His hands went to my hips and his fingers dug into my flesh as he pulled me down onto him. His size made me gasp, all the air leaving my lungs as the noises coming from my throat were drowned by our kiss. With agonising slowness, Dornan pulled me down onto him until I was stretched and full with him, ready to explode.
‘Fuck, you’re so wet,’ he groaned, his voice gravel and smoke, his hips continuing to rock, each thrust driving me wild. His hands moved from my hips, down to my thighs, and I flinched as he pressed against the fresh cuts I’d made just hours ago in the bath. He saw me flinch, connected the dots. His entire body stilled; though I could tell he was desperate to keep slamming up into me, his eyes demanded answers. He pulled the hem of my skirt up to my belly so I was completely exposed to him, scars and all.
‘Mariana,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘What did you do?’
I closed my eyes, fresh tears pricking at them, demanding release. ‘Nothing,’ I breathed.
I felt one of his hands wind around my long hair and tug, forcing my face to his.
‘Open your eyes,’ he murmured.
I did. I opened my eyes to see his own dark eyes staring back, the iris and pupil merging almost seamlessly in the dim light. His eyes looked black, but they were beautiful to me. They were everything.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I thought we agreed no more.’
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to come undone, to shatter apart with him inside me. I just wanted to forget how fleeting our time together always was. But I had made a promise to him not to cut myself years ago, and I had broken that promise.
I put my hands on his shoulders and started to move again, skin against skin, his hand tightening in my hair.
‘Mariana,’ he demanded. ‘Stop.’
He pulled on my hair to the point of pain. I yelped, stilling.
‘Look at me.’
I didn’t want to look at him. He made me nervous when he spoke like this. I just wanted to fuck and forget. I squeezed my eyes shut.
‘Fuck me,’ I begged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No.’ He growled, shaking me. ‘Tell me what this is. Tell me why. You know how many arteries are here? You could have fucking bled to death.’
You could have fucking bled to death. Yeah. I could. And the saddest thing was, he wouldn’t even be the one to find me because he was always somewhere else.
‘You’re gone so long,’ I croaked, opening my eyes again. ‘It was my way of keeping track. You’re always gone for so fucking long.’
His face fell as he studied the cuts on my thighs, his fingertips hovering over the barely healing flesh. ‘That’s what this is?’ he said, his voice thick. ‘You do this until I come back?’ He looked closer. ‘These are the days?’
My cheeks burned with shame as tears fell on them.
‘Baby,’ he said sadly. ‘You know I want to be there every fucking minute with you. You know I can’t live without you. I fucking love you. Only you.’
I nodded, still crying. My orgasm hovered inside me, almost there but not quite, and I wanted release. To not have it was painful. I lifted slightly on top of him and pushed down, and he resumed his almost violent lovemaking, leaning back and grabbing my hips again. He thrust deep inside me, and that was all I needed, that single stroke enough to make me cry out as I came around him. A few seconds later he tensed, his fingers digging into my flesh as he slammed home one more time and spilled himself inside me, hot and wet. We sat, unmoving for a few moments, before I disentangled myself from him and returned to the passenger seat, rearranging my clothes as I went.
It was completely fucked up, the way we went from arguing about human lives to screwing each other’s brains out, but it seemed our primary method of connecting was physical. Our love demanded to be shown, to be shared. It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t right, but it was what we had.
Dornan leaned over and kissed me as he was zipping his jeans up. The kiss quickly grew frantic. Dornan grabbed a handful of my hair and tugged me closer to him, and I moaned into his mouth.
I came to my senses. Realised what we’d just done in here, in the same car where he’d shot and killed a woman. I planted a hand on his chest and pushed, breaking the kiss.
‘I’d die without you,’ he said, releasing his grip on my hair and grasping my chin between his thumb and forefinger.
No, I thought, I’d die without you. And it wasn’t just about love. It was reality. Without him, I would have been dead a long time ago.
Just as I was opening my mouth to respond, the world exploded.
With a deafening bang, glass flew everywhere. I automatically put my hands to my face, feeling the shock of something devastating vibrating through Dornan’s entire body. Cold rain that felt like tiny shards of ice poured into the car, the driver’s side window no longer there. When the glass stopped falling and it was just the rain driving sideways into my face, I let my hands fall from my eyes, let them open.
I squinted through the icy sheets of rain that were pouring into the car.
Oh God. Dornan was bleeding. His chest was a mess of blood, the clean bullet hole cut neatly into his shirt bursting forth with dark red blood. Someone had just shot him through the fucking window, and he was literally bleeding out before my eyes.
Another shot rang out and I dove to the side as the front windscreen crashed down around us. Pain blossomed in my arm and I realised I’d been hit. I’d been shot. I fought the urge to throw up, gagging as the pain radiated through my shoulder and all the way down to my hand. I refused to look at it, though. If I looked at it I’d probably pass out, and if I passed out I’d probably die. We both would. So I swallowed back vomit and pretended it wasn’t happening as I tried to get Dornan to respond. I felt glass cutting my arms and legs, everywhere I moved causing more lacerations.
‘Baby,’ I whispered, my voice barely audible over the rain.
Nothing. His face was ashen, and he’d slumped to the side a little. I felt sorrow rise inside me as I saw what someone had done to my Dornan. His belt was still unbuckled, for Christ’s sake. They’d taken him at his most vulnerable moment and shot him from afar, like fucking cowards.
My blood was pumping hot, despite the cold. I could feel the white-hot anger searing a path through my circulatory system, my breath coming out in short, shallow pants.
‘Dornan,’ I said, a little louder this time.
Through the blistering rain, I heard the dim noise of a car door opening.
Close. Whoever it was, whoever had done this – they were close.
I didn’t want to sit up and look, though, because I might get a bullet in the face for being nosey. No, I huddled in the footwell, pulling gently on Dornan’s arm so he slid down onto his side, his arm and ribs pressing awkwardly over the glove compartment that separated our seats. It looked uncomfortable, the way he was twisted, but it was better than him being dead.
I snapped out of the haze I’d been in since the first bullet hit, reaching automatically for my purse and, within it, my gun.
Thank you for giving me a gun. Thank you for teaching me how to aim. Thank you for all of it.
Footsteps crunched over loose gravel, and my heart beat furiously.
Don’t die, I silently urged Dornan. Please, don’t fucking die on me.
I’d seen enough death to last me a lifetime.
And then the gravel stopped crunching.
There was a woman at the window and she was aiming a gun at Dornan. Her eyes were fucking wild. Her hair was long and dark, and her black T-shirt was stuck to her. She was soaked to the bone, but that didn’t seem to be affecting her aim.
Allie.
Murphy’s crooked cop girlfriend, the bitch he was planning to run off with. My stomach lurched painfully at the realisation that she had not, in fact, taken the money I’d transferred into her bank account and run like she should have. I would have run. What an idiot.
She was a cop. She’d just shot Dornan
. And now, now she was here to finish the job. To finish me.
‘Thanks for the money, cunt,’ she spat, glancing at Dornan before shifting her aim to me. Bile crept up my throat and I swallowed forcefully – a side effect of having a gun pointed at your face.
‘I’ll ask you once,’ she said, her teeth grinding each word out with measured rage. ‘Where is Christopher?’
‘Allie,’ I protested. ‘Come on. I know you’re not that stupid.’
She screamed, frustration written all over her face. ‘I don’t believe you!’ she said, wild with emotion.
‘You were in love with him,’ I realised all at once. I’d assumed she was just in with Murphy for the money. But the way she said his name – Where is Christopher? – the anguish in her words. She had loved him. And now she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was dead.
‘Allie, he was a bad man,’ I said, trying to placate her. ‘He killed innocent people. I did what I had to do, and I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, you’re sorry?’ she repeated shrilly. ‘You’ll be sorry, bitch, when you watch your dirty biker bleed out in front of your eyes.’
My heart sank – she wasn’t going to be talked around. She was here to get vengeance.
‘Allie,’ I said softly. ‘Murphy wanted me to go with him when he left. He tried to rape me. He was naked in my bed when he died.’
She scoffed. ‘You’re a fucking mexicunt working at a strip club owned by bikers. You don’t get raped. You open your mouth and suck and say thank you after you swallow.’
Well, I didn’t know what to say to that. ‘He asked me to go with him. He was never going to take you. It was all a set-up for you to take the fall.’
‘Stop lying. Stop talking!’ She shook the gun in front of her for effect.
I took a deep breath and tried to think. Think! It was hard to strategise with a gun aimed at you.
‘Why Dornan?’ I asked. ‘He didn’t do anything. He wasn’t a part of this, Allie.’
‘He’s never without his fucking whore,’ she spat, looking at me. ‘Seems only fair that you get to watch him die before I kill you.’
I breathed heavily, my heart thundering in my chest – its low roar filling my ears. My gun, concealed by the darkness, itched in my hand. I had to shoot her. I had to stop her.
Allie sneered, letting her aim drop as she looked down into Dornan’s lap.
I took my chance. It was the only one I was going to get. As the bitch laughed at Dornan’s state of undress, I raised the gun in my hand and squeezed the trigger.
I recoiled as I felt her blood hit my cheek, the deafening roar of my gun something that was becoming far too familiar. Allie hit the dirt before I’d even blinked, the force of the bullet sending her straight onto her back. I rummaged around on the floor in front of my feet, looking for my coat, until I remembered I’d wrapped the baby in it. Desperate, I held a hand to Dornan’s red-soaked chest as I tried furiously to slow the tide of his blood. With my other hand, I searched in his pockets for his cellphone. I scrolled through until I found John’s number, called it, let it ring.
No answer.
I didn’t know who else to call. I couldn’t call his wife, could I? I wasn’t supposed to exist. And Emilio? No way would I call that bastard.
Jesus Fucking Christ. Who else could I call? Not the police. I’d just killed a cop. Again.
John. Answer your fucking phone!
He didn’t answer. Again. I looked at Dornan. The blood. There was so much blood.
Above the steady drum of the rain, I heard someone groaning outside. Allie? Jesus. Was she still alive? With a quick glance at Dornan, I opened the door as quietly as I could and slipped out, pressing it shut behind me. The rain was brutal, and I could barely see in front of me. I circled around the back of the pick-up, gun at the ready, my eyes searching for any movement as I rounded the corner of the truck and happened upon Allie. There was blood coming from her mouth, and she had one arm outstretched, reaching clumsily for her gun. In her dying moments, she didn’t look like a bitch anymore. She looked like a sad, lost little girl, and I silently cursed Murphy for pulling her into this hellish existence. For the first time, I realised that she was younger than me, just a young woman who fell in love with the wrong man. Don’t we all.
She saw me, and her hand reached for the gun more desperately. Before she could grab it and take a shot at me, I placed my foot on her wrist, pinning it to the ground.
She looked up at me, her eyes sad.
‘I thought he loved me,’ she choked.
I nodded, crouching beside her. ‘That’s the thing about men like Murphy,’ I said softly. ‘They’re not capable of love, Allie. They only know how to destroy.’
She seemed to soften, her eyes closing momentarily. ‘I don’t want to die,’ she whispered, blinking back tears. ‘I didn’t know.’
I nodded sympathetically, pushing her hair back from her face.
Before she could do anything, I placed my hand over her mouth and squeezed her nose shut between my thumb and index finger. Shock and realisation lit up in her eyes as she thrashed her head back and forth beneath my grip.
‘That’s the difference between you and me,’ I said to her, as she clawed at my hand and sucked against my palm for air. ‘I’m old enough to know better.’
She struggled some more, her face turning a dirty shade of grey as her eyes bulged with effort, then finally dulled and froze open, unseeing.
I took my hand away from her mouth, noticing her blood all over my palm. I wiped it against my side, reasoning that the rain would wash the rest away soon enough. Fuck. I’d just killed somebody with my bare hands. I was turning into someone I didn’t even recognise. The terrifying part was the complete detachment I felt. Of course I killed her, I reasoned to myself. She was going to kill me. She shot Dornan.
And that was that. No guilt and long-winded self-searching. No beating myself up about taking another life. No, I took one look around to make sure I wasn’t being watched, grabbed Allie’s ankles, dragged her over to the side of the wharf and rolled her into the fast-flowing water below.
It sucked her down in a second.
And then she was gone.
I vomited beside the car, the act somehow cleansing me. That last vestige of doubt gone. Replaced by numb victory, by indifference. I was exhibiting all the classic symptoms of shock, but I didn’t feel shocked. I felt like a fucking lion who’d just protected her cub. Allie had tried to fuck with someone I loved and I had put an end to that.
Dornan.
He was bleeding. He needed help, and quickly. I raced back to my side of the car and yanked the door open, sliding in and assessing how much worse he’d gotten since I’d been gone. He looked bad. His skin was so white he looked like he’d just fade away.
I remembered what he’d said to me. I do what I do, and I get what I get.
The knowledge of what he’d done – what he was still doing – slammed home that night. The fact that he was here because of me, that I had somehow caused this just by existing, just by being with him. He had wanted me back then, nine years ago, and he was still paying the price. I saw the souls of every life he’d trafficked in his grief-stricken gaze when he’d told me, and now I might have to live with the fact that we’d never get to say anything to each other again.
The only thing worse than finding out that the man you love has been dealing in innocent lives, buying and selling them and sending them to their deaths, is knowing that he did it for you.
On the floor at my feet, I saw the discarded baby bottle, the tin of infant formula, all covered in a thick sheen of his blood, and I began to shake.
I struggled to get Dornan out of his seat and into the passenger seat. He was two hundred pounds of solid muscle and rage.
Please don’t be dead. You’re not dead. You can’t die.
You can’t die.
I finally got him across the seat, first pulling his upper body across into my seat, and then hoisting his legs over o
ne by one.
I started the ignition. ‘Dornan,’ I said. I could barely see, with the rain and my tears, but somehow I made it onto the road and towards the hospital where we had dropped the baby off. I prayed that they didn’t have cameras. I prayed that they didn’t know it was Dornan.
I prayed that this wasn’t going to be the end for us.
Ten minutes later, I was back at the hospital, John opening my car door, worry plastered across his features. He’d finally answered his phone, and he must have broken several laws speeding to get to the hospital before me. On the other side of the car, two Gypsy Brothers – Jimmy and some other dude – were pulling Dornan out of the car and onto a gurney. The shock on Jimmy’s face was evident as he saw his VP’s blood all over the passenger seat. Wait until he got a look at the backseat.
Once Dornan was on the stretcher, some nurses raised the sides and whisked him away. Everything was moving too fast for me, and I felt like I was drowning.
‘Get rid of the car,’ John roared.
Jimmy moved into action, grabbing my waist and hauling me out of the way. He got into the truck, which was still running, and took off before he’d even closed the door.
I looked down at what was in my hand. My coat, the one that I’d wrapped the baby in. The one that I’d used to try and stem the flow of blood from Dornan’s bullet wound.
Life begins, and life ends. So fast. So fleeting.
John grabbed my elbow. ‘Hey,’ he said gruffly, tugging me into the hospital. Dornan was gone, stretchered away somewhere into the labyrinth of hallways that faced us in the entrance, maybe gone forever.
There was somebody else with us. I couldn’t remember his name. Which was bizarre, because I’d seen him enough times at the clubhouse that we were practically acquaintances. But my brain had frozen, stuck on a loop of horror – I heard the baby’s pitiful little cry and saw Dornan stroking the mother’s hair so tenderly, so softly, before he planted a bullet in her skull.