12 Chapter 11 (2/2)
It was a complete cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k. John's sister wasn't even eighteen, yet she was riddled with cancer. Full of cancer and no insurance meant one thing: John needed money, a lot of money, and fast.
It had seemed straightforward at the time. A road trip, a simple swap. Drugs for cash. But once Emilio had them under his thumb, it happened time and time again. The Gypsy Brothers club expanded to deal with the mounting work Emilio was throwing at them. Dornan liked to claim it was his family obligation, but really, he knew he couldn't argue. His father was a stone-cold killer from old-school Italia, and Dornan had always known that he would be called to the darkness one day. He'd felt that familiar violence bubble under his skin more than once.
He just didn't realise his best friend would end up as deep in the blood of innocents as him.
Lucy had crafted the Gypsy Brothers patches and the leather cut-off jackets that John and Dornan wore with pride. Lucy loved to f.u.c.king sew, especially when she was eight months pregnant and could barely move. It drove Dornan insane; every time he walked around the house barefoot he'd step on a G.o.dd.a.m.n sewing pin, sticking precariously out of the carpet. That had been before everything really went to s.h.i.+t, though. Once things got crazy and she was was.h.i.+ng blood and pieces of brain matter out of her husband's clothes on a semi-regular basis, she'd stopped sewing.
It had started in the simplest, most innocent of ways; two friends, drinking beers by an open fire, shooting the s.h.i.+t and talking about how their lives might turn out. Things had been good then. Simple. Fun.
And now … now, the Gypsy Brothers dealt in the darkest of sins. They stole lives and they ended them, and they did a d.a.m.n fine job of both. Dornan sometimes wondered how things would have turned out if he had just kept riding, had never returned home, had never accepted his father's offer of cash to help John's sister in return for their souls.
The saddest thing of all was that she died anyway.
She died and Lucy ended up divorcing his a.s.s, two kids and one affair later. So Dornan rarely thought about the old days. Rarely thought about the way he and John had signed their lives away, because, in the end, it had all been for nothing.
It wasn't that difficult to ride with a raging hard-on — unless the reason for that hard-on was seated behind you, her delicious warmth pressed up against the small of your back with her legs draped over your bike.
Dornan figured he must've had a guardian angel for the ride from San Diego, because there was no blood left in his head to help him think straight. It was all directed into his lap, dangerously close to the girl's small hands as she clung to him. At one point, when they reached open road and opened up their bikes, she held onto him so hard, her nails were gouging through his leather cut and t-s.h.i.+rt and into the firm flesh of his torso. He didn't say anything, though.
He enjoyed the pain.
Just before Tijuana, the boys broke up into several smaller groups to avoid attention. The bright lights of the San Ysidro border crossing that straddled Mexico and the United States marked the almost-there point, and Dornan was glad for that. He loved being on the bike, but there was s.h.i.+t to do to sort out this c.o.ke shortage, plus his d.i.c.k wasn't showing any signs of calming down.
He revved his engine and made the turn into the road that led to his father's compound, and with one hand he reached behind and pulled the girl closer to him, so her heat was jammed up tight against his back. He thought he felt her gasp, and that only excited him more.
From what his father had said, this girl was going to be staying with them for a very long time. It made him f.u.c.king ashamed that he was looking forward to her captivity.
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