Empire Read online

  I hated Caroline bitterly, not because I was in love with her husband, but because she had everything I’d ever wanted and yet she spent her life cruising about in a drug-addled haze, because she couldn’t cope with the fact that she was somebody’s mother, or wife. She’d been a nurse, once, and I’m pretty sure she’d started on pain pills before she graduated to smack.

  When we left and made a run for it we were taking John’s daughter, but we were categorically not taking his wife. A part of me selfishly hoped Dornan would kill her once we left. She deserved it more than Stephanie had.

  I swallowed thickly, a sense of impending doom settling upon me like a plague of ants crawling over every inch of my skin. I glanced at John, and we both knew what I was thinking.

  ‘We can’t take him,’ John said firmly. ‘They will hunt us to the ends of the earth if we take their blood.’

  We both watched Jason, down on the sand, as he spoke to Juliette beside him. They were sitting now, him hugging his knees and her cross-legged, her eyes only for him. Something squeezed painfully in my chest as I watched Jase and Juliette, knowing the destruction that lay ahead. Because even if we pulled this off, even if we managed to get away and make a run from the Gypsy Brothers, we’d be running forever. For the rest of our lives, we would be looking over our shoulders and sleeping in shifts to make sure we didn’t all wake up dead, courtesy of Dornan and his family.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. ‘We have to take him,’ I countered. ‘Or I will never forgive myself. Or you.’

  ‘You’re going to be the death of me, woman,’ John sighed, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offering one to me. I took it, because I needed something to do with my hands, and since we were in public I couldn’t be using those hands to unbutton his jeans and squeeze his cock.

  Even though that was what I’d really, really prefer to be doing. If we didn’t have these kids with us, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from dragging John into a back alley, dropping to my knees, and sucking his cock until he came down my throat. John might have been the tender lover, the man who took his time, but it seemed we didn’t have an abundance of time as of late. It was hard to be gentle when you didn’t know if somebody was waiting around the corner to blow your brains out at any given moment. It was impossible to slow down and enjoy each other when we were both trapped in a constant vortex of crushing reality – that we might die very horrifically, very soon. And, despite the impending doom that floated around us like a choking fog, we both still found it impossible to keep our hands off each other. Which was kind of hard, in a crowd of tourists and locals alike, all getting their fix on a sunny day while we tried not to give in to carnal desire and go screw in the backseat of John’s car.

  Lucky we had these kids with us then, because if anyone we knew ever saw me do that with John, we’d both end up with our heads sawn off and hung over a freeway overpass as punishment.

  I happened to like my head very much. John’s, too. So we never let ourselves be tempted anywhere remotely public.

  ‘Those jeans look good on you,’ I said, glancing at him. Something to break the malaise, because otherwise we’d talk in circles and never come to a decision one way or the other.

  ‘Your skirt, too,’ he replied, looking straight ahead as he lit his cigarette. ‘It’d look better off, though. You wearing underwear?’

  I felt my nipples stiffen to hard peaks as I took the lighter from his outstretched fingers and held the flame to my own cigarette, wishing he was doing it for me. Along with my tank top, I was wearing a loose black skirt that sat just above my knees. ‘Not today,’ I murmured.

  John shook his head, turning away so he could readjust his jeans as subtly as possible. ‘Goddamn it,’ he swore, holding his smoke between his teeth as he used two hands to fumble with the waistband of his jeans.

  ‘I’m so wet right now,’ I said casually, just loud enough for John to hear. ‘If I sit down in your car, I’m going to mess your seat up.’

  ‘Fuck you. I’m going to get coffee,’ he muttered. ‘Make sure that little shit doesn’t touch my daughter.’ He walked away without looking back at me. I snickered, wondering how obvious my nipples were underneath my black tank top.

  I didn’t mess John’s car seat up, but we did ditch the kids pretty soon after that. Dropped them back at my apartment and made sure they were securely inside before we drove to a deserted football field and fucked until we were raw and panting.

  We were getting careless.

  Looking back, it was a miracle nobody found out about us sooner. But I couldn’t focus on that then, naked and spread open along the backseat of John’s car as he pounded me into the leather. Both of us slick with sweat, my head slamming against the car door with every thrust, his hands pressing my knees so wide it felt like I’d break in two. We fucked like two people about to be murdered, two death row prisoners tied together, devouring each other, one last meal while we waited for the executioner to come and blow a bullet through each of us.

  We fucked like we were starved, like dirty, raw copulation was the only thing that could feed us, the only act that could make us whole again.

  We loved each other so much, it was a wonder we didn’t just burst into flames from the strength of our desperation right then and there.

  We’d burn eventually.

  I think we both understood that.

  We just didn’t know when the Reaper was coming to collect our corrupted souls.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MARIANA

  I was cutting into a red bell pepper a few days later when my phone buzzed. I still remember the moment like it was yesterday – the way the sun was perched high on the horizon, ready to swallow up the shadow of my apartment building that overlooked Santa Monica Beach; the Ferris wheel on the pier, a giant silhouette against the bright blue sky. I can taste the pepper in my mouth, sharp and cold from the refrigerator; I can hear the waves as they crash onto the shore beneath my apartment. I can still remember opening the window, a cool breeze hitting my face as I marvelled at how the sky and John’s eyes could be exactly the same colour.

  Peace was always fleeting in my world.

  My twenty-ninth birthday and I was still here. Still with Dornan. Still with John. Trapped between three men: one that I loved, one that I used to love, and one that I despised with every fibre of my being.

  And number three, lucky last, was calling me. Emilio flashed up on my cellphone, and I was so startled I almost chopped my fingers clean off.

  Emilio never called me. I wasn’t even sure he had my number until that moment. Why would he call me? Maybe Dornan was dead. The thought briefly occurred to me, and then it was gone, a wisp of smoke on a summer breeze. Maybe Dornan is dead.

  I set my knife down and hit the green answer button, bring the phone to my ear.

  ‘Happy birthday, Mariana,’ Emilio drawled. I heard loud noise, traffic in the background. I remembered Dornan telling me his father had travelled to Bogota for a meeting with his brother, Julian. Perhaps that explained the noise.

  They were still searching for Christopher Murphy, shady DEA agent and Emilio’s right-hand man. They’d never find him, though – this I knew for certain.

  They didn’t know, though. They were still searching for answers to his disappearance. If only Emilio knew what I’d done, I thought to myself, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I remembered how Murphy’s blood had tasted, how my ears had buzzed for a week after I’d shot him in the face at point-blank range.

  ‘Did you kill my family?’ I whispered. Realisation spiked in his eyes, and his entire body tensed. A wave of nausea rolled through me.

  He didn’t respond, but the answer was clear as day in his eyes; in the way he looked away for a split second before meeting my gaze again, in the stunned expression on his face, in the heavy exhale that came from his chest. His mouth around the gun was revolting, the metallic knock of tooth on polished steel enough to make me cringe.
/>
  I saw the questions in his eyes. How? How did I know? How had I found out what he’d done?

  ‘You really think I didn’t check on my family in nine years?’ I whispered. ‘How stupid are you? How stupid do you think I am?’

  And then, before I lost my nerve, I pulled the heavy trigger back. I’d just killed a man as he hate-fucked me, and I was pretty sure I was going to be murdered brutally for it.

  I was the murderess who had finally put Christopher Murphy in the ground – or, more accurately, in a crematorium – and Emilio could never know.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, pressing my fingers against my eyelids. Emilio Ross wasn’t the kind of man to wish me a happy birthday. He was the kind of man who thought I took up too much air just by breathing in the same room as him.

  ‘I got you something,’ he added, and I stiffened. Swallowing thickly, I tried not to panic. It’s probably nothing.

  But it was never nothing with Emilio.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I breathed, clutching the phone harder.

  ‘I did,’ he replied, his tone betraying nothing. ‘I got you something . . . appropriate.’

  My stomach twisted violently. Appropriate?

  ‘Go to the front door,’ Emilio instructed.

  I bristled, looking towards the entryway of my apartment.

  ‘Are you going to shoot me?’ I asked. Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that. The words had come out of their own volition.

  Emilio snorted. ‘And cut short your valuable working life with me? I think not,’ he said, and he sounded amused. ‘Go. Now.’

  With knees made of rubber, I shuffled towards the front door of my apartment. It was no longer a secret that I was free to the outside world; Emilio knew. He’d never said a word about it. And in my head, I’d figured it was because, after almost ten years, he’d finally started to trust me. Or because I had Guillermo, a Gypsy Brother and key cartel shitkicker, as my permanent roomie. My round-the-clock bodyguard.

  Maybe I was wrong, though. Maybe Emilio didn’t trust me at all.

  Maybe he’d found out my secrets. There were so many secrets. Killing Murphy. Killing Murphy’s girlfriend and DEA partner, and screwing John all over this goddamn apartment whenever Dornan and Guillermo were elsewhere. My son. Yeah, I had plenty of secrets for Emilio to unearth.

  I keyed in the code to disarm the front door and let it open a crack. I peered around the corner, spotting a slick black SUV downstairs.

  So Emilio wasn’t in Colombia then.

  ‘Open it all the way,’ he commanded, and I did.

  On the front stoop, there was a large plain cardboard box, big enough to fit a carry-on suitcase, or maybe a new computer. Maybe that was it, I thought numbly, trying to shake the crawling feeling that pervaded every inch of my skin. Yeah, I decided. I’d told Emilio about my work computer getting slower and how it’d be a good idea to replace it soon. He was giving me a computer.

  It sounded so unrealistic, but I clung to the benign possibility that it was something normal at my doorstep, because I couldn’t begin to fathom what it would be if it were not.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Guillermo asked, from his spot on the couch. Sprawled out in front of an old episode of SVU, he was eating a slice of Papa John’s pizza and swilling Budweiser. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder, squatting in front of the package.

  No, I turned and mouthed at him as I picked up the box – it was heavy – and carried it to the dining table. It was rarely used for dining, and most often used for fucking, with its convenient height and width.

  The box was sealed with thick duct tape. I placed it in the middle of the table and took a few steps to the kitchen to grab a pair of scissors.

  ‘Is it open yet?’ Emilio asked, and I remembered that he couldn’t see what I was doing in the safety of my own apartment.

  ‘I’m cutting through the tape,’ I answered, trying not to sound too impatient.

  ‘Good, cholita,’ he replied. ‘You enjoy. Happy birthday.’

  He ended the call. I took the phone away from my ear, staring at the screen for a moment before placing the phone on the table beside the mystery box.

  I didn’t want to open the package – something screamed at me to just get rid of it – but I knew Emilio was outside waiting on me, and my curiosity won over my suspicion.

  Like a bandaid, I ripped the box open as quickly as I could. The cardboard packaging fell away to reveal an innocuous-looking pink suitcase, one of those hard-shell ones with four wheels that glides like a dream when you’re pushing it through a crowded airport. Not that I’d remember. I hadn’t been on a plane since Murphy had brought me to America almost a decade ago and released me into Dornan’s clutches.

  Dornan. I wondered, briefly, if he’d remember what day it was. Probably not, unless John reminded him.

  John had already called to wish me a happy birthday, because he was a stand-up fucking guy with things like that. He had the capacity to think about people outside of himself. It was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with him.

  Yeah. Crazy, isn’t it? Being in love with two men at the same time, knowing one is poison and one is safety but not being able to do a damn thing about either of them.

  The suitcase. It sat on my table, prompting a thousand questions. Was Emilio sending me away somewhere? Was the suitcase even the point, or was there something inside?

  I stepped back for a moment, closing my eyes, letting the drone of the TV and the breeze from the kitchen window centre me. My heart was hammering in my chest, and more than anything, I did not want to open the goddamn suitcase.

  Shit.

  I stepped forward again, unsteady fingers clasping the metal zipper. In slow motion, I pulled, undoing one short side, then the long edge, then the final side of the suitcase.

  Taking a deep breath, I peeled back the lid of the suitcase. There was . . . a toy?

  A child’s stuffed animal. It was a bunny rabbit. A soft blue, with a Quickstop tag still attached. Five dollars and ninety-nine cents, somebody had paid for this toy. It rested upon a thick knitted blanket that was made up of squares in every colour of the rainbow.

  I’d seen this toy before.

  Guillermo sauntered in, a fresh slice of pizza in his hand. ‘You get a package?’ he asked, around a mouthful of cheese and dough.

  Something about the way the blanket was resting started to make me uneasy, but I pushed the feeling away.

  ‘Emilio delivered this,’ I said, pointing at the open case.

  Guillermo stopped chewing, but didn’t appear alarmed. ‘He gave you a suitcase? What, you going somewhere for the boss?’

  ‘I hope not,’ I murmured, staring down at the stuffed toy. Maybe it had something sewn into it. Maybe he was sending me on a trip. A drug run? I’d done one of those for him before. Christ, I could still taste the thick olive oil that coated the plastic pellets of white powder he’d forced me to swallow, at the very beginning of my complicated relationship with the Il Sangue Cartel.

  Guillermo stood beside me, picking up the toy and shaking it. He turned it over, inspecting the stitching. Nothing seemed amiss.

  I looked back at the baby blanket. Emilio knew about my miscarriage – there had been no hiding it from him – and the thought that he was taunting me about it suddenly sprang to mind. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I remembered bleeding out on this very floor, at the hands of my lover.

  Was that it? Was he reminding me of all I’d lost? Was he that cruel?

  If only it had been that. A dig. A taunt. Anything would have been better than what was actually beneath the blanket.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Guillermo asked. I glanced at him, picking up the edge of the woollen blanket and peeling it back.

  I screamed.

  ‘Fucking Christ!’ Guillermo yelled, dropping his pizza and backing away. I dry-heaved, sinking to my knees, the reality of my gift so horrific, I could barely believe what my eyes were telling me.

  I w
as still screaming.

  ‘Where the fuck – stop screaming.’

  I kept screaming, only the noise coming from me had turned into more of a low wail. My eyes were blurred from too many tears, hot as they ran down my cheeks and dripped onto the floor. I felt like I was losing my grip on reality, but it was the opposite, really: I’d been thrust violently back into reality. My reality. The one where I was nothing more than a pawn in Emilio’s quest for total control over his son.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Guillermo hissed, hushing me. He dropped to his knees in front of me, pulling me into his chest, his eyes darting around the room as he clamped a hand over my mouth. I fought for a second, wild with horror and disbelief, clawing at his arms, but he was patient. He was strong. The man bench-pressed more than my weight every day at the gym, and he had no trouble keeping a hold around me.

  ‘Shhhhhh,’ he said, low and long. Shhhhhh. Like waves retracting out from the shore. Shhhhhh.

  I sagged, eventually, and Guillermo raised his eyebrows in question. He was asking me if he could take his hand away. I nodded, and he pulled his palm away from my mouth, ever so slowly.

  ‘Where did it come from?’ he asked quietly, his tone deadly serious. I choked, deciding whether to throw up. Nope. I kept my lunch down for the moment as I racked my brain for an answer.

  ‘Emilio,’ I croaked, finally. ‘It came from Emilio.’

  ‘Why?’

  I thought back to the night Dornan had been shot. How he’d almost bled to death in the car beside me, only hours after we’d taken an orphan baby boy to the hospital and dropped him off at the counter, wrapped in a bloody coat.

  Emilio’s cold hand squeezed the back of my neck as he directed my gaze towards the smallest baby in the line-up.

  ‘I’m taking this boy home,’ he promised, his words turning vicious. ‘I’ll raise him as my own. And if you ever try and leave your post . . .’

  I sobbed from the pain of his fingers inside my wound. ‘I’ve given you almost ten years,’ I whispered. ‘You told me you’d let me go once I repaid the debt.’