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Except now he had a dirty big slice in his belly, and his blood was all over the floor.
‘It’s just a flesh wound,’ Jase muttered, his ghostly pale face telling me otherwise.
John yanked Juliette to her feet and tucked her under his arm, apparently not worried about the blood on her hands making a mess of his clothes. He’d likely seen a lot more blood in his time, and while it was true that Jason didn’t exactly seem to be bleeding to death before everyone’s eyes, he’d still been gouged deep enough to make him hurt.
‘Dornan,’ I snapped. ‘Do something.’
He looked vaguely irritated by my directness. Well, fuck him. His son was bleeding on the floor at the hand of one of his other sons and he was standing there looking almost bored.
‘Which one of you shitheads did this?’ Dornan asked. There was much snickering and pushing between the brothers before Ant cleared his throat. Little fuck. I should’ve known it would be him. He followed Juliette around like a sick puppy, even though she told him constantly that he was like a brother to her, and no she would not date him. The kid was a date rape waiting to happen.
‘It was an accident,’ Ant shrugged, mirroring the way his father often acted when confronted with the truth. Deny, deny, deny.
‘How do you accidentally stab somebody?’ I interjected. ‘No, really, I want to know.’
Ant sneered at me. I wanted to punch his head in, but I was well aware that we had a rather large audience.
‘Ant, take your shirt off,’ Dornan ordered, snapping his fingers. ‘Now.’
With seemingly great reluctance, Ant took his shirt off and slapped it into his father’s open palm. Dornan fixed him with a hard stare before turning to me. ‘Here,’ he said, handing me the shirt. ‘For the blood.’
I took the shirt and pressed it to Jase’s wound. The blood had already slowed to a trickle, but that wasn’t the point. Who would do that? Hurt their own brother so brutally, so casually?
Little fucking savages.
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ Dornan said, and his older sons dispersed like rats in torchlight. ‘You’ll toughen up soon enough,’ he said to Jason, and then he walked away. I stared at him as he left, incredulous.
‘Let’s get you to one of the bedrooms,’ John said to Jason, kneeling beside me. ‘Clean you up.’
Jason nodded, and together we managed to help him into a guest room on the ground floor without making his wound bleed too much. By the time Jason was lying on the bed, Juliette sitting by his side, I was ready to find a knife of my own and slit Ant’s throat.
John located a first aid kit and I made quick work of the long cut. It looked like Ant had simply walked past Jason and dragged the tip of a knife along his stomach until it split open. I wanted to kill that kid.
Once Jason was bandaged, I left him to find some painkillers. I was barely two steps down the hall when an arm shot out of a doorway and yanked me inside. John. Before I could even open my mouth, he had the door locked and my hand held up to the light, examining the skull tattoo on my ring finger.
Our eyes met and I fought back tears. ‘I didn’t know where you were,’ he breathed, dropping my hand and putting his fingers up to my mouth. He leaned in and kissed me, so softly that I could hardly believe it was the same man who’d picked me up and fucked me against a bathroom basin less than a week ago.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, swallowing the rock in my throat. ‘I didn’t want to – I had to go along with it or I don’t know what he would’ve done.’
John shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’re getting out. We’re taking those kids with us.’
I breathed a sigh of relief. Those kids. I nodded. ‘Yeah, we are,’ I agreed. ‘And we have to do it now. This week. The FBI thinks I’m going to testify against Dornan and Emilio in exchange for immunity.’
‘What?’ John said.
I told him about how Lindsay had drugged Dornan and insisted I meet with him in Vegas. How they were planning to move on the cartel and the Gypsy Brothers very soon. John listened intently, his forehead lined deep with worry.
‘We need cash,’ he said.
I nodded excitedly. My insurance policy was about to pay off. ‘I’ve got cash,’ I replied. ‘Lots and lots of cash. Think you can gather it up for us?’
John smiled, shaking his head. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed.’
I rested my head on his shoulder for a brief moment, terrified at the prospect of having to go back out there and interact with Dornan and Emilio.
‘I play the long game,’ I said quietly.
John chuckled. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Because I’ve got twenty-seven dollars to my name. Shit, I don’t even own a leather jacket anymore.’
