Published by Lili Saint Germain

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This is a work of fiction. Any

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Copyright© 2014 by Lili Saint

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Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

About the Author

Two Roads. Two choices. To let

go? To give up?

No. I would never — will never —

give up.

I take the road less traveled. I write

my own fate.

I deliver my own justice.
I wreak my own special brand of

revenge.

And I won’t stop, until they’re all

dead, until it’s all done, until I wipe
Dornan Ross from the face of this earth.

He killed my father. I’m having his

baby.

He killed my father. I’m having his

baby.

Those two sentences are on repeat in

my head, the agony of the rolling waves
almost too much for me to bear.

And the agony of my nausea slams

into me again with the violent rock of the
waves that carry us to safer shores. I
think. I hope.

But really, how safe am I? I’m

suddenly questioning everything, stuck in

a vortex of swirling paranoia and doubt.
Is Jase on Dornan’s side? He killed my
father. He didn’t even try to deny it.

I can’t believe it, I can’t accept it,

and I just wish I could think straight for
five fucking minutes. I wish I didn’t feel
like this. I’ve left one prison, the one
Dornan constructed for me, only to be
trapped in one of my own making. The
one in my mind that goes over and over
and over again.

I’m curled as tight as I can get into a

ball on a bed in the main cabin of the
boat. We must be going pretty fast, or be
in some crazy swell, because I swear if
the boat tilted a little more, it’d capsize.

The door is closed. I made Elliot

promise he wouldn’t let Jase come in

here. I’m going to have to face him
eventually, but I just can’t face him
now. I don’t want to hear his excuses, if
he even has any. He killed my father.

I’ve never been afraid of drowning

before, but right now, I’m terrified.
Drowning in this ship. Drowning in lies
and in blood. Drowning in my own
treacherous deceit. For so long, I’ve had
only one goal - to destroy Dornan. I was
too busy focusing on his suffering to
notice or care about my own, and now, I
feel so damned broken. I don’t know if
I’ll ever be able to feel normal again.

In fact, come to think of it, I don’t

even know what normal is.

I jump as a warm hand touches my

shoulder.

“Hey,” a low voice murmurs beside

me.

I turn over to see Elliot lying beside

me, his pose mirroring mine. I can see
water lashing against the small round
window that looks out to the cruel sea
we travel within.

“You’re

shaking,”

Elliot

says,

frowning as he reaches out a hand to me.
Without thinking, I shrink back, an
automatic response after three months of
Dornan’s psychotic hands being the only
ones to reach for me. Elliot’s face
crumples into something resembling
sadness—despair—as he reaches out to
me again, slower this time, and pushes
my lank hair back from my face.

Am I even here? I’m not sure. This

could all be a dream. An elaborate,
drug-induced hallucination. The thought
makes me reel. Am I out? Or am I still in
the basement? Is Elliot in front of me, or
is it Dornan?

Dornan.
I scramble away from Elliot,

clambering off the bed and backing up to
the far end of the tiny room. Behind me,
waves pound violently into the thick
glass porthole, the only thing separating
us from the deadly currents beyond. The
movement of the waves catches my
attention and I turn, mesmerized, as I
press a trembling palm up to the freezing
cold glass.

Am I here? Am I alive?
A nudge in my stomach, nothing

more than a flutter really, propels me
back to sanity.

Yes. I am here. I am here, while

Elliot hovers behind me, and Jase and
Luis are somewhere beyond the door
that keeps me safe in this room.

And I am carrying a baby inside me.

A baby that should never have existed.

And I don’t know if that’s a good

thing or a terrible thing.

I start to cry. Funny. I thought I was

out of tears. I’ve cried enough to last me
lifetimes, but the tears don’t know that.
They spill onto my cheeks and my arms
as I continue to watch the seawater swirl

and smash less than a foot from where I
stand.

“Julz.”
I turn slowly, wiping my cheeks with

uncertain hands. Fresh nausea roils in
my gut, but this isn’t just morning
sickness. No. This is different.

This is worse.
My head is pounding, and my mouth

is dry. Without thinking, I bring a hand
up to the crook of my elbow, fingering
the delicate flesh there that Dornan
tracked repeatedly when he injected me
every single day with enough heroin to
turn me into a babbling idiot. The image
of him swims in my vision, above me on
his bed, his arms caging me in as he
pushes the plunger down and floods my

dark soul with artificial light. With
sweet happiness that makes me light up
inside. My mouth waters just thinking
about it.

“Juliette!”
Hands are shaking me. I snap out of

my little—I don’t even know what the
fuck that was I slipped into—and find
his eyes with so much more effort than I
should need to use. I’m heavy, and I’m
weak, and I just want everything to go
away.

“What?” I reply, but my words hold

no substance. They’re like feathers, soft
and light, and they float away from me
on the wind that howls outside.

Elliot’s jaw is tight, his dark blue

eyes flashing with emotion. “What is
going on in there?” he asks, pointing at
my head. “I’ve been calling out to you
for ages.”

My eyes lose focus again, wandering

around the room, taking in every
insignificant thing. It’s all new stuff, stuff
I haven’t seen in three whole months,
and it frightens me. The bed is too soft.
The pillows are too firm. The ocean
beyond too stark, too bright even in the
moonlight.

The fact that Jase is just outside of

the door is too much for me to bear.

“You won’t let him in here, will

you?” I ask, finding Elliot again in the
dim light. His shoulders sag, the muscles
in his arms tense. I can feel the waves of

frustration pouring off him and it scares
me.

“What happened to you?” Elliot

asks, and that makes me angry. How
dare he ask me that question? I choke on
a horrified sob as I push him away from
me.

“Don’t you know?” I ask shrilly.

“Can’t you see?” But then I remember he
hasn’t seen what Dornan did to my
stomach. Hasn’t seen the mess of barely
healing flesh, the top layers violently
stripped from me with a knife and cruel
smile, as I screamed and begged for
Dornan to stop. He hasn’t seen the scars
inside my elbow, the secret map that
marks out my descent from control to

absolute chaos and dependency. He
hasn’t felt the being inside me, making
itself known with ill-timed prods and
nudges that make me feel ill. I’m still
wearing the stupid white sundress
Dornan put me in, the one that has
stretchy elastic at the sides. I lift it up,
the exact same movement I made all
those months ago when I asked Elliot to
ink over the scars Dornan and his sons
left on me. Those seven horizontal
etches in my skin, the ones Elliot
covered with his beautiful tattoo, are
gone. It’s all gone, now, in its place
something so grotesque I’m not even
sure how to describe it.

“It’s gone,” I say numbly. “He cut it

all away.”

There’s a strangled noise in the back

of a throat, and it takes me a moment to
realize the sound comes from Elliot, not
me. His face falls; he swats my hands
away from where they hold my dress up,
causing the material to waft back down
and settle above my knees. He pulls me
close to him, smothering me in his
embrace. I fight for a moment, until I
remember I don’t want to fight; I don’t
want him to go away. I don’t want to be
alone. My entire body is shaking, poised
on tenterhooks at what comes next. Stuck
in limbo, stuck on this motherfucking
boat that seems to be circumnavigating
hell itself.

“We’re going to fix you,” Elliot

says, drawing back and cupping my face
in his hands. “Do you understand? We’re
going to fix you, and then we’re going to
kill that motherfucker. Do you hear me,
Julz?”

My eyes well with fresh tears and I

can’t see him until I blink them away. I
nod vacantly; I hear him.

I hear him, but I’m not sure if I

believe him.

Dornan Ross is not a man who will

die easily.

Elliot leaves me eventually. Leaves

me to be alone to stare at the choppy
water outside. It’s settled a little, but it
is still raining, and my window half
submerged in the sea.

There’s a soft knock at the door. My

heart leaps into my throat and I spin
around, backing myself against the wall.
I’m expecting Jase to have snuck in here,
but it’s The Prospect. Luis, as Elliot
referred to him.

I swallow thickly as I watch him

enter the room, closing the door softly

behind him. His movements are slow
and cautious, his face friendly, and I get
the feeling he’s moving around on
eggshells while he figures out what kind
of state I’m in. I must have that crazy
bitch look on my face, I guess. Who
knows?

He’s got clothes in his hands, folded,

on top of them one of those TV dinners
wrapped in silver foil. The smell makes
me want to eat and be sick at the same
time, and I’m confused as to whether I’m
starving or nauseous. I guess I’m both.

He holds the clothes and food out to

me before putting them on the foot of the
bed.

“You should eat something.” He

fishes something out of the pocket of his

jacket and tosses it on the bed. A fork.

“Thank you,” I whisper, looking

between his bright blue eyes and the
food.

“The clothes are probably too big,”

he says. He talks more softly here than
he did back at Emilio’s compound.

“You killed Emilio,” I say suddenly.
He

grins,

nodding.

“Yeah,

mamacita. Yeah, I did.” He runs his
tongue over his top teeth and watches
me. He’s hovering, I suddenly realize.
He wants to ask me something, or tell me
something; I’m not sure which. My
stomach roils at the thought Jase might
be the subject he’s here for.

“Did Jason send you in here?” I ask

harshly.

He quirks his eyebrows. “Nah,

Giulietta. Your Romeo wouldn’t dare
come near you in the state you’re in.”

I roll my eyes, huffing. “He’s not my

Romeo,” I say bitterly.

I don’t even know what he is to me

right now.

“You should listen to what he has to

say sometime,” Luis says. “You might be
surprised.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, the pounding

in my head back. It feels like someone is
stabbing me behind my eyeballs. I’m so
hot, there’s a fine film of sweat on my
forehead and chest, and everything hurts.

“I think I’m getting the flu,” I say. “Is

there any aspirin on this boat from hell?”

Luis cocks his head to the side. “You

can’t take aspirin,” he says, pointing to
my stomach. “And you don’t got the flu,
bebe. You’ve got the bends.”

“What?” I snap, before I follow his

eyes to the spot on my arm where
countless needles full of heroin have slid
underneath my skin.

I’m still letting his words sink in

when he takes something from his pocket
and shakes it.

A bag of beige-colored powder.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, scratching

at my arm.

“You got the itching, too, right?” he

asks, gesturing to the way I’m raking my
fingernails up and down my arms to try

and drive the crazy crawling feeling
from my skin. It feels like millions of
fire ants are teeming across me, the
image as unsettling as the feeling itself. I
shake my head to try and get it out of my
mind, focusing on Luis.

I feel my face fall because I know

he’s right.

“Fuck,” I say softly.
He takes a few steps toward me, then

seems to think better of it and sits on the
end of the bed instead, shifting the food
and clothes behind him.

“Will it get worse?” I ask. Even

though I already know the answer better
than most. My mom was shooting this
stuff my entire childhood. I’m well
acquainted with what a junkie who is

going through withdrawal experiences.
And I’d say it hasn’t even started for me.
This is nothing. It is going to get so much
worse for me, if he’s right. And I’m
almost entirely sure he is right.

He pats the bed next to him, and I

stop scratching myself long enough to sit
beside him, as far away as I physically
can while still being on the bed. We
aren’t close enough to touch, unless he
leans over.

I stare at my bare knees, still marked

with Emilio’s blood. It doesn’t even
bother me anymore. Blood and death are
all I have right now, the only things that
tell me this is real and not some awful
hallucination, a sign I’m here and not

still stuck on that bed with that stupid
music playing full blast in my ears.

“Hey,” Luis says. I’m like a kid with

ADD; I can’t focus on anything. My mind
is like mud. Or soup. Or something
equally murky.

“You want a little bump to take the

edge off?” he asks, offering me the white
powder.

My first reaction is to push it away

and tell him to fuck off. But my arm is
heavy and the words die in my throat as I
zone in on the very thing that could take
this pain away.

Something brushes against the inside

of my abdomen and I snap out of my
daydream. I launch myself off the bed
again and back to the round porthole

again, pressing my shoulders against the
curve of the wall.

“Okay, okay,” he says, putting his

hands in front of him in a sign of peace.
He drops the baggie back into his pocket
and crosses his arms across his chest.

“You change your mind? You tell

me.”

I nod thankfully, my throat painfully

dry as I attempt to speak. “Why…why
didn’t you tell me you were one of the
good guys?”

He cuts me in half with the intensity

of his stare. He’s amused, too, the ghost
of a smirk twitching at his mouth.

“I didn’t know if I’d be able to get

you out, Giulietta.” He pulls out a

cigarette and puts it between his teeth,
holding it there for a moment before he
glances at my midsection. Sighing, he
tucks the cigarette behind his ear and
shoves the packet back into his jacket
pocket.

“Why did you care if I got out?” I

ask. “You don’t even know me.”

“Ah, but I do know you,” he says,

nodding as if he’s privy to some great
big secret I don’t know about. Which
pisses me off.

“Oh yeah?” I say. “You another Ross

brother I don’t know about? You don’t
look like the rest of them.”

He shakes his head slowly. “Not me,

bebé. I’m not related to that pig.”

“The pig you killed, or his son?” I

ask, referring to Emilio and Dornan.

He snorts. “None of them.”
My

chest

constricts.

“You are

related to her somehow. I know it.”

His expression tightens; for a

moment I think he’s angry with me, until
he reaches down into his T-shirt and
pulls out a locket attached to a thin gold
chain. I frown, confused.

“You

enjoy

wearing

women’s

jewelry?”

He flips the locket open and holds it

up for me to look at. I have to crane my
neck closer to make out the faces on the
faded

photograph

inside.

Three

teenagers who look like siblings with
their matching noses and chins.

My heart skips a beat as I recognize

one of them.

Mariana. Of course. I knew I’d been

right.

I look at Luis, stunned, as he closes

the locket again and tucks it back under
his shirt.

“My mama,” he says, his voice thick

with passion, his blue eyes ablaze with
fury.

I nod slowly, my head whirling.
“She spoke about you,” I whisper.

Memories of the past slam into me like a
car knocking the wind from me and
tossing me high into the air. I can’t get
enough air into my lungs as I remember
those final few days before hell

descended upon us all, when we still
truly believed we would escape the
vicious hold of the Gypsy Brothers.

That admission surprises him. His

eyebrows practically hit the roof. “She
did?”

I nod. “She didn’t say your name.

But she told me. She told me about her
baby boy with the big blue eyes.”

He swipes a hand over his bald,

bronze-colored skull, averting those big
blue eyes away.

“I knew there was something about

you,” I say, the first real thing I’ve said
in hours. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

He smiles, giving me a sidelong

glance that’s almost…shy. Which is
funny, given that he’s seen me naked on

more than one occasion and even worse
than that. He’s seen the things Dornan
did to me, the dark moments after he
forced himself on me. Luis has seen me
have a complete fucking meltdown while
I screamed at my mother. He’s watched
me be tortured and he’s fed me when I
was about to pass out from hunger.

“Why you?” I ask suddenly.
His lips curl into a knowing smile.

“You know how hard it is to break
someone out of a prison? Like a real,
legit prison?”

I shrug.
“It’s very fucking hard, bebé. And

it’s a piece of cake compared to the
things we had to do to get you out of that

hellhole.”

I chew on my lip, mulling that over.

My arms are itching like crazy, in fact,
my entire body is screaming to be
scratched, for me to rake my nails across
crawling flesh until bright red blood
springs forth in jagged lines. But I
restrain myself for the moment. I don’t
want to show Luis how much he’s right.
How much my veins are screaming,
sizzling on shot nerve endings, dying for
something to soothe, for something to
help me forget.

He sees right through me. He

watches my fingers as they tremble, as I
make tight fists with them and then
loosen them again, and I know he sees
the truth.

He takes the baggie of heroin out

again and tosses it at me. Stepping over
to the door, he flips the lock, then comes
back to me, a syringe materializing in his
hand.

“We’ll wean you off slowly,” he

says, looking badass in his leather, his
blood-spattered white T-shirt, and
needle in his hand. He holds it like it’s a
weapon, and in another place it would
be.

For Dornan, it was, anyway.

***

The gear is good. Better than good.

As soon as it enters my vein I feel a
rush, a burst of stars that appear behind
my eyelids and make them droop. I sag

to the side and feel hands stop me from
sliding to the floor.

Though, with the heroin kicking

around inside me, I honestly wouldn’t
give a fuck if I did fall down.

Something troubling gnaws at the

edge of the bliss, and this is how I know
he’s given me less than Dornan did. A
troubling thought rears its head—if I
died, if my heart ceases to beat, even
momentarily, what did that do to the
baby?

I make a mental note to think about

that later. I can’t focus on anything right
now, and I think I’m giggling, the sound
muffled with my face pressed against
Luis’s shoulder.

Strong arms loop around me and

pick me up easily—much, much too
easily. I am skin and bone. I sigh, letting
the bed swallow me up as Luis deposits
me under the covers and pulls them up to
my chin.

“You’ll be okay, mamacita,” he says,

but I’m already fading into the blissful
void, and I’m frozen, unable to reply.

A noise rouses me from sleep, the

scrape of a door hinge that needs oil.

I sit up in bed, my hair still plastered

to my forehead, the comforter too warm,
but without it too cold. I peer at the
figure in the dark, trying to decide it it’s
Luis or Elliot.

It’s too tall to be Luis.
“Elliot?” I whisper.
I reach over and flick on the bedside

lamp, bathing the small room in an eerie
yellow glow.

And my stomach seizes.

“You can’t be here,” I say,

panicking, sliding myself over to the far
side of the bed. I don’t have anywhere to
go—even if I could somehow maneuver
myself out the window, I’d be dropping
into an icy sea and drowned before I
could second-guess myself.

Jase is an imposing figure any day,

but usually it’s not me who is afraid of
him. But now, with the revelation he
killed my father, I am terrified. I am
angry. I am despondent. I am so
completely fucked up, and I don’t even
know where to begin.

I swallow, tasting the last remnants

of heroin, oily and bitter on the back of
my throat. “What do you want?” I ask

weakly, the heroin still dulling my
senses. I am two steps behind, too slow
to catch up, and I pray he doesn’t notice.

In the dark, I pray he doesn’t notice

the fresh needle puncture in my arm.

He’s dressed in jeans, his chest bare.

He stands on one side of the bed as I
crawl off the opposite side and stand.

It’s the most confusing standoff I

think I’ve ever had.

I love him. I do. But that alone is not

enough, not anymore.

“I want to talk,” he says finally. His

voice is cloaked in sorrow, the muted
light casting all kinds of weird shadows
around the room.

“Please go away,” I whisper.
“Juliette,” he says. My heart breaks

at the sorrow in his voice.

“You killed him,” I whisper. “How

am I ever going to forget that, Jase?”

Pain blooms in his eyes.
“You’re not,” he says quietly. “You

won’t.”

And in that moment, I know.
We’ve survived everything so far.
But we won’t survive this.
He walks toward the door, and for a

moment I am relieved.

But he doesn’t walk out. No. He

closes the door instead, with an air of
finality that says he won’t be opening it
again any time soon. I stare in horror as
his hand rests on the handle a beat too
long, before he turns to face me again.

“Get out,” I say, louder this time. My

heart is going insane inside my ribcage. I
am afraid of the man I love. It’s
unbearable.

He looks terribly sad. There are

circles under his eyes, and his hair looks
as messy as mine feels. There’s three-
day old stubble on his face that he
scratches absently, reminding me of his
father.

That reminder—it sickens me.
“I…killed him because he was going

to die anyway,” he says sadly. The effort
it takes for him to say killed is like a
shard of glass stabbing into my heart.

How dare he.
“It doesn’t matter!” I cry, picking up

the thing closest to me—a fucking pillow
—and hurling it at him across the bed. I
begin to cry.

“I hate you,” I sob brokenly, as the

pillow bounces off him and lands on the
floor. “I trusted you. I made love to you,
I told you every shitty fucking secret I
had. I gave it all to you, and you knew
all along that you killed him? You must
have been laughing at me this whole time
behind my back.”

He’s moving slowly to the end of the

bed, trying to be subtle so I don’t notice
him rounding toward me.

“Stop,” I say, pointing at him. “Stay

there.”

He doesn’t stop.
I scream.

He looks surprised. His eyes light up

in surprise.

“Shut up,” he hisses.
I take another breath. “Elliot!” I

scream.

He rushes me, coming around the

bed, all arms and hands, pushing me
against the curved hull of the boat with
one hand and slapping the other across
my mouth. My screams die as he seals
my mouth shut.

I stare at him with as much hate as I

can muster.

“What the fuck?” The door crashes

open to reveal Elliot, dressed in blue
boxer shorts with neon-yellow stars
printed all over them. He’s holding his

gun in front of him, and his light brown
hair is all mussed-up.

“Oh,” he says, lowering his gun.
Jase takes his hand from my mouth

like he’s been caught with it in the
cookie jar, running his fingers through
his hair as he takes a step back.

I give Jase the most withering glare.

“Get out, Jason.”

He doesn’t move. “You killed four

of my brothers,” he says through gritted
teeth, “and I gave you the benefit of the
doubt, Julz. I let you explain. And I’d
really fucking appreciate if you’d listen
to me for five fucking minutes. Can you
do that?”

“That depends,” I shoot back,

fucking furious.

I’m

yelling

and

throwing my arms around and I don’t
even care how overbearing I might
appear. “Did my father beat you and
rape you until he thought you were dead?
Because if he did, I’d really fucking like
to know, Jase.”

They both stare at me, stunned.
“What!” I demand.
Elliot looks awkward, scratching his

chin with the butt of his gun. “Maybe you
should hear the guy out,” he says. “I
believe him when he says it wasn’t his
fault, and I fucking hate the guy.”

My thoughts whir; I can hear them

hurtling around in my mind. Not his
faul t? Killed my father. Having his
baby. Too hard. Too much.

“It was a mercy killing, Juliette,”

Elliot adds softly, his voice thick with
sleep. “Not a murder.”

I soften at Elliot’s words. Knowing

how much he hates Jase, knowing how
hard it must be to defend the man who
ruined our relationship just because he
existed and my heart couldn’t forget him.
I feel like a fucking idiot.

“Is that true?” I ask Jase softly,

shifting my attention to him.

He nods.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Jase,

slower this time.

He laughs mirthlessly. He raises his

hands at me like he’s going to shake me
by the shoulders, but clenches them

instead as he pivots and paces.

“I TRIED to tell you,” he yells. “If

you’d shut up for five fucking minutes,
I’m

TRYING

to

tell

you

what

happened!”

Dazed, and on the verge of tears, I sit

on the end of the bed where Luis and I
spoke a few hours ago. When Luis shot
you up, you mean, my conscience
screams inside my head. I shiver, two
fingers pinching the delicate skin in the
crook my elbow that’s now marked and
bruised from the needle he gave me. I
take a deep, ragged breath, steeling
myself for what comes next.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m

listening.”

He turns again, pressing one hand

against the wall where I was just
leaning. He licks his lips, his eyes are
red and glossy. He looks terrible, and
yet I know I look so much worse. He
can’t even look at me, addressing the
wall instead.

“John and Mariana were taken by the

Sangue Cartel,” he begins, his words
slow and faltering. “The Cartel and The
Gypsy Brothers. It was a complete
clusterfuck. Dornan found out what
they’d done, and after he took you,
after…” he draws in an angry breath,
every visible muscle in his body tight to
the point I think he’ll snap, “after they
killed you, they took me. I saw them.
He…shot your dad, Julz. He shot him…

Jesus.” He scrubs his eyes angrily, and
Elliot shifts uncomfortably next to me on
bare feet, his gun held down at his side.

“Tell me,” I press him.
He clears his throat. “Dornan shot

John, and he put him in that room. That
room where you were.”

Jesus. The room I spent three months

of my life in—living a nightmare—was
the room where my father died?

“He was bleeding, real bad. It was

everywhere. And then Dornan threw me
in that room,” he shudders. “And threw a
gun in behind me.”

I can feel my palms turn slick with

sweat as I listen. I want this to stop, yet I
need to know what happened.

“Your dad, he was dying, Julz.

Where Dornan shot him? He said it was
for

betraying

him.

For

screwing

Dornan’s girlfriend behind his back. He
shot him there so he’d never screw
anyone ever again.”

I want to be sick. I imagine Dornan

pressing his gun into my father’s lap, the
fear he must have felt. The deafening
blast, the agonizing pain. My poor father.
My poor fucking father.

“Your dad was so brave, Julz,” he

says, choking up. “The dude had just
been shot in the dick, and instead of
freaking out, he was trying to make me
feel better. Trying to help me out.”

“What happened?” I breathe. “I need

to know it. All of it.”

He steadies himself, looking at me

for the first time since he started his
macabre confessional.

“He’d lost a lot of blood,” Jase says

softly. “And he was in a lot of pain.
People think when you’re shot the pain
gets better when you go into shock, but
not that kind of pain. It’s with you until
you pass out, or until you die.”

I nod, swallowing thickly; I know

that kind of pain too well. Its remnants
are written along my disfigured flesh. A
pain that doesn’t allow you to pass out.

A pain that seems to last forever.

“He told me a phone number. A

name. I memorized them. I recited them
to myself for three fucking years.

Amanda Hoyne. Nine-seven-five-three-
three-zero-five.”

“The DEA contact?” I guess.
He nods. “Even in his final hours,

your dad was more worried about me
than himself.”

Of course he would have been. He

died trying to get us out of the hell that
was the Gypsy Brothers. He did
everything for me, for Mariana, for Jase.
For us all.

It can’t all be for nothing, surely.

That would be too cruel.

“He was in so much pain,” Jase

says, his words almost dream-like. They
roll over me, like water, like fire.

“Dornan had said to me, only one of

us would be coming out of that room
alive. And that it was up to me to prove
myself. To show I could be…a Gypsy
Brother.” His eyes flash with emotion -
hatred for Dornan?

I cry, then. “He made you prove

yourself because you didn’t rape me,” I
say emptily.

He nods. “Yes, he did.”
“My father told you to do it.” It’s the

most logical explanation. Deep shame
bursts inside my chest. I didn’t trust Jase
when he needed me the most. He didn’t
murder my father. He ended his
suffering.

“Your father took the gun from me,

and I begged him to kill me. After what
I’d seen—after watching you die—I

didn’t want to live, not as a son of that
motherfucker. But your dad, he told me
I’d be able to get Dornan back one day.
He gave me what I needed to bring them
all down. A contact. Some fucking
hope.”

I’m shivering violently as I watch

Jase’s anguished speech.

“Your father smiled, even though he

was in pain, and he said, ‘Don’t be silly,
Jason. Do you know where I’ve been
shot? I’m going to die anyway.’ He’d
already made up his mind.”

“I begged John, but he took my hand,

and wrapped it around the gun. He put it
to his temple, and he squeezed the
trigger. And he died, in my arms.”

Jase finally looks at me, probably

expecting anger. Instead, all I feel is
devastation.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I

didn’t believe you.”

Oh, god. I had told him earlier he

was just like Dornan.

Elliot leaves the room, just like that.

He must see the resignation on my face,
the acceptance. It was a mercy killing.

I reach out for him, the boy I love.

The boy I’ve always loved. Hands
stretched out in front of me, and I cannot
bear to go one more second without his
skin against mine. I tell him I’m sorry,
over and over again as he crushes me in
his arms.

He whispers to me that it’s okay ,

that he’s missed me , and that he’s so
fucking glad I’m here, now, with him.

He holds me for a long time. And it

feels right. It feels better than anything.

I am safe. I am loved.
Maybe everything will finally be all

right, at least our screwed-up version of
all right. We can get through anything.
Our love survived beyond death, so we
can survive this.

“Thank you,” I say to the quiet room,

and to the boy who took me on the Ferris
wheel on our first date and held my hand
tight. The boy I was always meant to be
with. How did I ever think he could be
capable of killing my father in anything

other than mercy and desperation?

“What for?” he asks, rocking gently

from side to side, his chin resting on top
of my head, his arms clutching at me like
he’s drowning and I’m the life raft.
Which is rather ironic, really, given
what’s just happened.

“For ending his suffering,” I say, my

voice cracking under the burden of the
truth. “For making sure he didn’t die
alone.”

The relief, the embrace, is held for

several minutes before we break apart.

Because there’s something else.

There’s always something else.

“Are you…are you all right?” Jase

asks, his eyes roaming my face. They
drop to my neck, my arms, looking for
damage I suppose. I turn my arm, too
late, and he shoots a hand out, clamping
it around my wrist.

He stares at me and there seems to

be a thousand unanswered questions in
his eyes. What do I say? What do I do? I

cannot bear the shame of what I am, of
what I have become. Of what Dornan
has caused me to be.

I have become my mother. An addict.

A junkie. Mere hours ago, I sat and let
someone put a needle into my flesh, to
push forth a substance my baby—our
baby—shouldn’t be subjected to.

I am a terrible person, because

instead of thinking about how to stop, I
am already thinking about how to get
more, how to hide this, because I. Can’t.
Stop.

I feel like if I have to stop, I will die.
Jase turns my arm over, exposing my

scarred flesh, the tender skin where
veins run underneath like rivers and
tributaries, like a great system of influx

and outflow. I shudder as he presses his
thumb to the punctures in my skin, some
new, some old, all telling a story best
left unsaid.

“What is this?” Jase murmurs, his

eyes hovering between my eyes and the
telltale track marks, the story of my
destruction. I might be free, but I still
belong to Dornan.

In this moment, I feel like I will

always belong to Dornan Ross.

“He gave me drugs,” I say softly,

casually almost. Don’t let him see how
bad this is. Don’t give him another
burden to bear.

“What drugs?” he growls.
I lick my lips nervously, feeling dry,

chapped skin under my tongue. I am a
mess. I must look like some sort of gross
caricature of my former self, all bony
and dull, pale and vacant.

The word heroin is on the tip of my

tongue. I almost tell him. It’s ready
behind my teeth waiting for breath to
make it alive. Heroin.

But I am a coward. I remember my

mother. How tragic her existence was
when I was a child. How nobody, not
even my father, wanted her around
because of the way the drugs turned her
into a monster.

I remember the pity in my father’s

eyes. The frustration. The way he ended
up dying for another woman because the
first one he loved destroyed herself

every single day until there was nothing
left.

I don’t want to lie to Jase. I love

him.

But he’s all I’ve got, him and this

baby inside me, and I cannot become my
mother.

I cannot risk him leaving me. Not

after everything.

“Antibiotics,” I say automatically.

It’s not a lie, really. They did give me
that huge disgusting needle full of
antibiotics once, to stop my infected
stomach from turning gangrenous.

“For what?” he asks, looking

dubious.

I look down. See that I still haven’t

changed out of this blood-spattered
dress.

I pull my dress over my head, letting

it drop to the ground beside my bare
feet. I’m naked save for my panties, a
scarred, disfigured girl who was too
stupid to listen to his warning all those
months ago.

Don’t leave like this. He’ll kill you.
Dornan didn’t kill me, but he might

as well have.

Jase inhales sharply, his eyes stuck

on my midsection.

“How—what the hell happened?”
My eyes burn but I keep my voice

steady. I can do this. I can be numb.

“He didn’t like the way I covered up

his marks with the tattoo,” I whisper.

“He kept cutting until it was all gone.”

“With a knife?” Jase asks. He’s

disgusted. Disgusted by me. And I
deserve it.

I nod dejectedly.
I want to ask him, Will you still love

me? Even with all my scars?

He seems to read my mind. “Jesus,

Julz,” he says, pulling me toward him
again. He hugs me like I might break,
like I’m made entirely of glass, and if he
squeezes too hard I’ll shatter into pieces,
gone forever. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking
sorry, baby.”

“I should have listened to you,” I say

tonelessly, letting him pull me closer. I
can’t even ask him, I’m so afraid. I don’t

want to know if the sight of me hurts
him. It hurts me enough that we even
have to go through this. It’s my fault. I’m
the one who left, who stormed out of his
apartment and back into the arms of the
devil himself. It’s my fault.

He slides one hand into my hair,

letting his thumb brush up and down my
cheek. His other hand rests in the small
of my back. I am ruined.

“Tell me,” he says softly. “Tell me

about the baby.”

A light in the dark. Something to

hope for.

A baby. Our baby.
A tiny sliver of hope - our beacon in

this, the darkest of nights.

After I tell Jase the few details I

know—the test was positive, the baby
was moving, I had morning sickness
when I woke up in the dungeon, and
according to my basic math Jase is the
father—we both curl up on the bed, him
behind me with a protective arm slung
across me. It feels wonderful, albeit
totally foreign. In the night I turn onto my
back, his arm still heavy across my ribs,
and I study every inch of his face. I
watch the steady inhalation of each
breath, the way his lips occasionally

move subtly, and his slow exhalation.
With light fingertips I trace his
eyebrows, his eyelids. His cheekbones.
Let my touch come to rest on his full
lips.

And by then, of course, he’s cracked

an eyelid, giving me a sleepy grin. He
hasn’t been sleeping, after all. He moves
his hand to cover my stomach, his touch
gentle against my marred flesh, and I
have to bite my lip to stop myself from
bursting into tears again. Not because it
hurts, because it feels good. He’s really
here, with me, and maybe, just maybe,
things are going to be okay after all.

And then we have to go and fuck it

all up, this fragile peace. He shifts
beside me, propping himself up on an

elbow, pushing tangled hair out of my
eyes.

“Julz,” he says to me. “I love you,

okay?” There is a but in his tone.

“But?” I supply the word for him.
“But, the baby could still be his.

Right?”

Sucker punch, right in the gut. Fuck

you, Dornan Ross.

I want to die. I push Jase’s hand

away, devastated, and turn onto my side,
getting as far away from him as I can.
Our feet are still touching, tangled
together underneath the covers and I
angrily kick his away from where
they’ve been resting against mine.

I don’t have any right to be angry. I

know I’m being a fucking diva, honestly,
and even as I’m reacting like this,
curling inward, drawing back inside my
shell, I hear the voice of reason inside
my mind. He has every right to ask you
that question after the things you’ve
done.

“You’re mad at me?” he asks me,

seemingly bewildered. “Don’t you think
I deserve to know? Don’t you know I’d
be by your side no matter what?”

Inside my rational mind, I’m ninety

percent sure Dornan didn’t father the
baby. The dates are all wrong for that,
and I had a period after the last time I
slept with him. Plus, I’d been on the pill
the entire time I was screwing Dornan—
just that reality revolts me, the depths

I’ve sunk to to procure my endgame—
and I stopped taking them, purely by
accident, after leaving them at Emilio’s
compound when the bombs blew. And
then, twice, Jase and I had had sex,
unprotected, no pills, no barriers,
nothing. The baby is Jason’s.

But that ten percent of maybe it

could be Dornan’s chews at me, gnaws
and snaps until I’m a mess of tears again.

I explain these details to Jase,

through my tears, feeling like the biggest
whore in the entire world for even
having to explain in the first place. God,
what have I become in the name of
vengeance? I am so utterly, utterly
ashamed.

I vowed at the beginning I’d do

whatever it took to bring Dornan and his
sons down, but to what end? Is it worth
this, here, right now? I don’t think so.

“It

sounds

solid,”

Jase

says

dubiously, as he cradles me in the
darkness. “No mater what happens, Julz,
you’re out. You’re here. Everything is
going to be okay.”

I clear my throat and ask the question

I’ve been dreading.

“What do I do?” I ask, wiping the

tears from my cheeks. “What if it turns
out, by some shitty stroke of fate, that it
came from him?”

Jase would leave me. He’d leave

me, and I’d be all alone carrying the

baby of the devil himself.

“Hey,” Jase soothes. “I came from

him, remember? And I’m okay. I’m on
your side. It doesn’t matter.”

But it does matter, I can see it on his

face, even in the dim light thrown from
the half-moon outside. He’s being
amazing, telling me all the things I need
to hear, but I know that deep down, it
does matter to him.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I

whisper in the dark. Panic rises again
inside me, threatening to strangle me.

“You have other options. Even

where we’re going. If you don’t want to
keep

going

with

this,

I

would

understand.”

Abortion. That’s what he meant. A

vision of Elliot materialized in my mind,
of a dented tin bowl that I held in front
of me as I puked my guts up, while he
held my hair back. What do you want to
do? he’d asked me, and I had asked him
to just make it all go away. How naive I
had been, thinking it would make a
difference. Because nothing ever really
went away. I just traded one nightmare
for

another,

one

shitty

set

of

circumstances for the next. I aborted the
baby that had somehow, tragically, been
created as I was held down and
systematically raped, but I was still
trapped in hell even after I stopped
bleeding weeks later. And I mean, I’m
glad I did it, I don’t regret the

termination I had six years ago after
what Dornan and his sons did to me—
but I can’t go there again. Not again.

“I can’t go through that again,” I

blurted out.

“You mean, a termination?” Jase

asks gently.

I nod. “You think—you think it’s

going to make everything better, that it’s
going to take the pain away, but it
doesn’t. It didn’t change what they did.
Nothing does.”

Well, one thing does. Where is Luis?

I want him to tap into my vein and blow
all the pain and sorrow away with one
press of the plunger. I can’t believe I’m
thinking like this! Like my fucking
mother. I suddenly have the violent urge

to smash something.

“Let’s just wait until we get to see

someone,” he says, and he’s trying to be
reassuring, but to me, riddled with
insecurity and need, it sounds more like,
let’s see if I leave you or not.

I turn away from him for the last

time, and I close my eyes.

“Julz?” he asks again. I don’t

answer. I have nothing left to say.

I lie there awake for the entire night.

Jase eventually gets the hint and leaves
the room, closing the door softly. And
after he goes, I sit up in bed, watching
the water buffet the small round window
to my side, waiting for morning, and for
Luis.

I promise myself I’ll tell Jase about

the heroin. Soon.

I don’t get a morning visit from Luis,

and I’m starting to itch again. It sucks,
this dependency Dornan has created in
me. The lazy method he had used to
sedate me, to force me into obedience,
because he couldn’t be bothered tying
me up or locking the door? And now, I
am a heroin addict. I am addicted to the
same drug that ruined my mother and
destroyed our chance at being a real
family. The drug that made my father
virtually a single parent. The drug my
mother traded me for, a bag of smack for

her fifteen-year-old daughter. I would
take Elliot’s gun and hold it to
somebody’s head right now if it meant
I’d get some more of what I need. Luis
knows, he must. He nods silently at me
when I come above deck, finally
showered and kitted out in the jeans and
loose black T-shirt he brought me last
night, the flip flops on my feet two sizes
too big, bright red, and feeling very,
very strange since I haven’t worn
anything on my feet in three months.

The tiny jetty that we dock at has

obviously been chosen for a reason. It’s
in the middle of absolutely nowhere by
the looks of things, flanked by a tiny
strip of sand, some rocks, and densely
packed jungle beyond. The guys grab the

bags—I don’t have a single possession
to my name, except the bloodstained
dress I threw in the trash after my
shower—so I linger on the back of the
boat, watching and waiting without
making a sound.

The T-shirt sleeves are long enough

to cover up my track marks. Thank
heavens for small mercies.

I watch the three guys and wonder

how they even found each other. I tell
myself I must ask them one day soon, to
tell me the story of how they even met.
How did Elliot and Jase get beyond their
abject hatred for one another, their
desire to actually kill the other, to end up
working together? I mean, they’re

actually talking to each other and shit.
It’s insane. And Luis fits in like they’ve
all known each other a lifetime, in the
way they communicate, the way they
operate as a team.

I suddenly feel very out of place as

the lone damsel in distress. It doesn’t
alarm me, it just occurs to me that I’m in
their space now. Funny that. And yet
without me, without the things I’ve done
in the name of revenge, they might have
never met each other at all.

The boys finish loading their bags

and things into the back of a tan-colored
jeep, and gesture for me to get off the
boat. Luis hands the owner a thick wad
of cash, something that startles me out of
my daydream.

Money. My money, the money my

father and Mariana spirited away for me
all those years ago, just in case the worst
happened. Which of course, it did.
Stolen cash, hidden carefully away, in a
collection of bogus business accounts
across several tax havens. It occurs to
me I might actually need it soon. I mean,
we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere,
and I’m assuming we’re hiding out for a
good long while. That requires money,
and I need my stash of documents in the
L.A. safety-deposit box before I can
access any of that money. I’ll need to see
a doctor sometime soon, we need
somewhere to stay…I can already see
the dollars piling up in my frazzled

mind.

Right now, I am the poorest rich girl

around.

Jase sticks a hand out to me and I

grab on, letting him haul me off the boat
and onto the thin jetty. It looks ancient,
rickety enough to wash away in the next
tide. Luis is already in the front
passenger seat of the jeep parked at the
end of the jetty, a caramel-colored dude
who looks to be in his mid-thirties in the
driver’s seat. I approach cautiously, my
trust in humanity as a whole seriously
eroded, wondering if this guy is legit. I
study his face from behind my thick
sunglasses—oversized

drugstore

cheapies to shield my basement-eyes
from the glare, thanks Luis—and notice

the two share the same nose and jawline.

“Where are we?” I ask Luis as I

slide into the back seat. Jase slides in
behind me, Elliot on the opposite side.
Great. Because sitting between the two
men I love isn’t going to be awkward at
all.

Sandwiched in the middle, I look to

Luis, who’s busy texting somebody. He
drops his phone into his cup holder once
he’s finished and turns around. “We’re
in my country, bebé,” he says, winking at
me. “Welcome to Colombia.”

As the driver throws the car into

gear and burns rubber, I take a deep,
steadying breath as a dense jungle
whizzes past us.

As I think, we are a long, long way

from Venice Beach.

Crammed between Jason Ross and

Elliot McRae. In other circumstances,
what a delicious sandwich that would
be, but with our reality, it’s just fucking
weird. Elliot tried to kill Jase. And Jase
loathes Elliot. Yet here we are, the three
Musketeers and me, with Luis’s older
version driving us god only knows
where. After about an hour, we make it
out of the remote jungle and onto a
sealed road.

We don’t stay on the road for long,

five minutes if we’re lucky, and then

we’re pulling into another dirt stretch
that leads up a hill and to a small stucco
house. It looks like a dirty brown box,
sitting there in the midst of tall trees and
dense vegetation, but to me it is
positively luxurious. If it’s got running
water, that’s a plus.

Inside is just as drab, chipped

laminate furniture and beds that sag in
the middle. I couldn’t care less if I tried.
I am out of the dungeon, finally.

As we get into the house, Luis

directs me to a bedroom at the far end of
the hall. I fix the most pleading look I
can muster onto my face, and he grins,
shaking his head.

“Five minutes, bebé.”
Before I can protest, he disappears,

back in the direction of the car, and the
boys.

I enter the bedroom, my nose

immediately twitching at the dust. This
house looks like it was once lived in, but
it hasn’t been inhabited for some time.
Thick dust coats the windowsills, a
small dresser shoved up against one
wall. Even the floral bedspread that
covers the double bed looks like it used
to be a brighter color, until the dust
grayed it out. I feel like that right now.
Dull. Grayed out.

It’s hot here, a humid kind of air that

sticks to my skin. We mustn’t be that far
from the ocean, because I still smell salt
in the air that hangs around me, heavy

and oppressive.

I don’t have any possessions with

me. Nothing to weigh me down, nothing I
am attached to. I float above the dark
carpet like a ghost, my feet only barely
touching the ground beneath me, my
movements not making a single noise. It
is unnerving, this silence. In the three
months I was in the basement—the
dungeon, whatever you want to call that
hellhole—I’d grown accustomed to the
noises. The dripping of pipes that must
have intersected above my roof, letting
me know whenever water flowed
through the mansion Emilio had called
home before Luis blew his brains out.
The scraping sound, several times a day,
that marked a key in the door -

somebody

bringing

me

food…or

something worse. Bringing me pain, if it
was Dornan visiting.

Dornan.
Where is he now? I try to picture

him, wonder if he tried to save his father
when he finally made it over to him. Did
he crawl through blood and skull? Did
he try to press his hands against Emilio’s
wounds, try to help him even though it
was futile?

Did he hold the man who had created

him?

Dornan murdered my father, and now

his own father is dead. The irony is not
lost on me. I imagine him now, one son
left, just Dornan and Donny against the

world, a smaller band of increasingly
suspicious and on edge Gypsy Brothers
bikers behind their rage. I still can’t
believe they even got me out of there,
and killing Mickey and Emilio in the
process?

That

is

the

icing

on

the

motherfucking cake.

Yeah, I know. I’m a strange girl.

Horrific death and pain surrounds me,
and I still celebrate silently when one of
those bastards is taken down. I can’t
help it. It’s who I am.

I am a damaged girl.
I perch myself on the bed, shades

drawn, reveling in the solitude that
engulfs me. The silence might be scary
but the being alone part is nice, being

alone and knowing Dornan isn’t here,
ready to burst the door in and torture me
to within an inch of my life.

I have no worldly possessions.

Nowhere to be and nowhere to go. I am
just here, and so I sit with my hands in
my lap, and I wait.

After a few minutes, Luis returns.

When I snap my gaze up to see it’s him
walking through the bedroom door and
not Jase or Elliot, I am so surprised at
the relief that takes hold of me, it’s like
I’ve been sucker-punched in the gut. I
mean, I don’t even know him.

But I believe he means me no harm,

and so the rest doesn’t matter right now.
I make a mental note to speak to him

more, to see what his story is, but
somewhere inside I already know. I feel
safe with him because he is a survivor,
just like me. Not only a survivor, but a
warrior, on his own journey of
vengeance and redemption. Yes. That’s
why I feel safe with him. Because, even
more than Jase, Luis is just like me.

He closes the door and stands in

front of me. From his jeans pocket he
withdraws a plastic medicine bottle full
of cloudy fluid. My first reaction is to
frown and tilt my head. That’s not what I
want, I want to say to him. That’s not
what I need. But I clamp my lips shut,
because I cannot jeopardize this
fledgling relationship with this man,
whatever it is. This man with the bright

blue eyes who wants to rescue me from
myself, for no other reason, it would
seem, that just because he sees what I
see, as well. Because Dornan Ross took
both of our parents from us. What a sorry
connection we have—united by Dornan.
United by death.

Luis must see the displeasure

clouding my eyes, because he smirks.
“Hey, mamacita, you don’t look so
happy. Let’s fix that.”

He takes something else from his

pocket and when I catch sight of it, I get
excited. A syringe. So he is going to give
me something.

But then my heart drops, thud, back

into my stomach, because what he’s

actually holding is one of those medicine
dropper syringes, the ones they use to
give babies medicine. I bite the end of
my tongue to stop myself from
screaming.

I watch tensely as Luis uncaps the

bottle and draws light brown liquid, the
color of cola mixed with water, up into
the dropper.

“Open your mouth,” he says, and I

do. He squirts the stuff into my throat,
and it burns on the way down.

I close my mouth, willing the strong,

cherry medicine flavor to fade. It’s
disgusting, and it makes me want to
throw up. But I don’t. I will not waste
whatever he just gave me. I look up at
Luis, who is watching me silently.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say.

Underneath my blank, cool exterior, I’m
fuming, bubbling with a desperate rage
that threatens to consume me. In my head
I imagine springing to my feet, wrapping
my fingers around his throat, and
squeezing until he agrees to get me some
actual heroin.

But of course, I don’t. I snap back to

reality, take the water he’s offering me
and gulp it down, swishing some around
my mouth at the end to dilute the shitty
cherry taste coating my tongue. “Tastes
like Nyquil,” I say. “What was that?”

“Dolophine,” he says, putting the

bottle back in his pocket.

I take a deep breath. I know what

that is. Fucking methadone.

Not only am I a fucking addict, but

I’ve just swallowed the drug my mother
was given countless times to curb her
own dependence, a drug she loathed
because it didn’t give her that same
instantaneous

bliss

the

smack

guaranteed.

I burst into tears.
“Hey, mamacita,” Luis says softly,

coming to sit beside me. He pats my
back, maybe in an attempt to snap me out
of my own wallowing.

I catch sight of myself in the full-

length mirror at the end of the bed, and
what I see disgusts me. Where is the
strong girl, the girl who dealt with her
enemies in poison and fire? Where is the

girl who thrived on pain, the girl who
got off on the suffering of her foes, who
tasted the salty tears of Dornan Ross and
declared herself the winner? Where am I
under the layers of trauma and scarring?

Who am I anymore?
I look away from the mirror. I can’t

bear to see any more. The weak, thin girl
with the swollen belly, the girl who
carries the weight of her lies inside her
like a toxic virus. I’m tired. I’m
desperate.

“Please,” I beg Luis. “Please, I

can’t. I need the real thing.”

His blue eyes darken, and he shakes

his head emphatically. “Think of your
mama,” he says.

“I don’t want to think about that

bitch,” I snap. “It was better when I
thought she was dead.”

I press a hand to my mouth as I hear

my own words.

“I didn’t mean that,” I whisper,

taking my hand away just long enough to
let those four words out before clamping
it back down. I didn’t mean that, I didn’t
mean that. What is happening to me? My
desperation, my utter despair at needing
what I cannot have, just one little hit,
curls around me like poison ivy,
dragging me down to the earth.
Suddenly, I am so heavy I could sleep.

“A few weeks, bebé,” he says,

reaching underneath his shirt and taking

out a chain, black rosary beads and gold
with a black and gold cross hanging
from one end. He drapes the long chain
over my head, letting it fall onto my
chest.

“Are you going to tell them?” I

whisper, fingering the delicate cross. I
feel bad, taking this from him. I don’t
believe in God, not anymore.

“Nah,” Luis says. “We can do this,

Giulietta. You’ll be all right in a couple
weeks.”

I feel guilty. Taking his rosary beads.

“I can’t take these,” I say, hiking the
beads back off myself and holding them
out to him, tangled up in my fist. “I’m not
even remotely religious. It wouldn’t be
right to take your beads like this.”

He shakes his head, his eyes soft,

and pushes my fist back toward me.

“It’s a loan,” he clarifies, giving me

a wink. “You need something to fidget
with when you’re thinking of the smack,
bebe. You get past that, you give them
back to me then.”

He’s got a point. I remember my

mother digging at her own skin until it
bled on the few occasions she either
tried to quit cold turkey or had run out of
her beloved heroin. “Thank you,” I
whisper, untangling the beads and
putting them back around my neck.

“Hey, Julz?” Elliot calls from the

kitchen. “Where you at?”

I look toward Luis, who shrugs.

Time to face the music.

Luis excuses himself to pick up more

supplies, tearing off in his jeep with the
guy who looks just like him. He’s said
his father is dead, murdered by Emilio,
so I have to assume that he is another
relative.

Mariana’s

relative?

The

obsession with figuring out how it had
all gone down all those years ago is
killing me. I want to know.

The three of us sit around a scuffed

laminate table that rocks on the floor.
I’m not sure what’s at fault - the table or
the uneven floor itself. I rest my elbows
on the table, a dull warmth forming in

my stomach, and survey Jase and Elliot
as they sit across from me.

Elliot looks relieved, Jase worried.

They wear matching poker faces, but
I’ve known these boys a long time, and
even in their blank looks I find the truth.

I can tell what they’re thinking.

Elliot thinks now I’ve been rescued, the
horror is over. Happily ever after. He
rescued the girl, he made the deal, and
he made it out alive. I know Elliot
McRae, and I know he thinks this is
finished.

I glance to the left, to where Jase is

grinding his jaw noiselessly, and I know
what he’s thinking: It’s only just begun.

I reach my hands across the table,

wiggling my fingers at them. “Hands,” I
say softly, and they each slowly break
out of their own worlds. Jase darts his
hand over to mine, crushing it with his.

Elliot watches as Jase’s hand hits

mine and hesitates.

“El,” I urge, reaching across the

table. “We’re all friends. Fucked-up
friends, but friends. Come on.”

He rests his palm atop mine, but

doesn’t do the whole almost break my
fingers thing Jase did. He is more
reserved, and I see the way he holds
back. The way his body language and the
distance in his eyes says this isn’t my
girl anymore.

I take a deep breath as I study the

two people in this world who are my

absolution.

“Thank you,” I say, squeezing each

of their hands, tears welling in my eyes.

“Thank you for getting me out of

there. For risking your lives. And…”

Even now, I find it so hard to admit

fault. I am so stubborn. Just like my dad
was.

“I am sorry,” I whisper, with every

ounce of emotion that lives inside me.
The

overwhelming

gratitude.

The

crushing sorrow. I bundle it up into those
three words, I am sorry, and hope they
believe me.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jase

murmurs, staring at my hand, the one
he’s holding. Elliot swallows thickly,

his eyes glassy. These men have done
everything in their quest to save me, and
I can never repay them for that.

“I do,” I murmur, tilting my head

back and blinking so the tears don’t fall.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.
I was selfish, and I used you both, and
I’m sorry.”

They don’t speak. Elliot fixes me

with his sorrowful stare, waiting for me
to continue.

“I don’t like the person I’ve

become,” I press on, the truth stinging
me. “The things I’ve done. If I met me
right now, I would hate me.”

Jase shakes his head, running his free

hand through his short hair. “Nobody
hates you, Julz.”

Except Dornan.
“My father would be so disgusted by

me,” I whisper, tears dripping down my
face, my voice remaining strong by some
miracle. “He would hate me.”

Elliot looks frozen, like he can’t

form words. Jase drops my hand and sits
back in his chair, lacing both hands
behind his head. He looks like he’s aged
five years in three months.

My fault. My fucking fault.
Elliot uses this time to drop my hand,

too. He gives it a gentle pat, before
standing and walking over to the
window. He parts the curtain slightly,
looking outside, close enough to still be
a part of this discussion.

“Your father would be proud of

you,” Jase says finally. “Horrified, but
proud. He raised you to be a fighter,
Juliette. He’d be fucking proud.”

A flash of the past bites at the back

of my mind, of the first time I walked
into Dornan’s office after six years dead
and let him put his hands on me,
welcomed it, and even got off on it in
some

perverse

way.

I

shudder,

wondering how I ever thought it would
end up anywhere other than here.

Dornan was always going to find

out. I think I knew that, deep down, but I
pushed it aside, assigned that horror to
future Juliette, because present Juliette
just wanted to drown her pain and her

grief in a dirty little cycle of fucking and
killing.

“I could’ve just bombed that fucking

clubhouse and let them all burn to death
inside,” I say, my words thick with grief
and realization. This is the first time I’ve
ever acknowledged this out loud. And it
hurts. I am a bad person.

“I could’ve paid a dude with a

sniper rifle to take each one of them out,
end it all in a day. I could’ve figured out
a way to frame them for something, get
them arrested and thrown in jail.”

Elliot’s expression says devastated,

Jase’s says numb.

“But I didn’t,” I finish, the truth like

a stab to my gut. “Because that would be
too kind. That would be too unsatisfying.

You understand? I had to do it like this
because I needed to watch them die. I
needed to know that they knew who I
was, and feel the same fear I felt when
they thought I was dying at their hands.”

I am a bad, bad person, as bad as

they come. Because this is my truth.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jase says

suddenly, but I press on. I have to finish.

“I’m so sorry I risked both of your

lives for my fucked-up vendetta.” I am
so fucking sorry. “Elliot, I’m so sorry
you gave everything up for me. Your
life, your career, and now your safety.
I’m sorry you had to hide your family
away because of my selfish crusade. I’m
sorry you had to build a new life after

you gave your old one up for me, and
I’m sorry you lost that one, too.”

He doesn’t respond. His face is

drawn, his cheeks pink, as if, for the first
time, he’s realizing how much that
decision to save the dying girl six years
ago has actually cost him. But he doesn’t
look angry. He just looks really, really
tired.

“Jase, I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m so

sorry I felt like I couldn’t tell you who I
was. Because I should have known you
weren’t like them, but after six years, I
couldn’t understand how you were still
there with them. I should have looked
harder.”

I think of all the people who died at

Dornan’s hands. Jase’s mom. Mariana.

My father.

“I should have known you’d never

give up on avenging all that death.”

His stubbled jaw tightens; he rubs

his red eyes with his palms.

“I’m sorry for what I did with

Dornan,” I whisper.

He shakes his head, covers his eyes.

“Don’t,” he says. “I can’t talk about that,
not now.”

I swallow, nodding sadly. Elliot

steps away from the window as a buzz
emanates from his pocket. He drags his
phone out and looks at the display.
“Sorry, I gotta take this,” he says,
busting the front door open and closing it
loudly behind him. I imagine him on the

stairs, talking to his ex, or maybe to his
grandma.

I turn my attention back to Jase. “My

darling boy,” I whisper, my two palms
outstretched. A sad smile ghosts across
his face, his thick eyelashes glistening.
He isn’t crying—he’s far too stubborn to
cry in front of me—but he’s right on the
edge.

“I thought he’d killed you,” Jase

says, distraught. “I walked into that room
and there was blood everywhere, and I
thought you were dead.”

The lump in my throat is like a piece

of razor blade, wedged in my neck; I try
to swallow and talk around it, but it
doesn’t budge.

“You must hate me for the way I left

things,” I say softly. “For the way I
stormed out of your house, for the things
I said. I don’t know what I was saying. I
was stupid.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t hate

you, baby. I couldn’t hate you if I tried.”

My smile is watery but full; the

contraction of facial muscles squeezes
more tears from the corners of my eyes.
“Sometimes,” I whisper, “I wish we
were different people. That we’d been
born into another life. That we didn’t
have to fight so hard just to have each
other.”

He simply nods, bringing one of my

hands up to his mouth and kissing the
back of it so slowly, so tenderly, I feel

like I might break in two.

“It’s worth it, though,” I add, my skin

burning pleasantly where his lips have
touched.

He smiles. “I know,” he murmurs.
He stands, taking my hand, leading

me down the hallway back to the
bedroom where Luis gave me the
methadone.

“You should rest,” he murmurs. “I’ll

fix you a sandwich.”

I don’t resist. I’m too tired, and so

hungry I could eat a horse. I arrange
several pillows against the headrest and
sit against them on the bed.

I am safe. I am free.
It’s still so utterly foreign, and it

makes me realize how crazy I must have

been acting on the boat last night. When I
refused to let Jase near me. Fuck, what a
bitch I must seem. A damaged, crazy,
bitch.

It’s only afterward, while I’m

chewing on the sandwich Jase has made
me that I remember.

I still have that craving at the back of

my mind, that annoying, on-edge, cloying
sensation that screams for another hit.

But the itch that covered my body,

it’s gone. The nausea is much less
intense. And the pounding in my head is
better, too.

Maybe I can do this, after all. And

Jase will never need to know how close
I came to becoming my mother.

Jase falls asleep on the bed next to

me before I’ve even finished eating. He
must be exhausted. I doubt he’s had
much sleep at all, worried sick, staying
up to make sure nobody hijacked our
ship in the night as we drifted out of
Dornan’s grip. I gently shift myself off
the side of the bed and pad out of the
room. It’s been raining steadily for a few
minutes now, rain thrumming down on
the tin roof, and I hear the guttering gush
and creak with the onslaught of heavy
rain.

I spot the top of Elliot’s head as he

sits outside, under the verandah, just like
he always used to in Nebraska. There’s
a peace here that didn’t exist in Los
Angeles, even when I was somewhere
hidden away from Dornan. A quiet
stillness punctuated only by the rain that
pours from the heavens above us. The
little old house almost seems to rattle
under the weight of it.

I find a kettle and rinse it out, boiling

it and making tea with the teabags I find
underneath the sink. There’s no milk, not
yet at least, so I put a little cold water
and some sugar in each mug and give
them a stir. Holding the two mug handles
in one hand, I get the door open using a

combination of my hand and my hip.

Elliot glances briefly behind him, his

hand going to the gun beside him on the
step. When he sees me, he smiles
briefly, taking his hand from the gun.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Am I

interrupting?”

Elliot’s always been a thinker. I

know he likes his solitude; I don’t want
to intrude.

He shakes his head, accepting one of

the tea mugs. “Nah. I was just sitting.”

It’s awkward for him being here. I

can tell.

“What’s the plan?” I ask him. Jase

likes to shield me from things, to give
me vague half-answers because he thinks
I can’t handle things. And he thinks I am

so weak and defenseless and pregnant
right now, I doubt he’d share anything
vaguely important with me if he thought
it might alarm me.

Elliot shrugs lazily. “Get you out.

And run. That was the plan. Now?” he
takes a sip of the tea and pulls a face,
“now, I don’t know.”

I nod, staring into my own tea. I

probably won’t even drink it; I just like
the way it feels comforting to hold tea in
my hands.

“Where are the girls?” I ask,

referring to Kayla, his daughter, and
Amy, his ex.

“Somewhere

safe,”

he

says.

“Somewhere nobody will look.”

I nod. “And grandma?”
His face drops. “She’s at home,” he

says, with difficulty. “Wouldn’t leave
her place. Said the diner was too busy,
and that she’d keep her shotgun loaded.”

“Oh,” I say.
“I’m going to get her to change her

mind,” he adds. “Stubborn old woman.”

That makes me feel relieved. She

shouldn’t be in the path of danger
because of me.

“I’m sorry I put you in this position,

El,” I say, and I am so fucking sorry right
now I feel like my heart might break in
two.

He nods, staring at the densely

packed trees that surround the house.

Some of them are so tall, I can’t even
tell where they end.

“Yeah, well,” he says, giving me a

small smile. “It was always just a matter
of time, right? Until they figured out
what happened? I mean, that guy at the
diner years ago—that was just a lucky
fluke I was there, and that I was
packing.”

I nod, a chill settling into my bones

as I remember the Gypsy Brother who
inexplicably stumbled upon me, the girl
everyone thought was dead, his greedy
eyes lighting up in delight as he probably
counted the bonus Dornan would give
him for forcing me into his car and
taking me back to him. You look pretty
good for a dead girl. And then he hadn’t

been able to see me at all, because Elliot
had shot him in the head and buried the
body in the woods.

“Yeah, I guess.”
We sit there, silent for a little longer,

as our tea turns cold.

“A baby, huh?” Elliot says, finally. I

hear the anguish in his voice. The
torment.

“Yep,” I reply awkwardly, unable to

meet his gaze.

“I’m happy for you, Julz,” he says,

patting

my

knee.

“You

deserve

something good after everything.”

Is it good, though?
“And Jase is a good guy. As much as

I fucking hate saying that, he’s proven

me wrong.”

He chuckles to himself, shaking his

head.

“What?” I press. “Some inside

secret I don’t know about?”

He shrugs, flashing me a dazzling

smile. “Nah. Just that, I never told you
how I almost killed him once.”

This is news to me. “What?”
He smiles self-depreciatingly, taking

a sip of tea. “Had the motherfucker lined
up in the crosshairs of my sniper rifle.
Finger on the trigger and everything.”

I feel sick.
“What happened?” I ask, not sure

than I want to know.

“I breathed in,” he says casually. “I

breathed back out, and my fucking phone

rang.”

“Who was it?”
“It was Amy. She was calling to tell

me she was pregnant with my kid.”

Oh.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “I

packed that gun up faster than you could
say Gypsy Brother, and I got the fuck out
of there.”

Huh. His girlfriend getting pregnant

three years ago might have ruined any
chance of him coming back to me, the
girl who waited ceaselessly for him, but
inexplicably, it had given me another
chance at life with Jason. And, of
course, the baby I carry inside me now.

He stands, throwing the last of his

tea on the dirt beneath the steps. “Tell
that to your kid one day,” he says with an
amused smile, offering me a hand up.
“Make sure Jase hears every word.”

I raise my eyebrows as he lifts me to

my feet. “You are such a shit stirrer,” I
admonish, shaking my head at him.

“You better believe it,” he says,

opening the door and ushering me back
inside.

The next day, Elliot leaves. He

wraps me in a tight bear hug before he
gets into the old jeep with Luis. I can see
the worry etched onto his face. And it
kills me that I’m the reason it exists.

After giving me another dose of the

cherry-flavored

syrup

later

that

afternoon, Luis informs me he’s lined up
a doctor for me to see. A baby doctor.
He hands me a crumpled piece of paper
with a hand drawn mud map and an
address that’s barely decipherable.

“You mean, an obstetrician?” I ask

him.

He clicks his fingers. “Yeah, that.”
“Thank you so much,” I say

gratefully, feeling blessed to have
someone—a virtual stranger—watching
out for me. I still haven’t heard the full
story about how he ended up working
with Jase and Elliot to bust me out of
Emilio’s compound, but I know the three
have some kind of bizarre bromance
going on. It’s kind of cute.

“Come see me before you go,” he

says, giving me a meaningful stare. I
nod, pocketing the directions.

Ten minutes before we are due to

leave, I find him in the small woodshed
attached to the back of the house. He’s
sitting on an upturned milk crate,

smoking a cigarette, almost like he’s
been waiting for me. He stands and
crushes the cigarette under his boot as I
approach, waving the smoke away as if
he’s forming a path of clean air for me.
It’s insane how attentive these three are
being on account of my being pregnant.

“Thanks again,” I say. “For setting

this

up. And

for,

you

know…

everything.”

He smiles. “You’re welcome,” he

says. “Good choice on the outfit.”

I look down at what I’m wearing.

I’m not sure what he’s saying until he
pokes my arm. “The marks,” he says.
“Don’t show the doctor, and if he sees,
make something up.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
He shrugs, and starts walking toward

the house. Right. That must be it.

The drive takes us half an hour. It’d

be quicker, but a lot of the roads here
are unsealed, and with the recent rain,
Jase has to drive carefully to avoid us
getting bogged. I can just imagine how
that would turn out. Once we’re at the
hospital and settled into the consultation
room, Jase starts poking around at the
equipment as I watch him from my spot
on the exam table.

He pulls a face at me as he picks up

a small replica of a woman’s pelvis
with a cabbage patch doll’s head stuffed
through the middle. It’s such a light-

hearted thing, such an innocent moment,
that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
at how little of these moments we’ve
actually had together since he figured out
who I was. I decide to go with laughing,
and I have to cover my mouth with my
hands to stop from sounding like the
hysterical pregnant lady.

He puts the pelvis-doll display back

down and smiles at me, a boyish grin
that shows his dimples.

“I haven’t seen those in years,” I say,

reaching out and pressing my finger into
the deep dimple in his right cheek. He
just keeps on smiling, a glint in his eye,
and I realize that maybe he’s telling the
truth. He’s excited. He’s actually happy
to be here with me, even after everything

that’s happened, even knowing that there
is a chance this baby might belong to a
monster instead of to him.

That realization makes me tear up,

and his smile turns to concern. “You
okay?”

I nod, smiling through my tears. “I’m

better than okay,” I reply, reaching over
and squeezing his hand.

The doctor arrives eventually, asking

me a whole bunch of questions. When
was my last period? Have I taken any
drugs? Of course, I lie when he asks me
that. Jase cannot find out what happened.

After he’s finished with his boring

questions, and poked around my stomach
a little bit—I’ve explained my wound as

a burn from a wood fire, though I don’t
know if he buys it—he sends us down
the corridor with a slip of paper. As
we’re

walking

to

the

ultrasound

department, Jase stops me with a tug at
my elbow.

“Why did you lie?” he asks me.

“That’s not a burn.”

I shrug. “I don’t know. How do I

explain what really happened?”

Jase seems to think about that for a

moment.

“Like, really,” I add. “How do I

even begin to put that into words?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the anger is

back. “I suppose you’re right.”

I don’t want him to be angry. As we

keep walking toward the radiology

department, I slip my hand into his,
giving it a reassuring squeeze. He
squeezes my hand back, our secret
language, the thing we used even as
teenage sweethearts to talk to each other
without using words. I look at him
sidelong, and he flashes me a smile.
We’re okay. This is going to be okay.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t

worried. I might’ve felt the baby move a
few times, but I don’t know if it’s okay. I
can only hope and pray that whatever
horrors I’ve experienced in the past
three months haven’t affected it.

It doesn’t take long for the technician

to get me half-naked and on the bed. I
should’ve worn a dress, I think to myself

as I shed my jeans and climb up on the
table. I take a deep breath as I realize my
hands are shaking. I am so nervous right
now.

The technician asks me a round of

the same questions I just answered in the
doctor’s office, and I repeat each
answer. Last menstrual cycle. Average
cycle length. That delightfully mundane
stuff. Then, finally, Jase and I are glued
to the monitor as hazy black and white
snow fills the screen.

It doesn’t take long for something to

materialize, and when it does, I gasp.

A baby. A fully formed baby, with

arms and legs, waving madly as if it
knows we’re looking. I actually hear
Jase make a surprised noise beside me,

and when I look at him, he’s beaming. I
blink back a grateful tear as I pay
attention to the screen, trying to follow
the measurements but in the end just
watching tiny limbs as they dance
around.

The technician stops for a moment

and leaves the room, calling “un
minuto,” as she leaves. I look at Jase.
“Do you think she’s worried?” I ask.

Jase shakes his head. “Nah. Maybe

she’s getting someone to tell us in
English.”

I nod. Yeah. That has to be it.
The doctor bustles in and takes one

look at the screen, then nods at the
technician. “See these three lines?” he

asks us, pointing to the screen.

I peer at what I think are three lines,

but I can’t even see what context they’re
in. The limbs are gone now, and this is a
close up of something. Of what, I’ve no
idea.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, my

stomach sinking.

“No,” the doctor says quickly.

“Everything is perfect. Three lines
means a girl.”

Everything is perfect. Three lines

means a girl.

I start a chin wobble that will surely

dissipate into a stream of tears. “It…
she…is okay?”

The doctor frowns, handing me a

print-off of several grainy pictures that

show our perfect baby in various stages.

“Madam, I am not sure what has

happened to you to make you question
your baby’s health,” the doctor says
cautiously, his eyes dropping to my
scarred stomach. “But I can assure you,
from everything we can see now, your
baby is in perfect health. You’ve passed
the danger period, so you can go ahead
and start telling people now.”

I nod, relief flooding my veins. “And

the conception date, was that accurate?”
I feel Jase tense beside me. The doctor
scans his paperwork and nods. “Usually
a conception date is hard to pin down,
but in this case, your due date tracks
perfectly with the baby’s size. You must

keep a good diary.” He winks at me, and
I can’t suppress the smile on my face.
Jase kisses the top of my head.

A little more of the wall I’ve built

around my heart crumbles. I let myself
sink into the feeling of relief that floods
me, just for a moment.

Because I can finally believe the

words I keep whispering to myself in my
darkest moments of doubt.

Everything is going to be okay.

That night, the house is silent. Luis is

off somewhere and Elliot is gone, back
to his girls, and hopefully to force
grandma to leave her house in case
Dornan decides to pay her a visit. I
decide to take a shower after dinner and
get an early night. Pregnancy is kicking
my ass all of a sudden.

As I turn off the water Jase appears

in the bathroom. We’ve been fairly
intimate, kissing and holding each other,
but he hasn’t seen me naked since
Dornan cut my tattoo away. I’m so self-
conscious now, and I make sure I’m

always covered up.

Jase hands me a towel, and I wrap it

around myself, stepping out of the
bathtub onto the bathmat. “There’s still
some hot water left,” I murmur, not
looking at him as I reach for my
toothbrush and toothpaste. Thanks, Luis.
The guy thought of everything - he’s even
got bottles of prenatal vitamins stacked
up on the kitchen counter for me.

“Thanks,” Jase murmurs, giving me a

lingering kiss on the top of my head as
he steps past me.

Jase takes his shirt off and drops it to

the ground, and I do a quick brush and
rinse, shoving the toothbrush back in the
makeup bag Luis also bought me. I have
a feeling I owe the dude a lot, and not

just money. I owe him big time for
setting all of this up for us, for helping
us, for those sweet, reassuring yet
cryptic words he uttered to me while I
was still Dornan’s prisoner. It’ll all be
over soon. I wonder if he had already
started

buying

me

vitamins

and

toothbrushes when he spoken those
words in my ear.

I turn and lean against the sink,

watching as Jase sheds the rest of his
clothes, placing his gun on the
windowsill

in

the

shower.

He’s

obviously still on edge, which makes me
think he either needs to relax a little, or I
need to get my own gun to keep on me at
all times.

He’s about to step into the shower

when I step forward, completely on
impulse, and tug his hand. He looks
down at my hand and then to my eyes,
and I smile back at him almost shyly.

“Julz…” he begins, looking torn.
“Jase,” I echo his tone, but with a

playful smirk.

His naked form in front of me is too

much. He’s devastatingly good-looking,
all tightly coiled muscle and sinew, a
“V” that draws from his tightly packed
abs down to the thing I’m more
interested in. Yes. I’ve missed him so
fucking much it hurts me to think about it.
How is it I’ve loved this boy madly and
deeply for over seven years, almost

since the moment I met him, and we’ve
only made love a handful of times? It’s
not right.

Desire flares across my midsection

and lower, a delicious itch that must be
scratched at once. I wonder if he’ll be
game or if he sees me as tainted and
ruined after the last three months? Can
push that horror away to reconnect? To
be together the way we were always
meant to be.

I no longer think he’s disgusted by

me. When I saw the look in his eyes
when he saw our baby on the ultrasound,
my last paranoid fear was drowned in
the brilliance of his excited smile.

He loves me. I believe this, now.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, and his eyes

widen slightly.

He won’t, I think. He’s afraid
But he does. He rushes me, pinning

me against the sink as he presses his lips
greedily against mine. A thrill courses
through me as our tongues collide, as
months and years of pent-up desire
crackles in the air around us. I rip the
towel from around my torso, letting it
fall to the ground. I press my body to his,
scars and all, needing every possible
inch of our bare skin to be touching. I
need this man like I need air to
breathe.

I burn. Because this is electric. His

touch ignites in the most delicious of
ways, his cock thick and hard as it

presses against my skin, wedged firmly
between us. I moan as he breaks the kiss
long enough to lean down and take a
nipple in his mouth, sucking lightly. I use
the shift in our bodies and the slight gap
between us to reach my hand down and
wrap my fingers around him, pumping
my hand slowly back and forth.

“Fuuuuuck,” he groans, moving his

hips to match my own rhythm. He
releases my nipple and stands tall,
batting my hand away from his cock and
cupping my ass in his hands. Attacking
my mouth again, he lifts me up and
deposits me on the bathroom counter. I
smile as he uses his body and one of his
hands to push my legs wider apart, so
wide it aches. I gasp as he trails his

fingers up the inside of my thigh, rubbing
fingertips over my slick heat and around
my sensitive nub before he plunges one
finger inside me.

“Oh, fuck,” I moan, pressing my

mouth to his tattooed shoulder and biting
gently. I could come right now, like this,
especially with the way he’s touching
me, two fingers now thrusting slowly in
and out of my wetness.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he murmurs.

“You’re so fucking wet.” He continues
to touch me with an intensity that tells
me he’s only just getting started. Just as
I’m pushing my hips farther forward into
his thrusts and cresting that peak, he
stops, withdrawing his touch completely.

Son of a bitch. I attempt to catch my

breath as he takes one step back his cock
standing to attention, so ready for me. He
uses my wetness to smear across his
dick, squeezing himself with a look of
barely bridled lust.

“Please,” I say, squirming in the spot

he’s left me, my legs still wide, my
pussy burning. He smiles, steps closer,
pressing the tip of his cock against my
wetness.

“Please what?“ he asks, a cocky

smirk on his face. My darling boy. Here
he is. I thought I’d lost him, but here he
is. With me.

“Please, fuck me,” I say, smiling

wickedly.

He grabs my jaw roughly with one

hand, parting my lips with his thumb,
devouring me greedily with his tongue.
He’s exactly where I want him to be, but
he’s not moving, hovered just outside of
me.

I pull my mouth away a little, enough

to beg him to keep going, when he
pushes himself into me in one long
stroke.

“Ahhhh!” I yell, before his mouth

drowns my surprised exclamation.

He stays still inside me for a

moment, as I stretch around him,
adjusting to his size. I moan with
satisfaction as he begins to thrust his
hips, sliding in and out of me. It’s like

we were made for each other—if he was
any bigger it would hurt, but this way,
it’s a tight but perfect fit between our
two bodies. He keeps thrusting as I
climb that white-hot peak again, until
finally, I can’t hold it off any longer. I
open my mouth crying out loudly, and
Jase growls low in his throat. When he
sees my face, sees what he’s doing to
me, I feel him go even harder inside me
as his entire body stiffens and he roars,
four sharp thrusts as he comes inside me.
Well, it’s not like we need to worry
about me getting knocked up, I think
wryly, watching his face as he finishes
his own climax and drags in a sated
breath.

“Hol y fuck,” he whispers, closing

his eyes and pressing his forehead to
mine.

I just nod, enjoying the way the fine

sheen of sweat on his forehead melts
into my skin, one body to another, two
people as one entity. I’m still not ready
for it to be over as he begins to pull out
of me; I press my hands to his lower
back, holding him to me, and he stills.

We

stay

like

that

until

the

temperature drops and our bodies turn
cold. Outside, the sun dips below the
horizon.

And for these moments, it’s just us,

just Jason and Juliette, two people
who’ve fought through every shitty thing
to get to this moment.

And it’s beautiful.

We spend several weeks alone at the

house. Luis visits us every couple of
days, but most of the time, it’s just us. I
can tell Jase doesn’t want to take me
anywhere—it’s still going to take a
while to regain the strength and weight I
lost under Dornan’s (lack of) care, and
Jase insists on feeding me up, cooking
me creamy pastas and juicy hunks of
beef. We talk a lot about the future—
kind of—but we don’t talk about
Dornan. We both seem to know we need
to focus on the baby before we do

anything reckless. However, the thought
of Dornan still out there, actively
looking for us, makes me frightened
beyond belief. I find it so hard to
reconcile this new, meek and afraid girl
with the tough-as-nails Julz that woke up
in a nightmare three months ago, but that
Julz didn’t know if she pushed Dornan
too much, it could cost her her child.

Walks on the beach and dinners on

the porch. Lazy afternoon sex and
spooning at night. Everything is tinged
with a film of fear, but most of the time, I
think we do a pretty good job of
blocking out the threat of the Gypsy
Brothers and focusing on us. It’s the first
time we’ve ever been able to just
peacefully co-exist, and I find myself

falling even deeper in love with this man
who is my everything.

I lock the bathroom door once a day

and retrieve my bottle of medicine from
the depths of my makeup bag, measuring
a slightly smaller dose as each week
passes. My one dirty little secret
amongst all the good stuff, but with each
passing day, I’m more confident I can do
this. I can beat this. When the bottle runs
out, Luis seems to know, turning up with
another.

He is truly a guardian angel, and I

don’t even know why he’d do this for
me. I want to talk to him about his
mother, about my father, but he doesn’t
seem ready to talk about that. When I

question Jase about him, he’s just as
vague, warning me away from pushing
him too far. Seems The Prospect has a
few scars of his own.

On the beach one afternoon, I am

dressed in a cheap blue one-piece I
picked up at a gas station during one of
our rare ventures into town for supplies.
Jase is wearing swimming trunks, his
back bare, the GYPSY BROTHERS
tattoo emblazoned on his skin like a
homing beacon.

I touch my salty fingers to the thick

black lettering on his back and he
flinches slightly.

“Luis is getting his lasered off,” Jase

says quietly, scanning the deserted beach
from behind his aviators. “I think I’ll do

the same.”

I think about that for a moment, as I

trace each letter with my fingertip, the
black ink an obvious burden to him.

“I think you should leave it,” I

whisper, pressing my palm flat against
his back.

He turns sharply to look at me.

“What? Why?”

“Because you’ll be the only one

left.” After we kill that motherfucker
and his son, those bastards who refuse
to die. “Imagine how afraid people will
be of you, then.”

Jase laughs, taking my hand and

dragging me around to the front of him. I
end up face-up in his lap, smiling as he

peppers kisses all over my face.

“I don’t want people to be afraid of

me,” he says, tracing underneath my eye
with his thumb. “I just want to be a
regular guy, with a regular wife, and a
regular kid.”

“I’d love to meet them,” I say lightly.
He rolls his eyes, kissing me again.

“I’m talking about you,” he says, and my
heart does a pleasant little skip.

“We should buy you a minivan,” I

joke.

Jase raises his eyebrows, patting the

side of my cheek. “That is a terrible
idea,” he says, leaning down and
pressing his lips to mine. I laugh as his
salty lips crash into mine, a real, light-
hearted laugh that fills me with hope.

I am really here. With the man I love.

And our baby. A baby who by the odds,
should never have survived being in that
basement with Dornan. I shiver as
Dornan’s face looms above me, just like
it always has. I hope that once he’s dead,
I can forget him, but I’m not so sure.

Jase breaks the kiss. “I’m hot,” he

says. “We should swim. You coming?”

I nod, and he gets to his feet, giving

me a hand up.

The water is a cold slap, but

refreshing at the same time. With the
methadone I’m slightly sleepy all the
time, so it feels good to be woken up by
the cold seawater. I float on my back
impressed with the way my bump rises

out of the water, when Jase yells.

I put my feet down quickly, scanning

the beach as I wipe salt water from my
eyes. “What?”

He’s holding something in his hand.

“I found something in the sand!”

I will my heart to stop beating so

fast. Nobody is after us. We’ve not about
to get ripped apart by bullets. No, he
found something in the sand.

I swim over to Jase and stand, waist-

deep in the water. He’s on his knees,
still searching the water, and he holds
something up to me.

It’s a ring. It looks like an antique,

diamonds pressed into the thin band and
a monster square diamond in the middle,
surrounded by smaller ones.

I hold it up to the light. “Wow.

Somebody must be missing this.”

Jase nods. “I think there’s something

written inside, can you see?”

I turn the band around, feeling awful

that someone’s probably looking for this
gorgeous piece of jewelry. I squint to
read the tiny writing inside.

J & J and a love heart on either side

of the initials.

I gasp, almost dropping the freakin’

thing in the water. Jase laughs as I look
down at him, where he’s kneeling on one
knee.

“Is this—”
He nods. “It is.”
“But how did you—”

“I had some help.”
I take a shaky breath. “This is for

me?”

Jase smiles, taking the ring back and

pushing it onto my ring finger. It sparkles
in the sunlight, dazzling me.

“It belonged to my grandmother,” he

adds. “My mom’s mom. If you say no
she’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

I shove him in the shoulder playfully,

my chest swirling with dueling emotions.
After everything we’ve been through,
could things really be this easy, this
wonderfully good?

“Juliette,” Jase says, moving his

sunglasses onto his head so I can see his
eyes, “will you marry me?”

Is he joking? Of course I’ll marry

him. I’d die for this man.

“Hell yes,” I say, swallowing back

the lump in my throat. I lean down to
kiss him, a salty wet kiss that tastes of
the ocean.

I have never felt happiness like this.

It’s wonderful. It’s…terrifying.

This is the life I’ve always dreamed

of. The life I assumed was reserved for
other people. Not for dead, broken girls
like me. But here, now?

I’ve never felt so alive.
I am loved. And nothing has ever felt

so good.

Everything is going so well. So well.

We’re getting married, and we’re having
a baby. Two things I never thought I
would be able to say. Two things that I’d
never seen in my future, and that I
probably don’t deserve.

My demise is pathetic, really.
I’m holding the bottle of methadone

in one hand, my little measuring cup in
the other, when the door to the bathroom
bursts open. I jump ten feet in the air,
reflexively dropping the bottle into the
sink. “Fuck!” I curse, horrified.

“Crap, sorry,” Jase says, closing the

door again as I watch the last of the
precious fluid glug down the drain.

I swipe up the bottle in my hand, but

I’m too late. Everything but a few drops
is gone, gone, fucking gone.

I stare into the basin, hearing a glug

and a gurgle, and I freak the fuck out.

Every last drop, gone.
I try to call Luis on the burner phone

Elliot left me. No answer. I even get so
desperate as to cut the plastic methadone
bottle in half with a pair of scissors and
lick every last bit of sticky fluid from the
inside of the bottle.

It doesn’t do anything. Not even a

mild buzz. Nothing.

After pacing in the small bathroom

for a few minutes, I begin to shake. I’m
panicking, freaking the fuck out. I have
nothing left. Not even some fucking
codeine for when shit gets really bad.
Which it will. Really fucking soon.

It’s better this way, I finally reason

with myself. Get clean, detox—hell, I’m
already halfway through, with the way
I’ve been dropping my dose steadily
each week, and all in plenty of time
before the baby’s born. By the time they
need to stick an IV in me during labor—
because I’ve decided I’m definitely
having as many drugs as they’ll let me
have—the track marks in my elbow will
be gone entirely, and this day will be

nothing but a murky memory, a lesson in
the fragility of things.

Jase knocks on the door again about

fifteen minutes later. “You okay in
there?”

“Yeah,” I call out. “Just morning

sickness.”

I’m almost five months along. My

morning sickness dried up weeks ago,
but he doesn’t know that.

The worst part is, because I grew up

watching my mother go cold turkey so
many times, I know exactly what awaits
me. A fine film of sweat breaks out on
my forehead as I remember the way she
would clutch her stomach and scream
when she ran out of smack and had no
way of replenishing her supply. How she

would puke for days, and cry and cry
and cry.

I wish I didn’t know what was about

to happen.

I go through the motions. Eat a good

breakfast, knowing it will probably be
my last good meal in a couple days. Jase
must notice how quiet I am.

“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. I think I’m just getting

a flu or something,” I lie.

He looks concerned. “You need to

see a doctor?”

I shake my head emphatically.

“Nope.” You cannot know what I’ve
done. “I’ll just get some rest.”

I dump my bowl in the sink and

move stiffly to the bedroom, laying
myself under the thick duvet.

It doesn’t take long to hit. First, the

headache that feels like a vice squeezing
my skull until it explodes. Then, pain
spreads to all of my joints. My stomach
churns for a couple hours, and then I
start puking. I’ve got the sweats. It’s all
stuff I know much too well from days
spent nursing my mother as she suffered
through the same.

The clock does nothing to help my

plight. I think three hours must have
passed, roll over to the clock, only to
see two fucking minutes have crawled
by. I am dying. I want to die.

This is the worst pain I’ve ever

experienced; the shame of knowing why

I’m sick only adds to the writhing pain
and panic that runs through my veins.
Simultaneous fire and ice, hunger and
thirst, empty and full. I am a mess.

I sweat and twist, knotting myself in

damp sheets, until Jase is there with a
cold compress and a glass of water.

“You think you have the flu?” he

asks me, helping me up and holding the
water to my lips. I take a sip, the cold
water refreshing as it hits my tongue and
throat.

He’s

frowning.

He

looks

concerned.

“Do you need a doctor?” he asks me.

“Is the baby—”

The baby seems completely fine. She

continues to pummel me, seemingly

unaware than mama is sick as a fucking
dog and would really appreciate some
stillness for a little while. Every well-
directed jab of tiny arms and legs kicks
my hideous nausea into overdrive, the
only thing stopping me from puking more
the fact that I have already emptied my
stomach. But in a strange way, I’m also
welcoming of the movements. My fellow
fighter, my mini warrior, my daughter—I
still find it incredibly strange to say that,
daughter—letting me know she’s still in
there, still as feisty as ever. A survivor,
just like me.

I take another sip of water and it’s

one sip too much. Violent nausea grabs
hold of me again, bitter bile rears its
way up my throat, and I’m lucky I have a

bucket beside me to grab and hurl into.
I’ve never been a delicate vomiter—I
almost always get tears in my eyes and
feel like I’m being suffocated—but this
is even worse than the standard morning
sickness fare. I look in the bucket, half-
expecting to see I’ve finally hurled up
my own stomach.

Nope, just the water. I take the glass

back from Jase and suck out one small
sip, swishing it around my mouth before
spitting it back in the bucket. The logical
side of me says I’ll be dehydrated very
soon if I can’t keep fluids down.

“I don’t need a doctor,” I say,

wiping my mouth with the back of my
hand. “I’ll be fine.”

Jase presses his hand to my

forehead, his hand freezing, and he
raises his eyebrows.

“Jesus,” he says. “You’re like a

furnace.” He takes the bucket from my
hands and leaves the room. I let myself
flop back on the pillows, frustrated. I’ve
never been good at letting other people
take care of me when I’m down and out,
and this time is no different. But Jase is
a natural.

He’s going to be such a good father.

He’s showing me he’ll be an excellent
husband, but I already knew that.
Someone who risks his life on an almost
hourly basis to protect me deserves a
fucking medal, especially when they also

hold my hair back while I vomit and
clean up the bucket afterward. I am truly
the luckiest girl alive. I went back to
L.A. to kill every single motherfucker
who did me wrong that afternoon six
years ago, and not only did I get to revel
in their sweet suffering, but I’ve also
managed to score a fiancé and a baby out
of the deal. It’s all too good to be true.

Which is why I just have to push

through this. Get past my body’s desire
for the smack, get past my dependence
on the bottle of cherry-flavored liquid
that was keeping me from going
completely insane.

“You wanna try and eat something?”

Jase asks, as he returns with the empty
bucket. He places it beside the bed as I

kick

the

blankets

off

again.

HotColdHotColdHotColdHOTHOTHOT

My body’s doing a lousy fucking job

of making its mind up. Blankets on,
blankets off. Repeat.

I shake my head. “Maybe later.”
Jase nods, taking a stand of my hair

between his thumb and forefinger and
tucking it gently behind my ear. “Try and
get some sleep,” he murmurs, leaning in
to kiss my forehead. My skin burns
where his lips have touched, but it’s a
nice burn.

It’s raining outside again. I drift off,

thinking that when I wake up, the worst
will be over, and I can finally be free.

I’m

screaming.

Screaming

and

thrashing about, my nightmares full of
blood and terror and his face.

“Hey,” Jase yells in my face. His

voice cuts through the greasy haze, and I
force my heavy eyelids open, peering up
at him.

“Wake up,” he urges. “Are you

awake?”

I hear fumbling and the lamp next to

me switches on, blinding me. “Ahhhhh!”
I protest, throwing my hands over my
tender eyes. Everything hurts. Everything

hurts so fucking bad.

Jase grabs one of the shirts I’ve hung

next to the bed and drapes it over the
lampshade, dulling its intensity. Thank
crap for that. I slowly take my hands
away, looking up at Jase.

He looks mad.
“What is going on?” he asks, and I

see anger flash in his eyes.

I struggle to sit up, but it hurts,

everything hurts. I try to catch my breath.

“What do you mean?” I ask weakly,

my teeth feeling like they’re about to
burst out of my gums. The pressure, the
pounding is fucking intense, and it’s
everywhere, all over my body. My skull.
My skull feels like it is going to explode.

“You’ve been crying for almost an

hour,” Jase says gravely, running a hand
through his hair. “Saying I need it,
saying help me. What the fuck is going
on, Juliette?”

His eyes are dark with emotion. He

looks like he’ll wrap his fingers around
my throat and throttle me if I give him
the wrong answer.

“I have the flu,” I say. I lie. To the

man I love.

I am a terrible person. We promised

no more lies, and straight away they’re
coming out of my mouth faster than I can
draw breath. There is something
seriously wrong with me.

His jaw clenches; I see his fists are

balled up as well.

“Last chance,” he says. “Don’t

fucking lie to me. I deserve the truth.”

My heart rate picks up considerably,

my mouth suddenly very dry.

“What is this?” Jase asks, holding up

the two pieces of the methadone bottle
I’d buried in the bottom of the trash.
Fuck.

I don’t answer. He’s seething; I can

see it in the way he’s watching me with
those eyes, those dark, haunted eyes of
his.

He stares up at the ceiling, clearly

disgusted.

“Can we talk about this later?” I ask,

swinging my legs out and letting my feet
hit the floor. I stand, wincing as the

sudden change from laying down to
standing

up

makes

me

dizzy

momentarily. Sharp pain shoots up my
spine, and I gasp.

“Fucking heroin,” Jase says with an

air of resignation. “Really? I didn’t pick
you for a junkie, Julz.”

Images rush at me as Jase’s cruel

words hit home. Dornan’s face, those
identical eyes of his boring into mine,
taking his twisted pleasure as he got me
high again and again, as he took me to
the brink of death, only to bring me back
to life. That fucker did this to me.

“Fuck you,” I spit, narrowing my

eyes at him. “I didn’t do this. He did this
to me. I’m just trying to get better.” That
month of lazy sex and morning beach

walks and a goddamn marriage proposal
are all but forgotten, a lie, a mistruth
because I am a liar and an addict.

“How could you keep this from me?”

he asks. “From the doctors?”

My head is pounding, my mouth dry.

I can’t focus. I can’t do this.

He looks at me now, and the look of

betrayal in his eyes is enough to make
me want to die. I have failed him. I will
always fail him, because I am a liar and
a cheat and I have become my mother.

“You would have left me,” I say, a

small sob coming from my throat as my
eyes fill with tears. “I couldn’t tell you. I
couldn’t tell anyone what he did to me.
Who he made me.” I whisper the final

words.

Jase looks like he wants to kill me.

“What is wrong with you?” He roars,
pounding his fist into the wall.

Everything is wrong with me, I think

sadly.

I’m sweating so much from the

comedown (will it ever fucking end?)
and I need to get clean, to rinse off my
skin and let warm water ease my cramps
and aches. I go to push past Jase, to
make it to the shower, but as I pass him
he reaches out a hand and locks it around
my upper arm, spinning me around to
face him. At the same time, he switches
on the main light of the room, casting us
both in a bright amber glow.

He opens his mouth again, the look

on his face clearly saying attack, but his
scowl fades rapidly as he looks down at
something.

I follow his stare, seeing nothing.
“What?” I ask. The sweat is pouring

off me now, and I think I’m going to be
sick again. I swallow thickly, fighting
the nausea, deeply alarmed by the look
on Jase’s face.

“Juliette,” Jase croaks, pointing at

my legs. No—pointing at my panties. I’m
not wearing pants, just a thin tank top
and white cotton panties.

“You’re

bleeding,”

he

says,

horrified. “Why are you bleeding?”

I’m bleeding? Why am I bleeding?
I’m so drenched in sweat, I didn’t

even notice. But Jase is right; beyond the
slight swell of my stomach, when I tilt
my head to the side and down, I can see
sticky red fluid coating the insides of my
thighs.

Oh, God. I immediately put my hand

between my thighs and bring it back to
my face; red. Bright red and the most
horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

“Juliette,” Jase repeats, and this time

it sounds more like he’s begging me to
give him an answer that doesn’t spell
tragedy.

A

whisper.

“ Why

are

you

bleeding?”

Too good to be true. Too good to be

true. I always knew this was too good to
be true.

I start screaming.
Jase

takes

over

because

I’m

screaming and bleeding and I don’t
know what to do.

The baby. The baby.
Is she okay? Is she even alive? When

was the last time I felt her move?

Before I know what’s happening, I’m

being gathered up in strong arms and
then, I’m in the passenger seat of the
pick-up truck Luis left for us. There’s a
thick towel between my legs and I watch
in horror as the beige cotton turns red.

It hurts. It hurts everywhere, sticky

and clammy, but mostly it hurts in my
chest. In my throat. I did this. This is my
fault. And although we’re hurtling away

from the house at illegal speeds, I can
already see there’s too much blood for
this to end well.

A sharp pain stabs my back, gripping

me and staying there, like a razor blade,
for several seconds. I hold my breath
and squeeze my eyes shut as it builds to
a fiery peak. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
I’m biting my cheek hard enough to draw
blood as the inferno finally lets up a
little, but it doesn’t go away completely.

I draw in a breath, looking at Jase as

I clutch our baby through my scarred
skin.

When was the last time she moved? I

need to know, but for the life of me, I
can’t remember. Did I do this? Did the
drugs make me bleed? I can’t even

entertain the possibility of what that
could mean.

The possibility I’ve killed our baby.
I would cry, but I’m too shocked.

Five minutes ago, we were screaming
the house down, and now, everything is
melting away, fading, taking the last bit
of my hopes and dreams along with it.

The only good thing to come out of

this clusterfuck—and now I’m going to
lose this, too?

The pain is so great by the time we

get to the hospital that all I can see is
red. This is more painful than being held
down and raped. This is more painful
than having my skin excised, piece by
violent piece. More painful than a knife
in my leg, than a cocaine overdose, than
anything. This. Is. Hell.

This is like being ripped apart, from

the inside out.

Somebody is screaming. I want to

tell them to shut up, until I realize
somewhere through the thick red haze

that I am the one screaming.

OhGodOhGodOhGod.
I can’t walk. My legs don’t want to

function right now. I’m panting as pain
racks my body, onetwothreefourfive,
reaches a violent peak, sixseveneight,
before coasting back down, easing off,
settling into a familiar dull ache for a
few minutes of respite.

Contractions.
No! I refuse to accept that. These are

cramps, I tell myself, just cramps,
nothing more, just the comedown.

But you’re bleeding, the rational

voice in my head whispers sadly.

I want to smash that rational voice in

the face until she shuts her mouth.

Strong arms circle around my waist

and pull me from the car; it’s raining,
and I lean into Jase as he runs, two of us
moving as one.

Three of us. But for how much

longer?

When I open my eyes again we’re in

a foyer, all drab beige paneling and
plastic bucket chairs. I pant as another
wave of pain slams into me, biting my
lip so I won’t scream again.

“Sangre,” Jase yells. At first I think

he says Sangue, as in Il Sangue,
Emilio’s Cartel, and I go rigid. Until he
says it again and I realize he’s saying
Sangre. Spanish for blood. Jase glances
around the walls, looking for the right
word, I guess. “Embarazada!” he yells,

turning me toward the bored-looking
receptionist. She peers at me in alarm,
her doe-like brown eyes going wide, and
then she’s yelling something in Spanish.
Embarazada. Pregnant. I remember that
from the forms I filled out at the hospital
before the ultrasound.

Out of nowhere, a stretcher appears.

Stranger’s faces surround me as Jase
lowers me onto the flat trolley and then
I’m moving, watching the ceiling whizz
past above me as I hear Jase and the
medical staff try to communicate in
broken English and Spanish. I hear
sixteen weeks a nd blood. There is so
much blood.

Before we make it wherever they’re

taking me, I black out.

***

When I come to, I’m propped up on a

hospital bed, and there’s a doctor
hovered between my open legs. I come
to with a start, trying to press my knees
together, trying to remember what the
hell is going on. My legs are trapped in
stirrups, and I can’t figure out why.

Then it hits me. I’m bleeding.

Everything hurts so bad, I’m in agony. Is
it already too late?

A hand squeezes my shoulder softly

and I turn my head sharply, locking eyes
with a generically pretty woman,
probably only a few years older than me,
dressed in nurse’s scrubs. She’s got one
hand on a portable ultrasound machine,

the same kind the doctor used just a few
weeks ago when we saw our baby’s
strong, steady heartbeat and reedy legs
that kicked and somersaulted.

“We’re just going to take a look at

your baby, okay?” Her voice is kind, her
accent thick. I nod vacantly.

I hike up my singlet, my panties

already gone, my lap and knees covered
by a green hospital sheet, to retain a
little dignity, I suppose. The doctor
stands and strips bloodied plastic gloves
from his hands, glancing at the nurse and
nodding before he leaves the room. She
squeezes the cold stuff on my stomach,
just like the doctor did a few weeks
back, and presses the plastic thing onto
my skin.

Jase enters the room, wearing green

surgical scrubs. I frown at him
quizzically for a moment before I realize
he was covered in my blood before.
They must have given him clean clothes
to wear. He rushes to my side, his
expression pinched.

“You’re

awake,”

he

murmurs,

kissing the top of my head. I give him a
brave smile and turn back to the screen.
The pain is still here, still intense, but
being somewhere where people know
how to fix me tapers my hysteria
dramatically. Everything will be okay, I
chant to myself. It has to be.

On the screen, black and white

materializes. It takes the nurse a few

moments to locate the baby, floating in
my womb. Nothing looks different than
the other day, but everything is different.
There’s no kicking legs, no rolling.

There is no movement at all.
“Do you know what you’re having?”

the nurse asks cheerfully. Distracting me.

“A girl,” I say tonelessly, Jase’s

hand squeezing tighter around mine.

She nods, a look of intense

concentration on her face. My mouth
goes dry as I listen to the nothingness
that surrounds us, the nothingness that
says I can’t find a heartbeat.

“Is the sound on?” Jase asks,

pointing to the screen. He must be
thinking what I am - where is that noise,
where the fuck is that gallopgallop that

tells us our baby is okay?

The nurse gives us a tight smile,

placing the plastic thing back into its
tray. She doesn’t answer Jase. “Let me
get the doctor,” she says, patting my
hand reassuringly. “He’ll be able to get
a better look.”

I swallow thickly as she leaves my

peripheral vision and exits the room, my
gaze locked firmly on the display,
currently empty.

Jase side-hugs me, kissing the top of

my head again. “The doctor will find it,”
he says, and I don’t know if he’s trying
to convince himself or me.

It doesn’t matter, though. I haven’t

felt movement in hours, and there’s no

heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. I’m
not an idiot. I know what that means.

The doctor enters the room quietly,

and he searches for a long time for the
heartbeat of the baby I already know is
beyond this world. Finally, he turns the
machine off and turns to me with a grave
expression.

“I am very sorry,” he says. “There is

no heartbeat.”

“Well

keep looking!” Jase yells

across me. I squeeze his hand, pull him
down to me. As our eyes meet, I give my
head a little shake, my lips quivering,
and I pull him to me. A strangled cry
comes from Jase, breaking my heart all
over again.

Jase pulls away from me and

punches his fist into the wall next to the
bed, making the room shake. I put a hand
to my mouth to try and stifle the noise
coming from deep inside me, a noise
between a sob and a scream.

Our baby is dead. Our baby is gone.

I thought finding out our baby had

died inside me was the worst possible
thing that could ever happen to me, but I
was wrong.

Because she had passed away, her

little heart still, but she was still inside
me. And somehow, she had to come out.

“Your waters broke with the

bleeding,” the doctor informs me,
peering at me as he holds a surgical
mask over his chin. “You’re in labor.
We’ll give you something for the pain.”

His accent is even thicker than the

nurses, and I’m glad he’s pulled his
mask away from his mouth to address
me, or I’d have no clue what he’s saying.

As it is, I nod numbly, dazed.

Devastated. As the nurse pricks my arm
painfully—her fifth unsuccessful attempt
to get an IV into my arm—the doctor
casts a suspicious glance over my bare
arms.

“Are you a drug user?”
Humiliation wracks me. Humiliation

and despair. I nod. Beside me, Jase
tenses. I don’t even have to look at him
to feel the anger and sorrow pouring off
him in waves.

The doctor asks me what I’ve been

using, and as the word heroin falls from
my mouth, I experience a rage deep

inside of me, a rumble in my soul, a
battle cry rising from within my veins.
Dornan. You did this to me. I hope you
come here, you motherfucker. I hope
you come here so I can kill you.

“When was the last time…?” the

doctor asks, massaging the veins on my
arms. He taps the back of my hand and
gestures to the nurse, who hands him the
needle already slick with my blood. One
pinch on the back of my hand, and it’s in.

“A month?” I guess quietly, trying to

think back through the haze of grief that’s
squeezing my heart. I can’t look at Jase.
I’m shaking violently, and part of that is
fear and shame. I can’t look at him. We
are all speaking around the tragedy

we’ve just discovered, speaking about
things that don’t even matter. Maybe it’s
because none of us can talk about what’s
really happening. Your baby is dead.
Your baby is gone.

All of a sudden things get really

quiet, and I start to zone out. Painkillers.
They’ve given me something for the
pain. What a blessed fucking relief.

The pain at my back and deep in my

womb starts to recede a little. The
pressure is still there, lapping at me in
steady waves, but the red, crushing pain
is mostly tamped down. I feel woozy,
and struggle to stop the room from
spinning.

“Try and get some rest,” the nurse

says, patting my hand again before she

leaves the room with the doctor. Rest?
How am I supposed to rest right now?

But whatever they give me is strong

enough that I virtually pass out, dozing
between those steady waves of pressure
that lap at me. I’m still struggling to
catch up, still so confused. Our baby is
dead?

Jase doesn’t speak. His eyes are red

and glassy, and I can see the rage that
surrounds him like fire.

“Jase,” I say suddenly, snapping out

of my haze.

“Yeah,” he says, back at my side like

a rocket, obviously hearing the urgency
in my voice.

“I think I need to push,” I whimper,

already pushing down. The pressure
around my back and lower torso has
reached a crushing peak, and bits of pain
start to creep through the artificial
numbness created by the pain relief. I
fist the sheets beneath me as I grit my
teeth and bear down against the pain.

Jase gives me one look and sprints

into the hallway, yelling for a doctor.
The nurse from earlier enters the room
just in time to grab our baby as I deliver
her in one push. She’s so small, she
comes out so easily. Too easily. It’s not
fair.

She’s perfect. Tiny, but fully formed,

a miniature button nose and little tufts of
light brown hair. She’s beautiful. She’s
ours.

The nurse wipes the baby’s face and

wraps her in a white blanket before
handing her to me, and it pains me how
woefully small she is. Barely longer than
a dollar bill, eyes closed, and
completely unmoving.

I hold her to my chest and sob.
Jase gently places a hand on our

daughter and I realize, of course, he
wants to hold her, too. To see her, to
know her. It kills me to let go of her, but
I hand her up to him, her absence from
me as harsh and as painful as the moment
I realized she had passed away inside
me. He sits on the bed beside me,
cradling her in his hands, absolutely
devastated.

He wanted this baby. He doesn’t say

much, just looks down at her. Pulls her
up in his arms and holds her close to his
chest. It kills me, how much he wanted
her. He wanted our baby so much. But
she’s gone.

Will he even want me now? Or will

I remain the empty, tarnished vessel –
unlovable, dead on the inside, forever
alone?

That’s what I deserve.
Jase and I sit together on the narrow

bed for hours, both of us in grief-stricken
shock, studying every perfect thing about
the child we will never get to know. The
little girl who should chase butterflies
and eat cake and finger paint. Gone.

Eight hours later, and the nurse

comes in and takes her away. Jase helps
me into new clothes, and I sit numbly in
a wheelchair as he pushes me to the car,
clutching onto a 3x5 piece of card with a
tiny set of footprints printed onto it. The
only proof we have that she even
existed.

And, it’s over.
I am empty once more.

“Come here,” Jase murmurs. Moving

slowly. Everything is slow and foggy in
the midst of our grief. Deep inside me, I
can feel a new seed beginning to sprout,
deep in my belly, in the place where our
child used to be.

Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. I

didn’t know I could hate Dornan Ross
any more than I already did. But I do.
Now. I try to grab hold of that rage, to
use it to keep me afloat, but the grief has

me drunk, vacant, and I lose my grip on
the rage, sinking back down again as I
drown in our collective despair. It’s not
even the lack of heroin anymore that
makes me sick. After the first couple of
days back from the hospital, my body
adapted, finally adjusted to life without
a constant dose of something to sedate
the demons inside me. Now, my only
companion is the heart-rending grief that
threatens to destroy me.

I let him pull me off the couch,

because I am a zombie. I resist nothing. I
force a mouthful of food down when he
tells me, I watch the steam billow from
the tea he fixes me, and I lay like a little
girl when he tucks me into bed at night.

I am a ghost. I am nothing, and inside

me, that tiny seed of rage grows
patiently, a little each day, and I know
when I’m strong enough I’ll be able to
harness it for my own survival.

I need the rage to come back to me,

because without it, I am a shell. Our
future is gone. Our baby is gone. The
promise of rage is all I have.

He pulls me into the bedroom.

Sometimes I notice he’s making an effort
to look me in the eye, like a real effort,
staring at me until I meet his gaze. Only,
I never do. I avert my eyes to the floor,
stuck in my own world, almost
preferring that I’m alone in here. I don’t
know what to say, what to do, how to
act. I don’t know how to be this person

anymore. This person who was selfish
enough, stupid enough to lose our baby.

I lost our baby, and it’s all my fault.
Mine, and his. Dornan’s.
I repeat those words inside my mind.

My vengeful mantra. Come and find me,
you motherfucker. Come here and find
me, so I can kill you.

Jase has pulled one of the dining

chairs into the bedroom, set it up in front
of the floor-length mirror. He gestures
for me to sit down, and finally, I do
return his gaze.

“I don’t want to look at myself,” I

say quietly.

His face falls. He squeezes my hand.

“Trust me. You can close your eyes if
you want.”

I sit. Look at the floor instead of the

mirror. I can’t bear to see myself. To see
what I’ve become.

He

reaches

over

and

grabs

something. “Stay still,” he says, one
hand stroking my hair, and then he’s
brushing it for me. It hurts at first, more
than three months worth of knots in the
wild rat’s nest atop my head, but he’s
gentle, and he takes his task seriously. I
watch his face, the subtle changes in his
expression as he untangles strand from
strand, and finally the brush glides
through. It makes me think of my father.
How, when I was a girl, he would brush
my hair every day. It makes me think that
Jase will never get to do that for his own

daughter, because I lost our baby, and
now we have nothing.

He puts the brush down and picks up

something else. A hair straightener. My
chest constricts as I remember the deal
we had, the deal that if I ventured into
the storm with him, he would straighten
my hair for me. The straightener looks
old, dusty. He must’ve found it when he
was checking out the bathroom.

“I told you I’d do this for you,” he

says, his voice thick with emotion. “Do
you remember?” His hands are steady
but soft as he scoops up a chunk of my
hair and runs the iron over it. As he
releases it, warm strands settle against
my cheek, and it takes everything inside
me not to cry. He’s so gentle, so loving,

I wonder again to myself what I could
have possibly done to deserve someone
as beautiful, as capable, as unwavering
as Jason Ross to carry me through this
darkness that threatens to split me apart.
That is splitting me apart.

I nod in response. To speak would

be impossible right now. But I meet his
eyes when I nod, offer a pathetically sad
smile, and that is enough for him.

He continues the rest of the job in

silence, and the feeling of him tending to
me, taking care of me with this one small
gesture is so fucking good, it floods me
with warmth. A fragile warmth, a
temporary one, but while it lasts, it is a
blissful relief.

When he’s done, he rests his chin on

the top of my head, so his face is directly
above mine in the mirror. He angles his
face into my hair, leaves a lingering kiss
there.

“I love you,” he says. “More than

anything. Do you know that?”

A lump rises in my throat. I nod. I

know.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he adds.
My eyes slide back to the floor.
“Yes, it was,” I reply.

My life becomes measured in days

since we lost our baby. Two days. Five
days. Eight. On the ninth day, Jase
travels to the hospital, returning with a
box full of ashes. A small white box full
of fleeting memories like footprints, a
Polaroid, and ashes.

On the tenth day I contemplate

suicide. I can’t do that to Jase, though,
and I’ve still got something inside me
that demands I stay alive. To wreak
vengeance on Dornan, to drag him out to
the desert, shoot him in the stomach, and

wait for vultures to pick out his fucking
entrails while he screams. My dark
fantasies of the ways I will torture him
are the only things that keep me alive.
Were it not for that, I would surely let
this grief consume me, whole.

Eleven days after I delivered our

baby and left her still little body in a
hospital morgue, I wait until Jase is
asleep and slip into the bathroom. I’ve
still got the bottle of pills I stole from
Elliot, the Percocet for his gunshot
wound that mysteriously disappeared
from his bag before he left. Poor dude. I
know Luis suspected me, but he didn’t
find the pills, obviously. I don’t want to
kill myself until I’ve dealt with Dornan,
but I sure as hell want to get a nice buzz

for a couple of hours and get some
goddamn relief from the pain that
constricts around my heart like a vice.

I reach around the back of the toilet

cistern, where I’ve taped the bottle of
pills. Unpeeling the tape as quietly as I
can, I unscrew the lid and peer inside.

It’s empty. Fuck.
I choke back a sob as I peer inside

the bottle. Not a single tablet! When I
hid it there were twenty-three—I know, I
counted them.

The door bursts open as I’m shaking

the bottle upside down.

It’s Jase, and he looks like he’s been

wide-awake for some time. Waiting for
me to fuck up, I realize with a sinking

stomach.

“Whatcha doing, Julz?” he asks me

cruelly, snatching the bottle from my
hand. He looks mad.

“You found them already,” I breathe.

Of course he had.

He bunches his fists tightly. “You

better tell me what’s going on. Or I
swear to fucking God, I will leave you
here and never look back.”

I stare at him glumly. “I just thought I

could—”

“Thought you could what? Switch

one habit for another? After you’ve
already come so far?”

A sob bubbles up in my throat. “It

hurts, okay?!” I demand shrilly, my eyes
wet with tears as I clutch at my chest. “It

fucking hurts.”

Jase rushes me, taking me by the

shoulders. “It’s supposed to hurt,” he
yells. “Shit like this is supposed to hurt.”
He wipes his eyes with the back of his
arm. “You think you’re the only one
hurting here?”

“No, of course not,” I say quietly.
“Jesus, Juliette,” he says, clearly

disgusted. “This?” he gestures at me and
shakes the empty bottle in his hand,
“This is what you grew up with. You
really want to repeat the past?”

“No.”
“Well then what the fuck are you

doing? You’re past the worst of it, past
the withdrawals, and you need to start

leveling with me, baby.”

I raise my eyes to him. “I know. I’m

sorry.”

He rubs his stubbled jaw with his

palm, clearly frustrated. “I don’t need
your sorry. I need you to be fucking
honest with me.”

I nod. “I know.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” he says,

his dark eyes flashing in the dim light of
the bathroom. “Tell me why you think
you need this shit.”

“I—”
I lose it. Everything that’s happened,

it all comes rushing around me like a
flood, and I can’t hold on. “He gave it to
me,” I say, my words quick and frenzied
as they tumble from within me. “I tried

to stop him. I tried!” My heart starts
pounding and I can’t see straight. I sink
to my knees, coming to a sitting position
up against the edge of the bathtub. A
panic attack. I’m having a panic attack.
“He killed me. I was dead. I said
goodbye. I was ready. And then,” I can’t
bear the memories of him shooting me
up, oh, God I don’t want to go back
there, “then he brought me back. I was
dead. I was dead.” I’m hysterical.

“Juliette,” Jase says sharply. “Stay

with me, baby.” He gets to the cold
ground beside me, wrapping his arms
around me. He pulls me to his chest and
strokes my hair until I breathe a little
easier, until the chaos recedes a little.

Finally, I wipe my eyes and pull

away a little, so we’re eye to eye. He
looks exhausted. Exhausted and stricken
with grief.

“It’s my fault,” I whisper. “I’m so

stupid. I should have known. I thought if
I just got through that cold turkey,
everything would be okay.”

Jase opens his mouth to talk but I

press on. I need to get this out now.

“I didn’t know stopping all of a

sudden would hurt the baby.” Would kill
the baby. “You know what’s stupid? I
was actually letting myself believe that it
would all work out. That we could
finally just be happy together.”

Jase gives me a sad smile, plays

with a strand of my hair. “Julz,” he
soothes. “Nobody blames you. I don’t
blame you. You didn’t do this. This was
done to you, you understand? It was a
horrible accident, and you need to
forgive yourself or it’s going to destroy
you.”

I nod. “I want to believe you,” I

whimper. “I really do.”

“One day we’ll have our own

family, I promise.” He pulls me to him
again, running his hands through my hair.
“I have this feeling. Everything is going
to be okay.”

I wish I had the same feeling, but I

don’t. Too much has happened. All I
know is I can’t take much more before I
break apart completely.

Because I know, any moment, he’s

going to leave me for the things I’ve
done. And I wouldn’t blame him.

He’s going to leave me soon, and

I’m going to be completely and utterly
alone.

The next morning, Jase is already

dressed and ready to go when I finally
drag myself out of bed.

“I’m taking you for a drive today,”

Jase says, kissing the top of my head
stiffly as I attempt to eat the eggs he’s
made for me. Grief and trauma have
wiped out my appetite, but I know I need
to eat. I need to be strong again, because
I intend to push forward with my quest
for vengeance with a newfound passion.
I intend to be strong enough again so I
can kill Dornan Ross and the one

remaining son who violated me six years
ago.

“Oh yeah?” I ask around a mouthful

of eggs. I swallow before continuing.
“Where?”

You’re going to leave me. Why are

you being nice to me when you’re going
to leave me?

“It’s a surprise.”
I hate surprises. I like—I need—to

know what’s going on. But I bite my
tongue. I said I trusted Jase. I need to put
that into practice if we’re ever going to
get through this horrid loss together.

He’s going to leave me.
We’re on the road for maybe two

hours. I only burst into tears twice in the
whole two hours - an improvement on

yesterday, when I don’t think I stopped
crying from the moment I woke up until
the moment I went to bed.

So when we pull up to a collection

of brick buildings with the word
Rehabilitación emblazoned on the front,
I raise my eyebrows, looking at Jase
quizzically.

“Rehab?” I ask dubiously. “Who am

I, Lindsey Lohan?”

“Who?” Jase asks. I roll my eyes. He

never did keep up with the Hollywood
gossip that was practically on our
doorstep in L.A.

“Never mind. But really, what are

we doing here?”

His expression is serious. “There’s

somebody I think you should see.”

Oh, crap.
My mother was a beautiful woman

once. I’ve seen photos of her when she
was a teenager, before she met Dornan
and my dad. Before the drugs, before
becoming my dad’s old lady, and
definitely before she became a teenage
mother. Before her life destroyed her.

But life hasn’t been kind to her, and

no amount of makeup can hide the heavy
black bags under her eyes or the scars
along both arms from missed veins and
dirty needles. She looks brighter, though,
and for the first time in as long as I can
remember, her eyes aren’t bloodshot.

When Jase pushes me into the small

bedroom, I wince. I want to back away

from her, to turn and run, but that would
be showing weakness. And I will never
show weakness in front of this woman.

“Julie,” she says, rushing to me. My

name on her mouth sounds odd, because
for once it seems to have genuine feeling
behind it, instead of just the standard
irritation or desperation that punctuated
my childhood.

I hold up my palms to stop her in her

tracks. Don’t hug me, bitch . I will drop
her faster than she can try and wrap
those bony arms around me.

She gets the message, slowing, and

letting her arms fall to her sides.

I glare at Jase. “Why did you bring

me here?” I ask, not even caring she’s in

the room. He pulls me closer to him.
“Just speak to her, okay? I think it would
be really good for you, Julz.”

I fight the burning urge to roll my

eyes and glare at him as he steps out of
the room, closing the door behind him.
Great. So I’m stuck alone with the bitch.

“You’re alive,” she says in wonder.
I cross my arms over my chest,

suddenly feeling like I’m five years old
again.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Apparently,

so are you.”

“The boys had to make it seem like I

was dead,” she says, wringing her hands
in front of her. I step back a little as she
starts to pace in front of me. That’s
where I get it from, I think. A little

voice inside me demands to know if
she’s okay, and I push that voice down
angrily. No. She doesn’t get to tell me if
she’s okay. I don’t care if she’s okay.

“Thank you for coming to see me,”

she says, darting her eyes toward me
before averting them to the floor. Pace.
Turn. Pace some more. My resolve
falters when I see a photo frame by her
single bed, a frame of our little family in
happier days. I must’ve been about four
years old, and my mom was having a
good run. I think she lasted a whole year
that time. It was a good year, before it
all went bad again. I haven’t seen a
photograph of my dad in many months - I
never got a chance to take anything with

me when I left for Nebraska with Elliot,
and the photographs adorning the
clubhouse walls aren’t exactly family
snaps.

I falter, and my mother sees that. She

rushes to the photo, and holds it out to
me. “Here,” she says. “Take it.”

I take it from her slowly, bringing it

closer so I can study our faces. It was
taken in the nineties, before digital
cameras were cool, and so the focus is
slightly off, the lighting too bright. But
it’s something I never thought I’d see -
us, together, and looking happy.

I swallow thickly, my hatred for the

woman fading just a little.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a

photo of your dealer next to your bed,” I

say, before I can stop myself. Her face
falls, but she doesn’t look offended.
Good. She doesn’t have the right to be
offended after the childhood she dealt
me.

“It’s your fault they killed dad,” I

blurt out suddenly, letting the photo hang
at my side. “It’s your fault they almost
killed me.”

She starts to cry.
“Don’t cry,” I say bitterly, backing

as far away as I can from her. “You
don’t get to cry.”

She nods, wiping her cheeks, trying

to compose herself. We both stand
tensely, neither one knowing what to say.

“Did I ever tell you about when you

were born?” she asks finally. I shake my
head. I’m not sure I want to hear what
she’s got to say. She opens the dresser
next to her bed and pulls out a small
photo album, flipping to the first page.
She holds it out to me but I don’t take it
this time. I can see it’s a photo of a
newborn baby in her arms. I know that
nose. It’s the nose I used to have before
Dornan broke it. Before the surgeon
smashed it apart and rebuilt it into
something else.

She studies the photograph, stroking

the baby’s cheeks through the plastic
film.

“When they handed you to me, I

knew I was supposed to feel something.
Love or affection or something inside

that said I was meant to protect you,
keep you safe. But when the doctor put
you on my chest and I looked into your
eyes, all I felt was dread. I was meant to
love you, but I was terrified of you. I
was seventeen years old.”

Her words cut into me deeper than I

thought possible, as I remember the grief
and love I felt when I was handed my
own baby just eleven days ago. A baby I
would have died for a thousand times to
ensure her survival. A baby I would
have killed the whole world to protect.
Clearly, my mother had not experienced
that.

“So, did you ever love me?” I ask

stiffly. “Or did you hate me all along?”

She starts to cry again.
“When you died,” she whispers,

“when Dornan told me you were dead, I
realized for the first time you were my
gift from God. You were given to me to
make me a better person. You were a
miracle, and I’d wasted fifteen years
trying to forget you existed.”

Her words stab me deep, cutting

criss-cross sections into my heart. I hate
her, and that is the saddest thing of all.

“I think about you all the time,” she

says, her entire demeanor so full of
sadness, it’s as if she’s been devoured
by it, completely and utterly consumed
by every shitty thing that’s ever
happened in her life. I try not to take it

personally, try to see her as a victim. But
hate still spikes deep in my chest at this
woman who, for fifteen years, just
wanted me to go away.

“What are you going to do?” she

asks finally. “Are you going to kill
him?”

Dornan. I know that’s who she’s

referring to. I mean, apart from Donny,
there’s nobody else left. I take a deep
breath, steeling myself. I let my rage
tamp down the sadness until the lump in
my throat fades away.

“Yes,” I reply.
She cries harder. “I’m sorry,” she

says. “I trusted him. I knew he was angry
with your father that day, but I never
knew he was capable of that.”

Of that. She can’t even say what that

refers to. I nod slowly; none of us knew.
Even at the very last moment, when I
begged and Dornan wavered for a
second, I had truly believed he would
stop before he did what he did. My
resolve breaks as I look down at the
framed photograph I’m holding one last
time. I look at the way my parents look
at me as if they adore me. Maybe she
did love me when this photo was taken.
Maybe she was just as broken as I am
now.

She’s my mother, and I hate her, but I

love her too, somewhere deep inside
where that four-year-old girl lives. I
wish I could just hate her because that

would be so much easier.

I open the door, still not sure if I can

trust her or not. I want to believe what
she’s telling me, but she’s let me down
every single day of my life, and I
wouldn’t be surprised if she called
Dornan as soon as I left the room.

“You’re my mother,” I say, my

words coming out in a harsher tone than
I’d intended. “You’re my mother, and I
forgive you for the past. But I’m going to
kill Dornan, and if you try to stop me,
I’ll kill you, too.”

She nods in understanding. She looks

relieved.

“Wait,” she says, holding up a shaky

palm. “Jason told me about the baby. I’m
so sorry, Julie. I’m so very sorry. For

all of it.”

She’s not just apologizing for the

baby. She’s apologizing for everything.

“Yeah,” I say, my mouth dry. “You

and me both.”

After the brief but jarring experience

of seeing my mother, we drive home in
complete silence. Jase steals glances at
me every now and then, but mostly, he
stares at the road and holds the wheel
with a white-knuckled grip.

“You okay?” I ask him, touching his

arm. I give silent thanks when he doesn’t
flinch at my touch. After the things I’ve
done and the way I’ve been acting, I
wouldn’t blame him.

He nods. “I didn’t know if I should

take you there,” he says, his jaw

clenched tightly between sentences. “I
didn’t know what else to do.”

I squeeze his arm. “You did the right

thing.” I needed to see that. To see her. I
can never become like her. I will die
first.

I’m staring out of the window when I

see out of the corner of my eye, his
hands gripping the steering wheel. He’s
squeezing so tightly, his knuckles are
white and trembling.

He sees me looking and relaxes

slightly, but I can tell he’s still wound
up. I’m nervous again, as I watch his
fists, as I try not to panic.

“Jase?” I ask quietly. He shakes his

head angrily. I look at his face and my
heart sinks. His eyes are red and his jaw

grinding soundlessly. He is a tortured
man.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he

explodes, slamming a hand into the
steering wheel. “You should have
fucking told me what he did.”

I put a hand to my head, letting it rest

there a moment as I close my eyes. I’m
so tired. So worn out. So worn down
with the burden of it all.

“I was scared,” I whisper.
“Of me?” he demands. He’s yelling,

but I don’t shrink away, because I
deserve it. I’ve been waiting for this for
eleven days, since the moment I realized
our baby’s heart had stopped.

I welcome his anger. It’s more fitting

than his love.

“Of everything,” I say thickly. “I

thought you would leave me.”

He growls in the back of his throat,

slamming his hand against the steering
wheel over and over again. I start crying
again, watching his anguish finally
unleash.

“I would never leave you!” he roars.

He stops hitting the wheel and squeezes
it again. “Don’t you get it? You’re like a
miracle! You survived death. I thought
you were dead for six fucking years! Do
you have any idea what that does to a
person? Do you think anything you could
ever do would stop me from loving
you?”

My mouth is open slightly, in shock.

I’m crying and I’m pretty sure under the
manly bravado he’s crying, too. We are
a mess.

“What will it take, Julz? For you to

believe me?”

I blink tears out of my eyes. “It’s just

– I saw the way my father hated my
mother. How he wanted to take me away
from her. And now I’m just like her. I’m
just like her. Why are you still here with
me?”

“Juliette,” Jase says, reaching over

and taking my hand, squeezing it tightly
in his own. “You are good. You are a
beautiful person and I love you. You are
not your mother.”

I lose it. I dissolve into a pile of

tears, refusing to let go of his hand as we
continue to drive.

You are not your mother.
I think that’s the nicest thing anyone

has ever said to me.

***

It’s afternoon by the time we finally

make it home. I’m walking into the
kitchen when I hear the sound, the
vibration of a cellphone against a hard
surface. Fuck. Elliot! I rush to the dining
table in time to see the phone has just
stopped ringing, its screen still lit up in
reminder.

Seventeen missed calls. What the

hell? Jase stands on the other side of the
table and tilts his head to read the
screen, raising his eyebrows at me.

It’s my burner phone. Disposable,

purchased by Elliot, given to me the day
he left just in case. And now it is ringing
again, call number eighteen as it rests on
the table between Jase and me.

I pick up the phone and hit answer,

holding the phone to my ear as my eyes
remain locked with Jase’s.

Static erupts from the other end, but

no talking.

“Elliot?” I say after a beat.
The voice on the other end makes me

wither and die inside. “Hello, Juliette,”
Dornan says cheerfully. “How i s my
baby girl?”

Jase knows who it is by the look on

his face. He watches as terrified tears

form in my eyes, terror that is punctuated
with hate. He’s the reason our baby
died. He’s the reason we continue to
suffer. He’s the one to blame for
everything.

Jase motions for me to give him the

phone and I do, thankful to be relieved
of the responsibility. Even the sound of
his voice is too much for me to bear.

“How’d you get this number, old

man?” he asks, his knuckles white as he
holds the cell phone in a death grip.

Dornan says something unintelligible

over the line and Jase pales.

“I don’t believe you,” he says.

“You’re full of shit.”

There’s a high-pitched noise on the

other end of the phone. Jase looks like

he’s about to have a heart attack and die
on the floor in front of me. More deep
crackling on the other end. Dornan.

I don’t hear what he says, but I don’t

need to. A moment later, the crackling at
Jase’s ear stops, and he stares at the
screen, more worried than I think I’ve
ever seen him. He roars, hurling the
phone against the wall.

He’s got Elliot. He’s got Elliot . He

must.

“He’s got him, hasn’t he?” I ask,

horrified. “He’s got Elliot.”

“No.” He swallows, and the next

words to come out of his mouth make me
wail.

“He’s got Amy and Kayla,” Jase

says thickly, his hands shaking.

No! He’s got Elliot’s little daughter

and her mother. No.

This.Cannot.Be.Happening.
My hand is at my mouth, stifling a

scream. I let it fall, feeling utterly
hopeless. He has Elliot’s daughter.
She’s not even three years old yet, and
she’s in the grip of a monster. This is my
fault. This is my fault, dammit! I lower
myself into a chair, my insides filling up
with dread.

“What does he want?” I ask.

Because with Dornan Ross, there’s
always a reason behind everything he
does. “Is it the money?” He can have the
money. He can have every last cent. He
can have anything if he just lets those

poor girls go. Amy’s my age, and Kayla
is three. She’s fucking three, and Dornan
has snatched her up with her mother in a
bid to get to us.

And it’s worked.
Jase looks down at the table, lacing

his hands behind his head, every muscle
in his arms poised for a smack down
with a person he cannot reach.

“He wants us,” he says flatly. “He

wants to do a trade. He’ll let them go if
we give ourselves to him.” His eyes
flash with rage. “He said he wants his
baby back,” he seethes, fixing his eyes
on my midsection.

My hands go to my empty stomach as

my eyes settle upon the box of ashes that

sit on the table. She was never his baby.
The sick bastard will never get his hands
on my precious baby.

And now, because of him, neither

will I.

I hear what sounds like a metallic

click, and feel my eyes go wide. Jase
whips his head to look at the front door,
and before I can even draw a breath, that
door is bursting open, wrenched from its
hinges.

I stand so fast my chair crashes to the

ground, my jaw still open.

What the hell?
And then, before I know what’s

going on, there’s a fucking gun in my
face and an endless stream of what looks
like identical cops, filing through the

front door, their weapons aimed at us.
The room was always small, but now,
teeming with trigger-happy dudes all
dressed in variants of the same navy
blue shirts and jeans, it’s tiny.

I look at Jase across the table as he’s

hoisted to his feet by two burly dudes.
As one of them turns, I see CIA written
in bright yellow block letters on the back
of his dark blue polo shirt.

I try to back up but there’s really

nowhere to go. I struggle as hands clamp
around my arms, yanking them behind my
back. The cuffs are around my wrists
before I can utter a single fucking word.

“Juliette Portland,” a voice says at

my right, and I turn to see the sea of CIA
officers part to reveal a woman clad in

the same attire: black cargo pants, a dark
blue T-shirt. Her blue eyes pin me to the
spot with their ferocious expression.

Yes. She is definitely in charge here.
“You’ve been busy, boys and girls,”

she says, making her way to me.
“Kicking ass and toppling empires?
Really? You thought we wouldn’t find
you?”

I snort. “I don’t even know who the

fuck you are, lady.”

She smiles; her thin lips make the

expression, but it comes off as more of a
grimace.

“I’m reality catching up with you,

Miss Portland.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Jase

demands, still struggling with the four
guys who have a grip on him. They can’t
get the cuffs on him, and I suppress a
snicker when I see his elbow catch one
of the dudes square in the face.

The bitch in front of me throws a

look of derision at Jase before turning
back to me.

“Juliette Portland. You are under

arrest for the murders of Chad Ross,
Maximilian

Ross,

Anthony

Ross,

Michael Ross and Jared Ross.”

As she continues to Mirandize me

the room starts to spin.

This can’t be real. It’s got to be a

fucking joke.

“…to remain silent. Anything you

say can and will be used in a court of

law.”

“This is bullshit,” Jase yells, but I’m

frozen. Holy fuck. After everything that’s
happened, is this the way it all ends?
With us rotting in matching prison cells?

The bitch continues, “You have the

right to consult an attorney. If you cannot
afford an attorney, one will be appointed
for you.”

Jase

roars,

some

superhuman

strength apparently overtaking him,
suddenly free and throwing punches. He
doesn’t seem to care that there are at
least a dozen high-powered assault rifles
leveled at the both of us, or that we are
grossly outnumbered.

The bitch doesn’t stop talking,

though. She just raises her voice over the
muffled groans as Jase is tackled to the
ground with the help of a Taser.

“Knowing and understanding your

rights as I have explained them to you,”
she finishes with a smirk, “are you
willing to answer my questions without
an attorney present?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spit.
She laughs. “Thought so.”
“Wait,” I protest. “What’s he under

arrest for?” I nod my head towards Jase.

The woman laughs. “Collateral

damage.”

“Whaa—”

I

begin,

for

once

genuinely lost for words. “You can’t do
that! It’s—it’s against the law.”

She shrugs, her eyes narrowing

dangerously. She flicks a glance toward
the officer sporting a bloody nose thanks
to Jase’s well-timed elbow to the face.
“Fine. Jason Ross, you’re under arrest
for assaulting a police officer.”

It’s a complete fucking farce.
“You’re

arresting

the

wrong

people,” I scream, struggling now.

She’s completely unfazed by me.

“Let’s go,” she says to her team, and we
begin to move with a pace that suggests
someone is waiting for us.

Oh, god. Why are they arresting us?

Who told them we were here?

“You’re probably not even a real

fucking CIA agent,” I spit. “Who are
you?”

As they drag us outside and shove us

both into separate black Escalade’s with
tinting so dark it’s almost as black as the
paint, I am screaming inside.

Because if they charge me with those

murders and they stick?

I am never going to see the light of

day again.

I’m stuffed into Boss Bitch’s car, a

token meathead cop in the back seat with
me. Not that I even need guarding. I’m
cuffed and trapped. Fucking fabulous.

But as Boss Bitch slides into the

front passenger seat and fastens her
safety belt, her shirtsleeve hitches up to
reveal something. A small tattoo, two
words that make my heart pound

painfully fast. Il Sangue.

“You’re working for the fucking

Cartel?” I scream.

She turns and flashes me a dazzling

smile, all white teeth and full cheeks,
and my heart sinks.

“Of course not,” she says, all shiny

teeth and fuck you grin. “We’re the
Central Intelligence Agency, darling.
They work for us.”

***

A Final Note from the Author

Stillbirth is a tragic and all too

common occurance. While I have not
experienced the loss of a child myself, I
have witnessed the devastation that
comes from the birth of a baby who does
not make it.

In recognition of this devastating and

often unexplainable occurance, and
especially given the events that occur in
Two Roads, I was moved to take action
in some way.

I have donated a camera kit and an

inkless print kit to an organisation called
Heartfelt, in the hope that some families
may be comforted in some small way
with the photographs and footprints of
their precious baby who has passed
away.

Heartfelt

is

a

volunteer

organisation

of

professional

photographers from all over Australia
dedicated to giving the gift of
photographic memories to families that
have experienced stillbirths, premature
births, or have children with serious
and terminal illnesses.

Many NICUs, maternity wards and

social work departments have cameras
that aren't great, and often due to

urgency or location, these cameras
provide the only images a family have
of their child. The heartfelt camera kit
program provides a hospital with a
quality compact camera, small printer
and

an

inservice

presentation/workshop from a Heartfelt
member for the hospital staff about
how to take better photos for families.

You can read more about Heartfelt’s

camera project

here

.

the seventh, and final

book in the Gypsy Brothers

series, will be released in

November, 2014.

To be notified as soon as

it’s available,

sign up here

.

Lili, together with fellow dark

romance author Callie Hart, is hosting an
intimate book signing and masquerade
ball in New York City in November
2014. Tickets are only $40 and there are
plenty of opportunities to chat to Lili and
Callie as well as get books signed and
be entertained by live music!

For all the details click

HERE

Lili writes dark romance. Her debut

serial novel, Seven Sons, was released
in early 2014, with the following books
in the series coming out in quick
succession. Lili quit corporate life to
focus on writing and is loving every
minute of it.

Her other loves in life include her

gorgeous husband, beautiful daughter,
watching Tarantino movies and drinking
good wine. She loves to read almost as
much as she loves to write.

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