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‘Where is she?’ he begged. ‘Please, where is she?’
Dornan reached down and grabbed the back of his son’s neck. His anger gave him brute strength, and it was the easiest thing in the world to drag the insolent little fucker away from the stage where a naked Juliette lay, unconscious and bleeding from what Dornan had done to her. In one hand he gripped his son. In the other, the remnants of Juliette’s clothing – a macabre souvenir of the dignity he’d stolen from her.
He entered the small office where John was being held, still dragging Jase. As soon as they were both safely in the room and the door locked, he shoved Jase away. He fell to the floor and scrambled into the corner, getting as far away from his father as he could.
‘Where’s Ana?’ Dornan asked, scanning the faces aroundhim. Viper and Jimmy and . . . oh yes. John. Tied to a chair, his face much like Jase’s – bloody and swollen and bruised.
‘She’s down the hall,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Want me to get her?’
Dornan shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
He circled John’s chair once before stopping in front of him.
‘Johnny Boy,’ he said.
John refused to look at his oldest friend. Dornan thought that was odd. Shouldn’t he be begging Dornan to let Juliette go?
But then he remembered, John didn’t know about Juliette.
Dornan steeled himself, the sticky bunch of fabric in his hand. He dropped the bloodied clothing on John’s lap, piece by piece. John looked at the material, either disinterested or confused, Dornan couldn’t tell which.
And then he dropped the last piece. The piece of T-shirt with the little rainbow icon that, just two hours ago, had sat above Juliette’s heart as she wore her regular clothes and lived her regular life.
John’s eyes widened when he saw the rainbow, his head whipping up so that he could look at Dornan.
‘No,’ he said hoarsely.
Dornan smirked.
‘No!’ John screamed, bucking against his ropes. ‘No! No!No!’
Dornan, who’d started pacing in front of his bound, traitorous friend, stopped on his heel and turned in front of John. He stood so close, their legs touching, that had John been able to pry his hands free from their bindings, he’d have been able to swing at him.
‘Sixteen years you kept Stephanie from me.’
John looked down at the bloody ribbons of clothing in his lap, horrified. Transfixed. ‘What did you do?’ he breathed.
‘Sixteen years, I could have had my son.’
‘WHAT DID YOU DO?’ John roared, his face bright red, his knuckles white as he tried to twist them away from the chair.
‘How long were you fucking my wife?’ Dornan asked. It suddenly occurred to him that it was the last time he’d likely refer to Mariana as his wife.
‘If you hurt Julie–’
Dornan tutted. ‘I already hurt Julie. Jesus, John, didn’t you hear her screaming? That was your daughter and my sons, but she was the only one who screamed.’
John made a guttural noise in the back of his throat, pulling against the ropes that bound him to the chair. He was going to either make himself bleed or snap the rope soon enough.
Dornan drew his gun and pressed it against John’s lips, against his teeth. ‘We’re talking about my wife first, John. She suck your cock,John? Did my wife suck good cock?’
John’s eyes flashed with anger. Dornan drew the gun away and used it to pistol-whip him across the face. Blood flew from John’s mouth and through the air, landing on the ground with a sickening splat.
‘What else, huh? You steal my wife, you steal my money, you steal my FUCKING SON?’
‘Why is there blood on her clothes?’ John panted. ‘Why are her clothes cut up?’
Dornan grabbed a second chair and planted it right in front of John’s, straddling it. He rested his elbows on the top of thebackrest, watching John as an eerie calm descended upon him. Little by little, the angry buzz was starting to recede.This is what it feels like, he realised. To switch it all off and walk away from ever caring about anything else again.This is what it feels like to be my father.
