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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 notbeen 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.
He shoved his cellphone into his jeans pocket and pulled on his helmet, gunning the engine before he roared down Venice Boulevard.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JOHN
He drove around in circles after smashing his fists into Dornan’s face; windows down, radio blasting. Anything to drown out the blood that roared and pulsed at his temples, in the tips of his fingers, that steady smash of blood around his heart as rage pumped through him, alive and bright red. Red stoplights and red road signs and red gas station signs, Dornan’s red blood splashed across John’s torn knuckles, the world a haze of John’s anger and Dornan’s violence. The old Dornan never would have killed Stephanie. The old Dornan would have thrown himself off a roof sooner than laid a hand on a woman, his pregnant mistress at that.
He had changed. Embraced his darkness, gone full circle. He’d pulled away from his father in the early days, resisted his vacuous demands for bloodshed and absolute loyalty – loyalty he had given, bloodshed he had kept to a minimum – but now it seemed Dornan Ross relished the hunt of bloodletting as much as his soulless father.
After driving aimlessly for what seemed like an hour, John pulled in to Redondo Beach and parked on the shoulder of the road. Hands shaking, he took out his cellphone and called home.
He called twice, each time getting the red ‘busy’ symbol flashing up on the screen. More red.
His daughter was probably still on the phone to that fucking kid, the one she and Mariana seemed obsessed with. Dornan, too, for that matter. Everyone was so concerned for this kid who’d found his poor mother dead in a bathtub full of blood, but nobody seemed to care that John had had to dig her goddamn grave in the dirt behind her house. Nobody seemed to care that he’d had to spend hours wiping down every surface for prints and possible DNA, especially when he was a mechanic and most definitely not a crime scene cleaner.
Then he felt like shit, because of course poor kid. John felt bad for him. He was so young, and he’d just been stolen from the only life he’d ever known. Of course John’s sweet daughter was going to try to help him. She was a little naïve when it came to club matters, his Juliette, and he had to wonder if protecting her from the worst of his role as president of the MC had unwittingly sheltered her from being safe in the midst of monsters and killers. The body count around a Sunday church meeting at the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse was in the hundreds. Thousands if you counted all the deaths from the drugs they’d sold over the years. From two guys – himself and Dornan – making some shit up on a road trip on their motorcycles, John could never have imagined that this would end up their fate.
The red tinge started to dissipate a little from John’s view of the world, and with that he pulled back onto the road andpointed his car home. He’d have to sneak in, get his face sorted and wash off the bulk of all this blood before Juliette saw and freaked out.
About thirty minutes later, he turned into his driveway, uneasiness pooling in his gut, thick and anxious, as he observed his dark, quiet house. Julz always left a light on for him.
