Are you ready for the conclusion to The Gypsy Brother’s Series?
One Love
(Gypsy Brothers, Book Seven)
By Lili St. Germain
RELEASING December 2014
ONE LOVE IS LIVE!
Synopsis
*The final book in the #1
iBooks bestselling Gypsy Brothers series*
Will Julz complete her mission for vengeance against the Gypsy Brothers? Or is Dornan still one step ahead?
More shocking secrets will come to light and lives will be lost in this final, devastating instalment of the Gypsy Brothers series.
More shocking secrets will come to light and lives will be lost in this final, devastating instalment of the Gypsy Brothers series.
Chapter One
By Lili St. Germain
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never
comes from your enemies.
CHAPTER ONE
“I want my lawyer,” I
repeat for the hundredth time.
There are two CIA agents
in front of me, and they’re playing a very cheesy rendition of good cop / bad
cop.
We’ve been at this for
hours. Boss Bitch — Agent Dunn, as she’s since told me — on one side, and her
completely dumb but cute male offsider, Agent Brennan, on the other. In my
head, to pass the hours, I’ve nicknamed them Agent Bitch and Agent Dumbass. I
sit across from them, my hands in my lap, heavy metal cuffs weighing them down.
My throat is dry, my
tongue parched. Agent Dumbass has a fresh can of Coke in front of him, and I
can see the tiny beads of condensation running down the sides. I want it. I
want to reach over and grab the can. I don’t even need to drink what’s inside.
I’ll settle for the condensation making its lazy descent down the side of the
bright red can and onto the dusty Formica table that separates me from them.
“Let’s try this again,”
the female cop says, tucking a loose blonde hair behind her ear. The rest is up
in a severe bun that reminds me of a matronly grandmother, even though this
woman only looks about thirty. She’s got a slight southern inflection that
reminds me of Elliot’s grandma.
I don’t reply, waiting
for whatever it is she plans on doing next. Her next big thought, her latest
overdone gesture, to try and convince me that I should spill all of my dirty
secrets onto this table between us. So far she’s used threats against Jase, a
plea deal that would grant me immunity, and long stretches of silence.
None of that will break
me. I’ve been tortured by Dornan fucking Ross. This woman’s going to have to
try a lot harder, or maybe get out some pliers and start yanking my teeth out
of my mouth, before I’ll give her a single damned thing.
She snatches up a manila
folder and opens it, handing a photograph to her male offsider. “Stick these up,”
she barks at him, and he moves slowly, ripping a section of blue-tack from a
large blue ball of the stuff that must live permanently on the wall to my left.
I watch, just slightly interested as to what they’re going to try and scare me
with.
They don’t disappoint. As
I watch them pin 5x7 photographs to the wall, I can’t help but feel some sense
of satisfaction for the lives that ended at my hands. I have to remain
impassive though, so I tamp down the gloating grin that wants to spread across
my face and settle for my resting bitch face instead.
Dunn peeks at me from the
corner of her eye, and I return her gaze impassively. She might think she can
get under my skin, but I grew up in the Gypsy Brothers MC for shit’s sake. I
know how to hold out in front of a cop.
“Chad Ross,” Dunn says,
smoothing her pants as she stands up and circles the table, coming to stand
next to the photographs her partner is sticking up in a haphazard fashion. I
wait for her to reach out and straighten them. Boom. Three seconds later, she
does just that, making sure all of the photos line up.
“Chad Ross was poisoned,”
she continues, tapping one manicured fingernail against the photo of his
bloated death face.
“Looks nasty,” I reply.
“It’s a nasty way to
die,” Dunn says, peering at me. “The killer added pure methamphetamine to an
energy drink he later consumed. He was probably dead before he hit the ground.”
He wasn’t. He suffered.
Thankfully.
“And you’re showing me
this why?” I ask, studying my own nails, bitten down to the quick. I never was
a girly girl. It’s not easy to keep your nails tidy when you’re constantly
trying to claw your way back from death.
Dunn looks at me
pointedly before jabbing her fingernail towards the second photo. Ahhh, yes.
Maxi in all his naked, bloody glory. His face is a mess from the coke I shoved
underneath his nose, the coke laced with strychnine that made blood gush from
his nose like warm water from a faucet. I still remember the way his blood felt
on my hands. How surreal everything was, bright and garish, as my skull burned
with a small amount of the poisoned coke I’d snorted myself.
How I’d nearly died in my
quest to kill him.
How it was so worth the
risk to see the look on his smarmy fucking face, when I whispered in his ear
who I really was and sat back on his lap to watch the fury rise in his cheeks.
As he realized a black
widow was the one who’d just fed him his last meal of poison and cocaine.
I glance at Agent Dunn,
clearing my throat and attempting to look bored.
“Strychnine-laced
cocaine,” she says. “In fact, the same thing you were admitted to hospital for
that very night. Jason Ross brought you in to emergency room. They said you
almost died.”
“It was a hell of a
night,” I reply curtly. “My nose still bleeds just thinking about it.”
She raises her eyebrows
in disbelief, and in that moment I have no doubt that she’s cataloguing me as a
sociopath or similar.
“Can I ask you a
question?” I say suddenly.
“Shoot,” Dunn responds.
I reach my hand out
slowly, methodically and take hers, a bold move. She could pepper spray me,
shoot me. You’re not supposed to touch the interrogators. But she’s ballsy
enough that she doesn’t want to take her hand away, even as I watch her flinch
minutely.
“How do you keep your
nails so pretty?” I ask sweetly, the saccharine in my voice not reaching the
cold death stare I give her. I hold up my other hand. “Mine are hopeless. You
spend much time in the field, Agent Dunn?”
She takes her hand away,
and I let my own cuffed hands fall back into my lap. I know her skin must be crawling
from my touch.
I hope the feeling stays
there for a long time. She should not have fucked with me.
“I take good care of
myself, Miss Portland,” she says briskly. “Which is more than I can say for
you.”
“My child died,” I say
blankly. “Physical appearance isn’t on the top of my priority list right now.”
She bristles momentarily.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she says finally.
I sit back, crossing my
legs. “No, you’re not,” I reply.
She points to the third
photograph, which is… hell, I’ve got no idea what that is. I tilt my head,
trying to figure out what I’m looking at.
“It’s a leg,” Dunn
supplies.
“Ohhh,” I say, nodding.
“Thanks.”
It is indeed a leg, or at
least part of one. Charred and black, with spots of unmarred flesh and blood
still peeking through in sections. Huh. I wonder who it belonged to.
“Two Ross brothers were
killed in an explosion. Somebody put homemade bombs in their fuel tanks, can
you believe that?”
I shrug. “Sounds like
they must have had it coming.”
Dunn points to the final
photos, and a cloying heat bleeds up my chest and neck as I remember those
three months of horror and torture I endured at Dornan’s hands before I was
broken out. The way Dornan’s father Emilio flew backwards with a meaty thump as
the top of his head was blown clean off, blood and brains flying everywhere.
Mickey’s look of horror that didn’t fade after the bullet entered his face,
such a satisfying end for men whose only fault in death was that their ends
were much too swift. I imagine how much more satisfying it would have been to
hang them by their feet and burn their eyes out with cigarettes and
blowtorches, or pull their teeth out with rusty pliers, one by one.
That would have been much
more fitting for the men who tried to destroy me, the same men who murdered my
father.
Still… they’re dead, and
that’s better than them being alive.
“That’s got to give you a
headache,” I joke, referring to the last two pictures. The blood and gore have
no effect on me. My stomach is made of iron after the atrocities I’ve seen, after
all that I’ve endured. If this bitch wants to rattle my cage, she’s going to
have to try harder.
“And then we have Jimmy,”
she says, sticking one last photograph to the wall. Jimmy’s face, still frozen
in shock, the trail of blood from his temple where Jase shot him barely
noticeable in the extreme close-up.
“He looks unwell,” I
comment. “Thing is, I’m still not sure why you’re showing me all of this.”
Dunn frowns so hard it
looks like she’s about to burst a blood vessel.
“Here’s the thing,” she
says, throwing a stack of photographs in front of me. “We’ve got you. We have
your DNA on the first two victims, and motive. We’ve got probable cause to take
you to trial.”
I sift through them,
suppressing a twisted smile as I see what happened to Jazz and Ant after they
bit the big one when bombs in their motorcycle fuel tanks exploded, ripping
them to pieces. It isn’t pretty, what became of them. But to me, it’s
beautiful.
I drop the photographs on
the table and lean back in the hard metal chair I’ve been sitting on for the
past five hours.
“These people are — were
— like family to me. Don’t you think it’s a little tacky showing me all of
this? I’m still grieving for these boys. They were like brothers to me.”
Agent Dunn actually rolls
her eyes at me. At least she’s got some spunk somewhere in there. “Give it a
rest, Miss Portland,” she says impatiently. “You’ve got more motive than anyone
else, and no alibi for any of these murders.”
“Motive?” I ask sweetly.
“And what might that be?”
Agent Dunn hesitates. Go on,
I think. Say it. They raped me until they thought I was dead. The murdered my
father, and you want to arrest me? Say it.
“I’m not authorized to
talk with you about an active investigation,” Dunn says finally. “But I really
think you should start talking, Miss Portland.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay,” I
say finally. “I give up. You got me. I’ll tell you something. Let me write it
down.”
Dunn’s beady eyes
practically wig out of her head. She studies me for a moment, probably to see
if I’m telling the truth, and I stare right back at her. If she wanted a
wallflower who’d stare at the floor, she arrested the wrong girl.
After a beat, she stands
up, turns and bustles out of the room. I divert my attention to Agent Dumbass,
who looks like he’s about to fall asleep in his chair.
“I’ll make a full
confession,” I say, “if you give me that.” I point to the coke can and he eyes
it dubiously. After a pause, he slides the can over to me with one finger. With
a smile, I pick up the can between my cuffed hands and take a long drink.
The fizzy liquid burns on
the way down my throat, but it’s delicious. I drink as much as I can before
Agent Bitch returns, setting it back down on the table and smiling at Dumbass.
I slide the can back towards him with a wink. Let him think we’re friends. Let
him think I’m just a silly young girl who couldn’t possibly hurt anyone. He
looks surprised, taking the can back as Agent Bitch walks back into the room.
She looks between me, the
can and the goofy look on Agent Dumbass’s face and shakes her head.
Sliding into her seat,
she drops a yellow legal pad on the table between us as she addresses Dumbass.
“She killed a man by
poisoning his drink with pure meth,” she says to her partner. “You sure you
want that back?”
“Allegedly,” I add.
The oaf stares at the can
for a few seconds. Finally, he pushes it back in my direction with an
embarrassed look.
In the past five hours or
so since I was unceremoniously dumped in this interrogation room, I’ve gone
through the whole gamut of emotions. Fear. Shock. Despair. Now, I’m at anger.
Anger that bubbles within me. Anger that is thinly disguised as apathy to these
two morons.
Dunn drops a blue Bic pen
on the legal pad and pushes it over to me. I hold up my cuffed wrists
helplessly.
“I can’t write with these
things on,” I say.
Dunn gives me the
filthiest look before nodding at Dumbass. He stands and circles around to me,
removing my cuffs before returning to his spot.
I WANT A LAWYER.
I write it as obnoxiously large as I can, underlining the word LAWYER three times.
Agent Bitch’s smile
disappears, replaced by a thin line of contempt at her mouth. I grin. Good luck
getting those cuffs back on me, motherfucker. I sit back in my seat and snatch
up the Coke, draining the rest of the can before they think to take it from me.
“We can play this game
for however long you want, Miss Portland,” she says curtly, fiddling with the
stack of crime scene photographs in front of her. I smile.
“I’ve got all day,” I say
sweetly, even though I really, really don’t. Dornan has Elliot’s daughter and
ex-girlfriend, and possibly Elliot himself, and Jase and I have twenty-four
hours to meet him and get the girls out of danger before he kills them. At
least, that’s what I’m assuming he plans to do to them. I can’t even comprehend
what else he might be planning to do to those poor girls to get back at us.
Agent Dunn shakes her
head one last time, gathering up the files and stalking towards the door. “I’ll
give you some time to think about your position,” she says.
“Isn’t this illegal?” I
call out to her. “I’m an American citizen. I have the right to an attorney. Get
me a goddamn lawyer!”
Really, I just need a
lawyer to post bail so I can get the hell out of here. Not that I’m sure I’d
actually be bailed out, but I need something, and talking to these two is
proving fruitless. A cold panic is building up inside my stomach, in the hollow
space where my baby once lived and died.
God, it’s still so raw,
so vicious when the memory of our tiny little baby takes hold and squeezes me.
Sometimes, selfishly, I wish I could forget about her, because losing her has
cursed me with more pain than I could ever imagine.
If I had any remnants of
doubt about killing Dornan before? They’re gone, bled from me in the moments
after our daughter was born, still and dead, in the early hours of the morning
when the world was still dark.
He took her from me. From
us. And I cannot rest until he’s dead and buried, a rotting corpse in the cold
ground, a memory and nothing more.
Dornan Ross needs to burn
for the things he’s done.
Agent Dumbass follows his
partner out of the room and pulls the door shut. I immediately stand up and go
to the door, testing the handle. Locked from the outside. Of course. I go back
to my chair, collecting the pen someone so thoughtfully left for me and shoving
it into my pocket. You know, just in case I need to stab somebody sometime
soon.
Which, as it turns out,
is sooner than I’d anticipated.
About an hour later,
Agent Bitch sticks her head back into the room. “Your lawyer’s on the way,” she
says, closing the door behind her again.
This could be anyone. A
cop posing as a lawyer to get a confession on tape. A hit man, sent by the
Gypsy Brothers or the Cartel. I’m like a sitting duck in here, and I don’t like
it one tiny bit.
But what greets me isn’t
any of those things.
It’s so much worse.
I don’t move an inch as
the door swings open and he walks into the room. Dressed in a suit I’ve seen
before, clutching a black leather briefcase by his side. He looks positively
fucking amused.
“Well,” I say bitterly,
“They’ll let any motherfucker take the bar these days, won’t they?”
Gypsy Brothers Series by Lili Saint Germain
Seven Sons (Gypsy Brothers, Book One) FREE
Six Brothers (Gypsy Brother, Book Two)
Five Miles (Gypsy Brothers, Book Three)
Four Score (Gypsy Brothers, Four)
Three Years (Gypsy Brothers, Book Five)
Two Roads (Gypsy Brothers, Book Six)
About the Author:
Lili writes dark romance, suspense and paranormal stories. Her serial novel, Seven Sons, was released in early 2014, with the following books in the series to be released in quick succession. Lili quit corporate life to focus on writing and so far is loving every minute of it. Her other loves in life include her gorgeous husband and beautiful daughter, good coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on Pinterest.
She loves to read almost as much as she loves to write.
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