He killed a baby!’
John glanced at Guillermo, remembering the day just months ago when he’d come back to the apartment to check on Mariana and found her in a pool of blood, miscarrying Dornan’s baby, thanks to those very same fists Dornan used to fight his way through life. Seemed Mariana had argued with Dornan about how unhinged he’d become, and earned herself a beating and a brush with death as thanks for her concern.
Was that what she was talking about now? Her dead baby?
John saw that Mariana’s finger had crept back onto the trigger of her gun, and that was dangerous. He’d seen grown men blow holes clean through their feet by accident before, just because they’d been too itchy with a trigger as they bounced about.
‘Hey,’ John said, his voice sharper this time as he tried to snap Mariana out of her trance. ‘Ana. What’s happening?’
Mariana glared at Guillermo, who, for once, wasn’t cracking jokes. And that was deeply troubling to John.
‘Guillermo?’ John said. ‘Want to fill me in?’
Guillermo’s eyes darted about the apartment, first to John, then Mariana, then to a cardboard package sitting on the kitchen countertop.
‘That something I need to be worried about?’ John asked, suddenly alarmed. He’d seen his fair share of suspicious packages. Severed fingers. Dirty bombs. You never knew what the new day was going to bring when you were a Gypsy Brother.
‘I need to get out of here,’ Mariana said, that damned gun still in her hand. She wielded it like it was a lifeline.
‘Guillermo!’ John yelled. ‘Fucking talk!’
Guillermo cleared his throat. ‘Boss man sent a package today. For her birthday.’
John used the distraction to step nearer to Mariana, closing his hand over hers and squeezing tightly. ‘Gun, please,’ he said, feeling her bones crunch under his grip. He didn’t want to hurt her, not one little hair on her head, but more than that, he didn’t want her to shoot him by accident. Mariana might have been small – five two to his six one – but she was strong. It took some serious force for her to concede, dropping her grip on the gun so that it fell neatly into John’s other hand.
She stared at him with what looked like bitter rage. Funnily enough, it didn’t make her look any less beautiful. Her dark blue eyes were like twin storms on the horizon, threatening to destroy everything in their path.
John rolled his eyes, emptying the bullets from her gun and pocketing them. The gun went in the back of his jeans, where it rested in the small of his back.
‘This better not be a bomb,’ he said, shoving past Guillermo and Mariana to pick up the box on the counter. He shook it gently, surprised at the sound it made. It was like someone had filled it with gravel.
He wasn’t entirely surprised when Mariana snatched the box from his hands.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘Tell me what it is, and I won’t have to,’ he countered.
They stared off for a moment until Guillermo’s voice broke through the tense silence.
‘They’re ashes. Emilio delivered a body this morning. A fucking kid.’
John stepped back as if he’d just touched a live wire. He immediately felt regret at having shaken the box so casually. His palms burned accusingly, glowering hot with shame.
‘What? Whose kid?’
Mariana slid the box back onto the counter, the mention of a dead child apparently having snapped her out of whatever psychotic break she’d been experiencing.
‘Remember the woman I told you about? She was meant to be delivered to a buyer,’ Mariana said, ‘but she was pregnant. She gave birth in the truck. It was the night Dornan was shot. We took the baby to the hospital, the same hospital where Dornan ended up after – well, you know.’
John remembered all too well. The night Dornan had been shot by a cop, a vengeance shooting after Mariana had killed the cop’s partner, Murphy. The guy had been dead for months and he was still causing fucking problems.
John nodded, feeling his teeth grinding in his mouth. It was as if a dark cloud had settled over the room, and everyone was stuck in its shadow. Something was very, very fucked up, and John wasn’t sure if he wanted the whole story now that he’d heard the teaser reel.
‘Emilio knew what we’d done, how we’d saved the baby and taken him to the ER. He found me at the hospital, watching the baby through the nursery window. He threatened me. Said if I ever betrayed the family in any way, he’d take the baby and . . .’ She trailed off, her eyes lingering on the cardboard box.
John’s stomach squeezed painfully, and all the air went out of his lungs as if somebody had hit him with a baseball bat. He glanced at Guillermo in horror, and then back at Mariana.
