Well, who was the sucker now?
Yeah.
I stumbled, losing my balance as the room continued to spin, and John caught me before I toppled. I hated being weak, but right now, I’d give myself a hall pass.
I started to cry. Deep, wretched sobs.
‘Hey,’ John said, his face close to mine. ‘Ana. You gotta pull yourself together. I can’t take care of you and bury this motherfucker at the same time. Ana!’
I heard a loud, high-pitched scream. I think it was coming from me. I was breaking apart.
‘Fuck,’ I heard John swear. Clamping a hand over my mouth, he hauled me into the bathroom and into the shower recess. A moment later, freezing cold water drenched the both of us and I pushed him back angrily, my screams vanishing as the shock of the cold forced me back to my senses.
‘There you are,’ he muttered. He reached across me to adjust the water and soon it was warm. I stared at the drain, transfixed, as Murphy’s blood washed off me. My dress. I needed to take my dress off and wash the blood from my skin.
I unzipped my dress at the back and unhooked the straps from my shoulders, letting the material fall to the shower floor in a soggy, bloody heap. John’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at me, dressed only in a white bra and panties, marked in places with Murphy’s blood, the thin cotton steadily turning see-through under the stream of warm water.
Had I imagined it? Had he even looked at me at all?
Yes. He had looked. He was still looking.
It was bad. It was wrong. There was a dead man lying in my bed, killed by my hand, and yet when John’s eyes widened and he drew in a sharp breath, it still excited me. I felt pathetic.
‘Clean yourself up,’ he said gruffly, turning to go. ‘I’ll make some calls, get this sorted out.’
Calls? Who in the hell was he planning to call?
I caught the sleeve of his leather jacket. He stared at my hand like it was burning him just by resting there.
‘Don’t go,’ I pleaded. ‘He’s in there and I can’t—I just—Please don’t leave me here with him.’ My voice rose higher with each word until I was begging. Pleading.
I didn’t even know what I was trying to say. I started to gasp for air again, panicking.
‘Are you going to tell Dornan?’ I asked, clawing at the front of his jacket. ‘Are you going to tell Emilio?’ I couldn’t breathe. ‘They’ll kill me. Jesus, they’re going to kill me, aren’t they?’
‘Hey,’ he said firmly. ‘Calm. Down.’
He cupped my face with his palm, not afraid to touch me, even though I was a dirty murdering whore with the blood of a dead DEA agent all over her. I could see myself in the mirror beyond John, and I didn’t look pretty. I looked like I’d just stepped out of a warzone.
‘You have blood on your face,’ he said, his tone lower, gentler this time. ‘Here, close your eyes.’
With his hands still cupping my face, he guided me back slightly. I closed my eyes as the warm jets of water hit my cheeks, and smelled soap as his fingers rubbed the blood away.
He had to scrub hard in some places, his rough fingertips moving urgently against my skin.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised.
I didn’t move. I was like putty in his hands, ready to fall to the floor the moment he let go of me.
‘Okay,’ he said finally, pulling me slightly so my face was out of the water.
I was out of the direct stream, but water continued to dribble down my face and into my eyes. I wiped at them with my fingertips, feeling clumps of mascara come away on my skin. John’s hands were still around my wrists from where he’d pulled me out of the water, and they tightened when I met his gaze.
His eyes flicked down to my lips, ever so subtly, and then back to my eyes, pinning me in place. One stolen glance at my mouth.
My heart started to race.
A second stolen glance.
The breath in my lungs started to not be enough, and I needed to breathe faster.
I dared a look at his mouth. His teeth bit down into his lip, as though he was causing himself pain to stop himself from doing something.
Mesmerised, almost as if I were in a daze, I reached my hand up and brushed my thumb over the lip he was biting down on.
He tore his head to the side and ripped my hand away, pressing it back to my side. Wrong move, Ana. He looked angry. I had read it all wrong. I might have wanted to kiss him, but it was clear by the way he was regarding me that he didn’t feel the same way.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, turning my head to the side.
I felt his eyes on me. They burned into my skin, but I refused to look at him again. I’d just very, very narrowly escaped making a fool of myself. Touching his lip might be forgivable, but if I’d kissed him? Jesus Christ. He’d probably kill me.
‘What do you want from me?’ he asked finally. I stole a glance at his face, saw the stricken expression of a man who had seen too much suffering in his life.
‘Is that a trick question?’ I asked quietly. ‘Maybe you should tell me what you want, John Portland.’
He tipped his head back and let out a frustrated sigh. Dropping his gaze back to mine, he took a step forward, forcing me back against the cold tiles of the wall. His hands were like cuffs on my wrists, but I wasn’t struggling to break free.
He opened his mouth, as if to say something. I could tell he didn’t trust me, and I didn’t trust him either. I mean, he could be setting me up.
I could be setting him up.
This could all be one giant set-up that went far wider than the two of us.
You never could trust anyone in this Gypsy Brothers world.
He shifted slightly, and my cheeks flushed with blood as I felt hard steel against my hip. He wants me. The shock must have been written across my face, plain as day, because he moved back, averted his eyes. He dropped my wrists and went to turn away.
‘Stop,’ I said, my tone cutting through the tension like sharp glass through flesh. I darted my hand out and grabbed the front of his jacket, yanking so he was forced back around to face me. Poker calm descended upon his expression, and I fixed mine to match.
We stared off.
‘You’re trying to trick me,’ I breathed.
‘Why do you immediately assume I’m trying to fuck you over?’ he growled.
‘You know why,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t get to be a fucking stranger to someone for nine years and then suddenly change your mind after bonding over murder for five minutes.’
His poker face disappeared, morphing into something that looked equal parts lust and rage. His hands found my wrists again, pushed me roughly so my back settled against the tiles once more.
‘What do you do when you want something you can’t have?’ he ground out. His blue eyes were bright, a dead giveaway about the state of his mind. When he fired up, they spoke loud and clear. I knew because I’d been looking away from them for years, afraid that if I stared too long I’d get lost in them. And I could absolutely, definitely, categorically, not get lost in John Portland’s eyes for even one second.
He. Was. Dornan’s. Best. Friend.
‘I wait,’ I whispered, my own convictions sliding away like melted butter as he rested a hand on my hip, just above my panties, and squeezed.
‘And then?’
I thought about the money I’d stockpiled over the years. Emilio’s dirty money. My escape plan for a rainy day. And it was pouring with rain right now.
‘When nobody’s looking, I take it.’
His eyes burned into me.
‘Nobody’s looking, Ana.’
Something inside me snapped, like an elastic band that had been pulled and pulled until it broke apart. I was starving. Not for food. For affection. For understanding. For the touch of a man who wasn’t trying to hurt me.
We came together in a frenzy, lips crashing on lips, hands everywhere. I pulled him close to me, sighing into his mouth as I felt how hard he was against me, only his jeans separating us.
Jesus Christ, he tasted exactly like I thought he would, a combination of the coffee we’d just drunk and something sweeter, something undefinable but delicious. I devoured him, unable and unwilling to stop, to come to my senses, until I remembered the reason why he was in my apartment in the first place.
Murphy.
I broke the kiss and pushed a hand against the middle of his chest. I wasn’t rough about it, but I was firm. I covered my mouth with a shaking hand, my knees like rubber, my nipples hardened to twin points, clearly visible under my barely there lace bra. I didn’t let go of him, though. I held onto him like my very life depended on being in constant physical contact with him, this man who’d pushed me away for nine excruciating years. Because he’d been attracted to me, too? God, the hours upon hours we’d spent together in that tiny office, breathing the same air, working the same jobs, numbers and accounts and with enough sexual tension to make me think of him when I touched myself at night. John Motherfucking Portland, the guy who’d carried a photo of my secret son around with him for months, until it was safe to return it to me. John Motherfucking Portland, who had barely looked into my eyes for nine whole years. The things Emilio did, that he couldn’t control.
The dark pleasure Dornan carried and tucked away in an apartment like a dirty secret. A sin. All of those things were what I’d assumed John had thought of me, but now, as I looked at the tight expression on his face, the stricken eyes and the sad, resigned air he wore like a second skin, I realised how utterly wrong I had been.
I opened my mouth, and what I meant to say was, I thought you didn’t really like me. But that didn’t come out. What came out was something else entirely.
‘He killed them all,’ I said in disbelief, my knees no longer holding me up. John caught me, slowed my fall to the floor. He wrapped his arms around me, getting soaking wet under the shower spray. I closed my eyes, sagging into him as my legs curled around me on the hard tiles.
I cried like I’d never cried in my life. I cried nine years worth of tears, worth of lonely nights, worth of longing. I cried until I couldn’t breathe, and then an exhausted calm descended upon me. I was empty. I was broken. The most ironic thing of all was that I had somehow managed to be the only one who’d survived out of all of us.
My mind went to that cool, dark place where it retreated when it couldn’t cope any more. The place I’d been when they first took me, the place where I didn’t have to be afraid. My tears had soothed me enough to allow me to enter that detached sort of depersonalised state, and I sank into it with relief.
He didn’t let go of me, not once. He held me, and he stroked my hair, and he shut off the water when it finally ran cold.
Nine years is a long time to watch somebody from the shadows.
He did it, and he wasn’t proud of it. He had a wife and a daughter, and he’d never betrayed them. Not once.
But he’d wanted to.
And now what had he done? Put his hands on another woman. The woman he’d been watching for nine fucking years, picturing in his head as he jerked off in the shower or, less frequently, while he made love to his wife, on the rare night when she was her old self.
‘Mariana,’ he murmured.
She was falling apart right in front of him, and it scared the shit out of him. He didn’t know what to do, so he just held her. She looked so small, so fragile, and so despondent. He was almost certain she’d shatter into a million pieces if he didn’t hold her together. He washed her hair with a bottle of shampoo he found in the shower, being careful not to make a face as he picked small pieces of Murphy’s skull out of her long tresses.
The water went cold and he shut it off. All the while, his thoughts bounced between two things: the dead body in the bedroom and that kiss.
That kiss, the one that set his veins on fire and made him feel like he was losing his fucking mind. Maybe he was going crazy. She was Dornan’s woman, and if he ever found out that anyone had so much as touched her, he’d kill them.
Dornan had almost killed Murphy once, for trying to do just that.
Pride swelled in his chest as John thought of Mariana shooting Murphy. He knew he should probably feel dread, but he didn’t. Christopher Murphy had been the worst kind of scum, and John couldn’t wait to dispose of his body and pretend like he’d never existed. Somebody else would spring up in Murphy’s place, some corrupt asshole with their own agenda. Maybe they’d be better than Murphy. Maybe they’d be worse. But Murphy was finally gone.
The body. The pressing task, the thing that needed to be actioned.
‘Mariana, hey,’ he tried again. He reached for a clean towel and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her teeth were chattering, and her underwear was still specked with the drops of blood that had sunk deep into the fabric, but she was mostly clean apart from that.
Mariana wasn’t looking. She was staring into space, not answering him. He shook his head, got up and went back into the bedroom. The smell of death was overpowering, even though Murphy had probably been dead less than two hours. It was the large amount of blood in such a confined space, and he was hardly going to open a window and alert the whole world to the stench.
John found jeans and a black T-shirt for Mariana in the large closet, and then went in search of a change of underwear for her. He hesitated upon opening her dresser drawer and seeing the lace and cotton neatly assembled into sections that seemed to scream ‘functional’ on one side and ‘fuck me’ on the other. Shaking his head, he grabbed black panties and a bra from the functional section and took them to her, along with the jeans and shirt.
‘I have some clothes for you,’ he said. She didn’t respond. She was practically catatonic, and that worried John deeply. Fuck! How was he supposed to deal with her mental breakdown and find a way to dispose of a fucking DEA agent without a trace at the same time?
Time to stop worrying about being inappropriate and just get on with it.
‘Come on,’ he said gently, helping her to stand up. ‘Come on,’ he coaxed her onto the fresh towel he’d put down on the bathroom floor. She stood there wrapped in her own towel, her dark blue eyes fixed to the floor, shivering violently.
She was in shock, John knew that much. He needed to get coffee into her, coffee and sugar and probably some kind of food. He’d never hit a drive-thru on his way to dispose of a body, but there was a first time for everything, right? And he found himself unable to be annoyed with this exotic creature who had broken down in front of him. He was too conscious of who – of what – she was, even though she’d never come out and said it to him.
She was one of the ones that had been destined for a basement somewhere, a sex slave for somebody’s sick whims. Only for some reason, she’d been spared. Not that you could exactly call this spared, but at least she was still alive. John liked to pretend that that shit didn’t go on, but he knew the world he was a part of.
‘Come on,’ he said. He took the towel from her and started to remove her underwear as discreetly as he could, without looking at the magnificence that lay beneath. He dressed her in clean clothes and then he led her past the grisly reality of the man she’d just killed and down to his car outside.
That fucker had been heavy, even with the majority of his blood on the mattress. John contemplated calling a crew to pick up Murphy’s body and dispose of it, but once he’d safely wrapped Murphy’s lifeless form in the thick comforter and hauled his ass into the back of his pick-up, he’d come to the reluctant conclusion that it would be too risky to involve anyone else. He’d have to come straight back after he ditched Murphy and get someone to help with the mattress disposal.
He picked up McDonald’s for Mariana on the way to the county morgue. He ordered her fries, black coffee, lemonade and an apple pie, trying to cover all bases: sugar, salt and fat. She’d perked up a little bit since downing the coffee, the caffeine and fresh air bringing a little colour back into her cheeks.
They got to the morgue soon after Ana had started in on her large serving of fries, John ba
cking the pick-up into the crematorium entrance. She looked up, alarmed, brushing salt off her fingers onto her jeans.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, looking him in the eye. And just like that, she snapped out of it.
‘Stay here,’ John said, hopping out of the car. He’d changed from his leather jacket into a black hoodie while they were waiting in the line at the drive-thru, and he flipped the hood over his head before he stepped into the open. ‘I’ve got to speak to somebody. Do not get out of the car. You hear me? Last thing we need is for both of us to show up on the security footage.’
She nodded, and then he was speaking to his buddy, who fetched a steel gurney.
‘You want to hang around for the remains?’ the attendant asked, as John slipped him an envelope fat with cash. John briefly contemplated taking the ashes home and pissing on them, but decided against it.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Just make sure they’re gone.’
Less than ten minutes later, Murphy – along with the bloody sheets, towels, Mariana’s blue dress and comforter – was roasting nicely in the crematorium furnace. And within the hour, the man who’d caused Ana and everybody else so much grief was nothing more than a pile of ashes and dust.
While John was waiting for Murphy to be pulverised into ash in the furnace, he placed a call to one of his contacts who cleaned crime scenes for a living. He was also a guy who was very fond of cash, and extremely discreet. John gave him the passcode for Mariana’s apartment and the guy promised to have the whole place sparkling in two hours. John didn’t see how that was possible – she’d tracked blood everywhere – but he didn’t argue. If the guy did it that quickly, he’d get a fat tip in his envelope when John dropped off the payment.
When John got back to the car, she was still there. Thank Fuck. The last thing he needed was a crazy woman running around with traces of Murphy’s blood on her. He’d washed her as well as he could, but there’d still be traces of blood and DNA in her hair, under her fingernails.