AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Nice ring,’ Mariana said, peering at the rock on her hand. ‘Who’d you steal it from?’
Dornan grinned, but inside he felt cold. This wasn’t the future he’d imagined for them. This wasn’t how he’d pictured their wedding.
He hadn’t even asked her to marry him, he’d forced her.
If she’s betrayed us, I will fucking kill her. I will rip her fucking head off, and Murphy’s too.
‘It was my grandmother’s,’ he said, a hollow ache inside his chest. He’d had that ring since his mother’s mother died and he was a young man, unwed and sowing his wild oats. He’d intended to give it to Stephanie, but then she left him. He’d never felt Celia was worthy of it. And somewhere in the depthsof his black soul, he imagined Mariana would be buried in the ground wearing it, very soon.
‘Oh,’ Mariana said quietly.
Dornan got the driver to take a detour on the way back to the hotel: Franco’s ink shop, right on Freemont. He knew Franco well. He’d been tattooing Gypsies for years, until he moved out to Nevada and started making bank by tattooing tramp stamps on drunken brides instead.
Mariana glanced at the store’s sign warily as Dornan pressed his hand into the small of her back, directing her into the front of Franco’s studio. Needles whirred noisily, the air-conditioning so cold it was like being in the fucking Arctic.
Better than sweating, Dornan thought. He pulled Mariana right up to the counter and knocked his fist against the glass display case once, twice, three times. A young punk girl wandered out, and Dornan couldn’t help but stare at the stretcher earrings that had turned her earlobes into giant holes.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, clearly unimpressed by him. That’s right, he wasn’t in LA. Nobody knew him here, at least not by sight, and definitely not when he was in civilian clothing, nary a Gypsy Brothers patch to be seen.
He looked the punk bitch up and down. ‘Tell Franco that Dornan Ross is here,’ he said, the smile he flashed her more like a wolf baring teeth. The girl’s eyes went wide and she nodded, scurrying away.
‘Wow,’ Mariana said, leaning back against the glass counter. ‘The place where everybody knows your name.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘They gotCheerson TV in Colombia, wife?’ He liked the sound of that word when he saidit. She was his wife. And she’d come around to embrace her new position. Eventually. Probably.
She didn’t really have a choice.
She frowned. ‘I haven’t been in Colombia in ten years,husband.’
She said the word like she was talking about stepping in dog shit. It brought that rage out of him, that cloying, violent need for blood.
‘Where’d you watchCheers?’ he asked, not really caring, but needing to fill the silence until Franco got his ass out here.
‘In the apartment,’ she replied. ‘Guillermo and I watch reruns.’
‘He rub your back and fix you tea, too?’ Dornan asked. That fucker better not have laid a hand on her.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, catching his eye. She was fucking with him, and he hated it, but it didn’t matter, because he was about to fuck with her.
Franco, a short, rotund man with a white beard and a shiny bald head, barged out of the back of the shop, making a beeline for Dornan. They exchanged pleasantries, Dornan slapping the man on the back hard enough that he thought he might break him, and then the three of them went into a back booth.
‘Alrighty,’ Franco said, peering up at them from his five foot nothing stance. ‘What’s the big bad biker getting today?’
Dornan smiled. Gotcha. He gestured to Mariana, draping an arm over her bare shoulders. ‘My wife would like a more lasting reminder of our union. Apparently a ring isn’t good enough these days.’
Mariana’s head snapped around like the kid in the fuckingExorcistmovie. She tried to pull away, but Dornan was strong. He held her to his side, squeezing her shoulders under his broad arm.
‘What the fuck?’ she hissed. Franco looked between the two of them, apparently not in a hurry at all. ‘Do you want a moment to talk amongst yourselves while I get the needles?’ he offered.
Dornan nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan, Franco.’
Franco wandered out back and Dornan released Mariana. She backed up, away from him, but it didn’t matter. He had her cornered, and she knew it.
‘What are you doing?’ she snapped. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? You want to brand me like I’m an animal?’
He grabbed her wrist, not bothering to be gentle, thinking she fucking deserved it rough after the performance she’d put on. He’d done everything for her, and she was freezing him out at every turn.
‘It’s tradition,’ Dornan said. ‘All the wives of Gypsies get a tattoo. It’s part of your role. Or would you prefer to be marked with cum and lines of coke like all the club whores? Like I said, we can get a fucking divorce. But I need me a wife, babe. If it’s not you, I’ll have to donate you to the fine members of my club.’
