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Dornan gave John a withering stare. ‘You might be the prez, big boy, but don’t ever think you get to tell me what to do.’
‘I’m not telling you as the prez, you fuck, I’m telling you as your friend. Your father murdered a KID.’
Dornan pounded the table with his fist. ‘Don’t you ever fucking say that. Not here, not anywhere. You hear me? Don’t talk about my family.’
‘For fuck’s sake, how many of these things does Mariana have to deal with before you do something about him?’
Dornan went very still, his eyes far away for a brief second. And for a moment, the aura of anger that surrounded him was gone, replaced by an unsteady silence. ‘I’m going to make things right with Ana,’ he murmured, spinning his empty glass with two fingers. ‘We’ll have another baby. I’ll marry her. Things will be made right again.’
John felt like he’d been punched in the fucking heart. He would kill Dornan before that happened. Even if it meant he died with him. If anyone was marrying Mariana, it was John.
You have a daughter, John. Calm your shit. Get it together.
It wasn’t easy to be calm around a storm like Dornan Ross. He made you see the worst in yourself, like a mirror, held up to expose your dirtiest truths. He was like poison.
‘You really think that’s gonna fix what’s done? You think that’ll make up for the shit you’ve done to her? You think she’ll ever forget that the only reason she isn’t fat and pregnant right now is because you beat that baby out of her?’
John couldn’t take any more. The club suddenly felt too small, like the walls were closing in, squeezing the air out of him. He stood, and that would have been fine, except that Dornan stood too, his face in John’s.
‘This conversation isn’t fucking finished,’ Dornan seethed. ‘Sit your ass down.’
John held his ground. He even laughed, because it was really this absurd right now. ‘You know who you’re acting like right now, don’t you? I mean, I don’t even need to say it.’
They were starting to attract attention from other Gypsy Brothers. Viper, sitting a few feet away with a topless brunette, watched the scene unfold as he pushed the woman away. There was a thick tension in the air. John didn’t need a sixth sense to tell him that something bad was about to happen.
‘You should say it,’ Dornan said, throwing his empty tumbler at the floor so that it exploded in a mess of glass shards.
‘You’re acting like your father, Dee. You’re acting like you’ve lost your fucking mind.’
John had been anticipating the swing, yet it still came as a surprise. In twenty-odd years they’d never come to blows. Not once. But as Dornan’s fist came at him, John knew with a certainty that lived in his bones that one day very soon, one of them was going to kill the other. It was the only way.
John jerked his head back in time to lessen the blow, but not avoid it completely. Dornan’s fist connected with his jaw, and he felt his teeth move in his mouth. It was like poking a sleeping snake. John attacked, a hand on each of Dornan’s shoulders as he smashed the hard part of his forehead into his nose. It hurt, but it’d hurt Dornan more. Sure enough, Dee stepped back, blood exploding from his nose as he held a hand to his broken face.
And then Dornan pulled a fucking gun on him.
‘Put that away, shithead,’ John said, suddenly aware that Dornan was unhinged enough to actually shoot him right now. Goddamn it, why’d he have to open his mouth?
Dornan grinned, blood seeping from his nose and down his chin, staining his teeth a ghoulish red. It gave him the appearance of a vampire, one who’d just been feeding on some poor victim.
Dornan didn’t put it away. He stepped into John’s space, so their noses were almost touching, and he rammed the barrel of the gun underneath John’s chin. It was hard to breathe with a metal gun barrel pressing against your windpipe, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time John had been at gunpoint. It was, however, the first time he’d experienced it at the hands of one of his own men.
John was aware of the crowd gathering around them. Nobody spoke. Over Dornan’s shoulder, John saw Viper, anoriginal Gypsy Brother, circling behind as if to offer assistance. John gave him a sharp look that stopped him in his tracks. He didn’t need assistance. He would beat down this motherfucker for his transgression all by himself.
‘You’ve lost your fucking mind,’ John said to his oldest friend, his voice barely above a whisper. Dornan stared at him, his pupils and irises the same black in the low light of the club. He looked possessed. Demonic. John suspected both were true.
‘You gonna shoot me?’ John asked, bringing his hand up and tightening it around Dornan’s wrist. ‘Your oldest friend. The one who would do anything for you. If you shoot me, who would ever have your back?’
‘I don’t need anyone to have my back,’ Dornan seethed. ‘I got my back.’
John smacked the gun away, taking Dornan by surprise as he grabbed his throat. He had always been an excellent hand at poker. Maybe he should have played more, gotten a nice stash of cash happening so he could get out of this fucking place.
Hindsight’s a cruel bitch.
John tightened his grip around Dornan’s neck and drove him into the wall, hard. He heard his skull hit the brick wall with a loudthwack, and took the opportunity to bend Dornan’s arm until it was almost at breaking point. The gun dropped out of his grip, and John kicked it away, using both hands to grab hold of Dornan’s shirt.
‘Don’t you EVER pull a fucking gun on me!’ he roared. Dornan shoved him away, throwing him off balance. He was heavier than John, higher than John, crazier than John. Insanity seemed to breed a strength that normal men could not possess. Dornan kept coming at John, who’d now lost the element ofsurprise. He charged John, tackling him around his waist as they both slammed to the floor. Dornan straddled John, bloodthirst in his eyes, as he rained blows down on his face.
Nobody was stepping in to stop this, and John understood why. For a club that had always prided itself on being a singular organism, two factions had slowly started to emerge. Without voicing it, people were starting to bleed towards one side or the other. Towards John, or Dornan.
