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It was late. Almost midnight. I wasn’t even going to attempt to sleep after the day we’d had. Instead, I was sitting on astool, tucked into the kitchen counter as I smoked cigarette after cigarette, lighting one off another. Beside my hand was a tumbler of vodka and melted ice, a half-empty bottle reminding me it was time to replenish my stocks. It had been full when I’d started a couple of hours earlier. I preferred wine, but wine led to a messy kind of drunk. Vodka was the perfect thing to dull the ache in my skull, while letting me stay in control of myself. The last thing I needed was to start mouthing off to Emilio, or worse. Guillermo and John had both been right. I should have listened to them.
I was going to be severely punished for my reckless show of defiance in Emilio’s office. And although I didn’t regret doing it, I was so annoyed at myself for having acted so impulsively after almost a decade of careful, measured steps. Things were starting to unravel, fast, and I needed more time. Before we made a run for it. Before I got my boy back.Luis. Baby. Mama’s coming for you.
With much reluctance, I called Dornan’s number. He picked up after the first ring.
‘Thought you might be dead,’ he said, his annoyance coming loud and clear over the line. It was noisy in the background, music and voices clamouring to be heard.
‘The night’s still young,’ I said, not liking the way my words slurred ever so slightly at the ends. I stared into the bottom of my glass of vodka and had the unbearable urge to scream.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Dornan said sharply. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, taking a gulp of vodka and enjoying the way it burned on the way down. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not about to slit my wrists just yet.’
‘Don’t joke,’ Dornan said. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you call me this morning? I had to find out in a meeting with my father?’
I heard the hurt in his voice and chose to push it aside. He didn’t get my sympathy anymore. ‘I’m sorry,’ I snapped back, pouring more vodka into my glass. ‘I wasn’t really thinking about your feelings when I was trying to deal with a dead kid delivery in my fuckingkitchen.’
I heard a female voice, the titter of laughter, a squeal. ‘Where are you?’ I asked. ‘Are you at the clubhouse?’
‘Where else would I be?’
His voice sounded . . . strange. ‘Are youhigh?’
‘Are you drunk?’ he shot back, the cruelty clear in his deep voice.
‘Absolutely,’ I answered, unashamed. ‘If you can’t get drunk on your own birthday, when can you?’
That floated in the air between us for a moment. I heard Dornan make a sound in the back of his throat. ‘Fuck. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ I replied, watching the untouched cigarette in my hand as it burned down to the filter. ‘I’m not in the mood for company right now.’
‘Right,’ Dornan said. ‘Well, I’ll see you later.’
He ended the call before I could make a bitchy remark. I knew exactly where he was, and it wasn’t the clubhouse. They didn’t play stripper music at the Gypsy Brothers HQ. They played death metal and old eighties classics that made me cringe. I’d distinctly heard sexy music in the background, and I knew exactly what it was from. My office was in the back of the club, for Christ’s sake. I knew the music playlist by heart.
I wondered if he was cheating on me. If he had his dick in somebody else right this minute.
I decided I didn’t care. I was cheating on him, after all. And if some stripper could buy me a few days without having to fuck the man who’d decided raping me and beating our unborn baby to death was the right way to love me? I’d pay her myself.
It was only when I’d set the phone down that I realised it was technically still my birthday. At least for another seven minutes. I texted Guillermo.Where are you? Bring birthday cake / vodka. He replied almost immediately.Sorry, got a situation. Be back in the morning.
I slumped over the counter, burying my face in my arms. I closed my eyes for a second, my fingers still around the bottom of the vodka bottle. I just needed to rest, just for a few minutes, and then I’d resume my pity party for one.
***
‘Ana,’ a voice murmured in my ear. I sat bolt upright, one side of my face cold and squished from where it had lain on the countertop.
‘Huh?’ I said, my voice still thick from sleep and all the vodka I’d just downed. My eyes felt gritty, like I’d just taken a face full of sand.
‘John? What are you doing here?’
I looked at him again. In the bright light of the kitchen, he was an apparition. He had a swollen lip, and had he split his forehead open? ‘What happened to you?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘More like who.’
My heart sank. ‘What happened?’
John shrugged. ‘I don’t even know,’ he said, running his hand through his dirty blond hair. ‘Dornan and I . . . Ana, we can’t save him. He’s too far gone.’
