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‘Does your father know about this?’ I asked again, my heart hollow as the answer knocked around it like a frenzied moth in the dark. Because I already knew the answer.
‘Of course,’ Dornan replied, ushering me out of the bathroom. I glanced back at the shattered glass one last time, a sense of doom crushing down on me.
‘Esteban and I were going to get married,’ I said softly, letting him lead me to the altar, his reluctant bride. ‘But your father had him killed before we could do it.’
‘Lucky me,’ Dornan said, as Elvis started singing ‘Suspicious Minds’ at top volume over the speaker system.Oh, the irony.‘Now I get the honour of calling you wife while he’s napping in the dirt.’
I made a choking sound in the back of my throat as his words slammed into me.
‘You motherfucker,’ I shot, anger blossoming in my chest like noxious fumes.
He took something from his pocket and held it out to me, seemingly unaffected by my reaction. ‘Have some gum. You need it.’
If looks were knives, he’d have been sliced clean in half. ‘How thoughtful,’ I said, snatching the packet from him.
I unwrapped a stick of gum and stuck it between my teeth. Mint flooded my mouth, sharp and tangy, and from that moment on I’d always associate white dresses and Elvis with sticky-sweet mint and broken bones.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DORNAN
The ceremony was short. It wasn’t, however, remotely sweet. When it was time for them to kiss, Dornan could have sworn Mariana flinched.
He’d have to punish her for that.
And he had just the punishment to fit her crime. The crime of not loving him anymore. The crime of checking out. She was physically here with him, but her mind was just gone.
But her body would be his. He would mark her so that any man who touched her knew she belonged to him. He would dig into her flesh until her eyes burned from the pain.
He’d seen the threads of them unravelling, but by the time he understood how serious it was, she was already somewhere else.
And he couldn’t figure out where.
The phone, the incriminating evidence against her, was like a ticking time bomb in Dornan’s existence. He’d almost asked her about it so many times, but he had never actually spoken the words aloud, because he didn’t want to know the answer.She was all he had, the only person who loved him that wasn’t required to by virtue of sharing his DNA, and he couldn’t bear the thought that she might have betrayed him.
That fucking phone, though. It was prepaid, a flimsy piece of shit that led nowhere. No details, no call history that he could find when he scrolled through the phone’s basic functions – nothing. Murphy was the one who could get things like call logs easily and discreetly, and that motherfucker was either ghosting all of them, or dead. Dornan had packed the phone for this trip specifically, taking the opportunity to steal it from its hiding spot while Mariana was packing. Because he was tired of waiting around for answers, and it was time to get them himself.
The phone was in Dornan’s suitcase now, locked inside his gun case with his Beretta – his other piece, the one he wasn’t currently hiding in the waistband of his jeans. He had a smaller handgun for everyday concealed carry. A Beretta was too fucking heavy to carry around all day, and it made him itch.
The phone. The phone. Thephone.
Now, if fucking Murphy hadn’t disappeared, he could have checked the official call records for it, subpoenaed information, gotten answers. But Murphy was nowhere to be found, and perhaps that was because he was the one she was calling from this goddamn phone in the first place. Dornan’s other investigative contacts didn’t have FBI clearance, so they had to do some shady shit to get answers. Shady shit took time.
Fucking Murphy.
If he was still alive when they found him, Dornan was going to murder him.
If she was going to double-cross the cartel, it made sense that Ana would work with Murphy. He was a DEA agent. He was shady as fuck. And Dornan hated him.
But Ana hated Murphy, too. So if the phone had come from him, then he was either blackmailing her somehow, or giving her something she wanted.
But what?
Her family? The people who thought she was long dead?
What was he missing?
Was it somehow tied to Guillermo, the man Dornan had entrusted with Mariana’s security detail? He’d been loyal to Dornan always, but everybody had a weakness. He’d put the hot-headed Mexican in Mariana’s apartment for protection, but was he sticking his dick in Dornan’s girlfriend – wait, hiswife– behind his back? If that was the case, he’d chop the fucking thing off and barbecue it, and force Guillermo to eat it.
