AllFreeNovel
Share Us
John was dead. Gone.
A moment of horrified shame lurked at the back of Dornan’s pitchblack mind. He pushed it down, though, with the rest of the terrible things that he’d done. He didn’t have time to ruminate now. His best friend was dead at his feet, and his son was now smashing the barrel of his gun into his face.
‘Chad!’ Dornan snapped. ‘Get him out of here.’
Chad obliged, hooking his bloodied wet hands under Jason’s arms and dragging him from the room. As they passed, Dornan snatched his gun from Jase and jammed it into the back of his jeans again.
Emilio entered the small office, coming to a standstill beside Dornan. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder, and it sat there, like a dead roach that Dornan desperately wanted to throw off.
‘We always hurt the ones we love,’ Emilio said, squeezing his shoulder. ‘Remember when you begged me to keep her? I told you, son, this day would come.’
He let his hand drop.
Dornan continued to stare down at the body in front of him as Emilio cleared his throat.
‘We have to go,’ Emilio said, his tone becoming urgent. His tone was never urgent, which meant the situation was dire. ‘We have to get out. The Feds are going to find one of their own dead here, and we need to be gone before then. Clean up crew will sort this, but only if we move. Kill her and let’s get the fuck out of here. Unless you want me to do it?’
Dornan started to pace. He tugged at his hair.
‘I’ll do it,’ Emilio snapped, drawing his gun.
‘Don’t fucking touch her!’ Dornan yelled at his father. ‘I’m about to shoot my fucking wife,’ he choked out. ‘Give me a goddamn minute, will you?’
Emilio fixed his son with a hard glare. ‘You’ve got five minutes,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Then you’re on your own.’
CHAPTER FORTY
DORNAN
Emilio was gone. John was dead. The boys had all cleared out, taking an unconscious Juliette and a crazed Jason with them. It was just Dornan and Mariana, locked in a room together. They were ending exactly as they’d begun, only this time there was a dead man lying on the floor between them, a man they’d both loved dearly at one time in their lives. A man who Mariana had just spent the past few moments trying to save.
But there were some things that were beyond repair. A bullet in the brain, for example. John was dead. He’d been dead since the moment Jason planted a bullet in his skull. Now Mariana was standing again, only this time she was covered in John’s blood.
‘Hurry up,’ Mariana said, her eyes full of tears, her entire body shaking violently. ‘Just do it. Just kill me!’
Dornan was crying now, too. The shock was starting to dissipate, and the rage along with it. Now he just felt a hollow ache inside, that familiar emptiness that defined his existence. He’d killed John. Juliette was almost dead. And his wife stood in front of him, begging him to kill her, and he couldn’t bear to end her life like this.
He still loved her. Despite the treachery, the betrayal, the lies, he loved her. He would always love her.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ he rasped. ‘I want to save you. I want you to run.’
‘No,’ she protested. ‘No, Dornan.’
‘You have five minutes,’ he said to her, his hand coming to rest on her cheek. His fingers burned where their skin met.
She was sobbing. Hysterical. ‘What if I don’t run?’
He shrugged, his own eyes burning with regret. ‘Then I take you back to Emilio, and he can do whatever he wants to you.’
Her sobs stilled. She looked up at him, her eyes wide, hands thick with John’s blood. The sight made him bitterly jealous, for no good reason. John was dead; he was gone. But blood had been their thing, the thing that bound Dornan and Mariana together, from the very first time he’d bandaged her wounds all those years ago.
‘Did you ever really love me?’
She slapped him across the face, hard. Enough so that he tasted blood. How did somebody as small as his Mariana slap him so he bled? The taste of his own blood set off something primal, and he growled, grabbing her wrist and twisting it until she cried out.
She ripped her hand away and stepped back. ‘Of course I fucking loved you. I loved you so much I thought I would die. Don’t you know the things I did for you? For us?’
All he saw was her with John. It consumed him until he thought he might go totally insane.
