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Selfishly, John wanted to reach through and pull him back. To go back to a time when things were simpler. To know who was a friend and who was an enemy.
But it was too late. He’d seen too much. The blood. The death. It was all just too fucking much.
‘Let me tell you what happens if you stay on this road, brother.’ John’s eyes burned, his throat thick. Dornan had been his only true friend. What had gone so colossally wrong? When? Where? Before Mariana, before any of it, where had their paths diverged so violently?
And then, John understood. An epiphany that lay beneath him, beaten and still. Dornan had been born on this road. Naked, bloody, screaming, a pawn in a game much bigger than him. A chess piece that belonged to Emilio Ross, in blood and in name.
John could run.
Mariana could run.
But Dornan would never be able to run from the thing he came from. The thing that created him. The darkness didn’t just exist within him.
He was the fucking darkness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DORNAN
It was quiet as John left. He didn’t go without leaving his mark – in this case, spitting his own blood on the floor of the strip club before he smashed the doors open and disappeared.
Dornan stared at the ceiling for a minute. A fleeting moment of peace after he’d just had the shit beaten out of him. He didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed that John had at times overpowered him, or victorious that he was still here while John had walked away. As he was lying there, catching his breath, a female face appeared in his vision. The stripper who’d been grinding on him just a few minutes ago was now ashen, her eyes big and alarmed, her tits still shiny from where he’d sucked on them.
How quickly things could go from good to terrible.
‘Are you okay, baby?’ the stripper asked, reaching a hand down to him as if she were going to pull him up. A waifish thing, all skin and bone and tits, and she was offering to help him up. Dornan would have laughed had the situation not been so dire. As it was, he got to his feet and smacked her hand away. ‘Scram,’ he said, and she did.
A lot of the club members were in this place. A lot of customers, too, and they’d seen the entire thing. Dornan looked around at the tight faces, the stares, and he laughed.
‘Hasn’t anyone ever seen a scuffle before? Get back to your fucking drinks!’
And just like that, the place thawed. The music was turned back up, the girls onstage grabbed at the nearest pole and started grinding, and most of the onlookers dispersed to other tables. A few customers left, casting worried glances behind them. They were probably tourists. Regulars didn’t usually get their panties in a knot when things got ugly.
Viper approached Dornan carefully, a look of unease on his face. He was a tall skinny thing, with a deadly bite if you messed with him – hence, the name Viper. He was also called Viper because he liked to bite the women he fucked, all over their bodies, but that was an aside.
‘What was that?’ Viper asked, cool concern masking the worry Dornan could see in his eyes, clear as day. Dornan wiped blood from his nose, leaving a sticky trail of the red stuff up his arm.
‘That was John signing his ticket out,’ Dornan said, placing his fingers between his lips and whistling, short and shrill. The rest of the Gypsy Brothers who’d witnessed the fight drifted over to him, drinks and women forgotten. There were over a dozen core club members present, and they formed a loose circle around Dornan and Viper.
Dornan looked at each of them, right in the eyes, before he delivered his proclamation.
‘He’s done.’
The music was loud in the club, the flashing lights bright, but their focus on Dornan was so absolute, he could have whispered and everyone would have understood.
‘We have to make it official,’ Viper said beside him. ‘A vote.’
Dornan nodded. ‘We do.’
He let the silence stretch on until it became uncomfortable. He grinned, his teeth still bloody, and for that he was glad. It made him look more commanding to be covered in battle blood.
‘I look forward to your votes,’ Dornan said finally, again making eye contact with each of the Gypsy Brothers in front of him.
He left before anyone started asking questions. Took himself off to his motorcycle and tried to call Mariana. He was going to need stitches in some of these cuts on his face, a hot shower, and then he was going to need to have his dick sucked.
He called her three times. She didn’t answer. Santa Monica was only ten minutes by car at this time of night, faster on a motorcycle, but if she wasn’t there Dornan would be pissed.
He tried her one more time. It rang out. Dornan smiled as he thought about who else lived nearby. Somebody who could tend his wounds. Somebody who John loved above all else.
