Seven Sons (Gypsy Brothers, #1)

his chest with all my might. Surprisingly, he doesn’t pin me down as I suspected he would, but draws himself out of me and rolls to the side, coming to a standing position beside the bed. I draw my knees up to my chest and watch in horror as he pulls a shiny black gun from his side table.

  It is only now that I see his entire body is shaking, balanced precariously on the edge of an overdose.

  “What did you take?” I ask calmly, sitting up on the side of the bed. I am alarmed. He can’t die, not now, not before he suffers for me. It would be too easy for him to just OD and die before I’ve made him regret ever meeting my father.

  He doesn’t answer, just starts to pace the room, his cock still erect in front of him, his index finger nervously bouncing against the trigger of his gun.

  “Dornan, you need to calm down,” I say, still in shock and not ready for him to shoot me, too. “You’ve taken something.”

  “Too pure,” he says, “too pure. We gotta cut it down, cut it down–”

  “Hey!” I say loudly, trying to cut through his incoherent monologue.

  He swings around and presses the tip of the gun to my forehead. I gasp.

  “Why did you come here?” he asks me, his breathing short and sharp. He is angry. Angry and peaking.

  Stick to the story.

  “I had nowhere else to go,” I say honestly, and it is true. I had nowhere else to go.

  “You know what I did for you? The risk I took?” I nod.

  “I know. Thank you for protecting me.” The words are pouring out of my mouth before I can even think. I will do anything for him to take the gun away from my head and calm down.

  “I fucking risked EVERYTHING for you, and you don’t even care?”

  Oh God. Oh Godohgodohgod.

  “I do care,” I say, and I do the only thing I can think to do to calm him down. I take his cock in my hands and start stroking back and forth, making a tight fist. He seems to relax almost immediately, but doesn’t take the gun away. I look up at him through my eyelashes and see his face still incredibly tense, his body twitching with too much pent-up energy and high-grade methamphetamine.

  I have to do something. I take his cock and guide it gently to my mouth, teasing the underside with the tip of my tongue. His whole body is still shaking but he moans and drops the gun to his side, his other hand stroking my hair.

  I keep going, thankful that I at least don’t have to look at him. I pretend that we are other people, somewhere else, and this, too, makes it easier to keep going. I sigh with relief when the gun clatters to the floor and he uses both hands to grip the sides of my head.

  “Baby girl,” he moans, rocking his hips in rhythm, his cock as hard as ever.

  I take him all in, as far as my mouth will open, and he suddenly tenses. “Ohhhh,” I hear him say as hot cum hits the back of my throat. It takes every muscle in my body locked rigid so that I don’t choke. I am suddenly overwhelmed by a claustrophobic, trapped sensation that goes from my mouth all the way down to my stomach.

  Dornan staggers back, a sated smile on his handsome face. I swallow thickly, looking around the room for something – anything – to get the taste of him out of my mouth. I spy my half-drunk coffee from the morning, sitting innocently on the nightstand. I have no idea how it got here. I reach for it and take a swig of the cold liquid, sighing as it floods my mouth with sugar and bitterness. My eye notices something on the cup and I look closer.

  I shudder.

  A fine mist of blood coats the Styrofoam, and I drop the cup to the floor as if it has burned me.

  I turn my hand over to see that some of the blood is flecked on my palm. Disgusted, I wipe my hand on the dark bed sheets. I look up to see Dornan has already passed out face-down on the bed in the space of about ten seconds.

  I finish wiping my hand and fish a pair of skinny jeans and an oversized black t-shirt printed with a skull and crossbones out of my suitcase at the end of the bed. I dress quickly and tiptoe out of the room as quietly as I can. Making my way to the roof, I take the stairs two at a time. I need fresh air in my lungs or I will scream.

  Pushing the fire escape door open, I am panting audibly. I am two steps outside when I realize my error in choosing to visit Michael’s place of execution. I try to back up when I discover I’ve forgotten to wedge the fire escape open. Fuck. I am stuck out here, with the afternoon sun beating down on my skull, blood at my feet. At least they took the body away.

  I can’t look at the floor or I will throw up, and I’ve got nothing left in my stomach. The concrete is still damp with someone’s efforts to hose the blood away, and I cringe as I think of the poor boy’s blood now coating the entire roof floor in microscopic detail. I focus on the sea breeze ahead of me, the glare of the afternoon sun overhead, the ocean lapping lazily at the shore a few blocks ahead. I am so preoccupied with the view, leaning against the waist-high wall with my palms digging into sharp brick edges, that I almost fall off the side of the building as I hear a crash behind me.

  I startle, turning to see where the noise has come from. It is Jase. He looks worried. When I see him, I almost cry. But I don’t. I swallow back bitter tears and turn back to the view of Venice Beach, unable or unwilling to look at him – I’m not sure which.

  I feel him take up a spot beside be and flinch when he passes something in front of my face.

  “Hey,” he says, steadying me with the slightest touch of his palm on my shoulder. “I cleaned your sunglasses. Don’t fall off the roof, okay?”

  I take the sunglasses and put them on, relieved that the throbbing sun is now a little less intense.

  “Where did you go?” he asks.

  I press my fingers into the sharp bricks, to keep myself from breaking down.

  “With your father,” I bite out.

  Now I am the one shaking. My skin is slick with sweat and heat radiates from me, but I am so cold, my teeth are chattering.

  “Hey,” Jase says, and I can hear the worry in his voice. “Come on.” He presses his hand in the small of my back, as if to lead me away from the edge, and I flinch, backing away from his hand. He holds his palms up in a supplicating gesture and shrugs.

  “I was just going to get you a seat, that’s all,” he says. “You hungry? I can get you some food.”

  Food. My stomach decides for me. I follow him blindly towards the greenhouse, stumbling in bare feet and too-long jeans, tiptoeing around the wettest part of the concrete – the place where Michael Trevine bled out.

  “Here.” He points to a worn, brown leather chair that wasn’t there yesterday. “Sit here. I’ll grab you something to eat. I can hear your frigging stomach growling from here.”

  I sink into the chair, thankful for the weight off my legs. I grip the leather armrests and time passes, how much I’m not sure. The only point of reference I have is the sun, which has moved from overhead to in front of me. I estimate that it’s about five in the afternoon when a thought suddenly slams into my brain like a freight train.

  Elliot.

  Shit. I need to call him. I need to go to him. Right fucking now. The urge to flee this place has me itching all over. I want to get out. I want to get out. Iwanttogetout.

  Jase returns after a while, balancing a plate of what looks like some kind of meat casserole with mashed potato. It smells like my childhood.

  Fuck. I can’t do this.

  “Carol was serving dinner to the boys,” he says, handing me the plate and a fork. I take the plate, my hunger beating the emotions I feel at the prospect of my mother cooking this meal for the Ross brothers a few rooms away while I was giving my father’s murderer a blow job. I demolish the plate in record time and briefly consider licking it clean. If I were alone, I definitely would.

  I set the plate down at my feet and stare ahead blankly.

  “Are you okay?” Jase asks me, his voice tinged with fear.

  “No,” I reply.

  “I told you, my dad can get pretty obsessed sometimes. Just … be careful what you say to hi
m, okay?”

  I nod vacantly, chewing on my lip.

  “I’m sorry for what happened. Really. My brothers are just like him. They’re animals sometimes.”

  I know that.

  “Is there anything I can … do for you? Get for you?”

  I don’t answer him.

  “Samantha?”

  I tear my gaze from the floor to meet his pinched eyes. “I want to get out of here,” I say to him. “Just for a few hours. Just to cool off. Do you think you can help me with that?”

  I have to get to Elliot before he comes looking for me here. They will kill him if he turns up, I am sure of it.

  Jase nods, seemingly relieved that I have broken out of my stupor to respond to him.

  “Yeah,” he says, patting my closed fist with his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  When I don’t move, he waves his hand in front of my face. “Earth to Samantha?”

  The gentle way he says Samantha makes my heart leap a little.

  “How come you don’t call me Sammi?” I ask him as he offers his hand and pulls me up to my feet.

  He furrows his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Samantha is classy. It suits you better.”

  “Classy,” I repeat. “Pfft. I don’t know where you got that idea from.”

  He looks at me with a serious look on his face, still frowning. “What?” I say.

  He shrugs. “You don’t really belong here, in a place like this. I thought that from the minute I saw you.”

  You have no idea how wrong you are.

  “I grew up in a place just like this,” I reply. “It’s just like home.”

  He doesn’t answer me, but his