Seven Sons

Two

I’ve never left the country before, but I’m not worried. The night of my twenty-first birthday, I don’t party, but arrive in Thailand after a long and cramped flight from the U.S. I have lost time, and it is already morning in Bangkok. I travel directly to the hospital where I will be having my procedure – this isn’t a sightseeing holiday, after all. I’m not here for fun.

I’m here to be reborn.

The staff are efficient and discreet. I am admitted and the surgeon goes over the final computer-enhanced photographs which show what I’ll look like after.

Before the surgery, I go into the private ensuite and strip down. I have a moment of unexpected sadness as I study myself one last time. I’ve already colored my strawberry blonde hair a deep chestnut brown, but apart from that, this is how I was born. I look exactly like my mother. Tall, skinny, no boobs, green eyes. A light smattering of freckles across my nose is the only thing I got from my father, and a laser is about to burn them off forever. My nose, once regal and thin, now sits crooked, thanks to Dornan breaking it six years ago. It never healed properly, and it is the main reason I cannot stand my own appearance.

But now, standing here like this, so completely naked and alone, I shed a single tear. For my father. For the little girl I used to be, who had everything ripped away.

I shed a tear because she is about to die, six years after she cheated death.

I wipe the tear away and put on my blue hospital gown, tying it at the back. Leaving the cubicle, I enter the room where my procedures will be performed. Twelve hours is all it will take to make me into a completely new person – a new nose, new skin, porcelain veneers on my teeth, fuller cheekbones, and new boobs. I wanted them to remove the scars on my hip, but the laser regimen would take months against all that messy scar tissue. Instead, I’ll get a tattoo when I’m back in the States.

As I lay down on the operating table, a nurse hovers over me, a mask in her hand. Before she can lower it, the doctor motions for her to wait.

“Last chance,” he says to me. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” He is an excellent surgeon, and from what I have gleaned, a kind family man. Although he is Asian, he reminds me of my father. There is a patriarchal kindness in his eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time.

“Positive,” I say, gesturing for the nurse to lower the mask.

“You’re going to look beautiful,” the surgeon says, and a few moments later, everything goes black.

It takes me two weeks to recover enough from the surgery to move around freely, and one month before I resemble a regular human being. I spend my time poolside at the most expensive hotel in Bangkok, attended by nurses who check on my healing wounds and waiters who serve me drinks with umbrellas.

The entire time, I seethe inside, the same way I have seethed for the past six years. What was born as fear and grief has long since blossomed into hatred and rage. Five weeks after my surgery, I return to the USA, hail a cab at LAX, and direct the driver to Venice Beach.

Finally, after six long years, I will have my revenge.

It’s hot, and I can feel sweat beads starting to gather between my new breasts. It’s funny, I’m still getting used to actually having something decent on my chest. It kind of sucks not being able to sleep on my front, though. Once this is all over, I’m definitely getting them reduced.

For now, I’m a DD cup. Because I know exactly what Dornan “Prez” Ross likes, and it’s brunettes with big titties and tanned skin. I am actually surprised that he even bothered raping me. The old me definitely wasn’t his type.

I stand out the front of Va Va Voom, the strip joint owned and run by the club, just a few blocks from the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse. When my father was alive, Va Va Voom was actually an upmarket burlesque club. No lap dancing. No hookers out the back. No filth. Dornan changed all that after he had my father murdered.

I push the door open, dragging my small suitcase behind me. It contains everything I’ll need for my burlesque show audition. Costumes, some props, my makeup. I have been dancing in my darkened bedroom in Nebraska for years, practicing for this exact moment in time.

The club is dark and smells like stale beer mixed with cheap perfume, with an undertone of dishwasher steam. It’s Thursday. Several staff members mill around the bar at one end of the large, open club space, and attractive women in singlets and denim cut-offs practice their dance steps and gossip up on stage. The middle of the place is deserted, and I stand in the center of the cavernous room, my past throbbing in my head like a bullet wound seeping blood. I glance again at the stage and remember what happened there six years ago.

“Come on, darlin’,” Dornan laughed, pushing me into the circle formed by six of his sons. The eldest, Chad, caught me by my shoulders and spun me around so that I was facing everyone but him.

“Well, aren’t you looking mighty fine,” Maxi, the third brother, said, wolf-whistling his appreciation. His eyes raked up and down my body and I cringed, looking at the floor. He reached out and slapped me on the ass, making me yowl in surprise. I was terrified. I was fifteen.

“Do you understand why you’re here, darlin’?” Dornan asked me, malice in his black eyes. I shook my head, and returned my gaze to the scuffed wooden stage below my feet. I’d never been here before without my father, and even then I had only ever been here with him after the club was closed, if he needed to pick something up from the office upstairs or drop off a set of keys for whoever was closing up.

There was a video camera set up at the edge of the stage, pointed towards the circle of men. I smelled their sweat and leather and fought not to cry.

Because, even though I was only fifteen years old and a complete virgin, I knew what came next.

I shook my head no.

Dornan laughed and squeezed my chin between his thick fingers, forcing my head up. He pointed to the camera and brushed a tear from my ashen cheek. He leaned in close so that only I could hear him.

“Say hello to the camera,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m gonna make you a star.”

I scan the length of the bar, looking for any familiar faces. Any of the Ross brothers or their bastard father. There is no one from six years ago. Just a lone guy, who looks about my age, polishing beer glasses behind the counter. I take a moment to appreciate his fine arms as I cross the room. He’s really tall, well over six foot, and hot to boot. His arms both feature full tattoo sleeves. His face is a study in contradictions. He has the sexiness and spunk of a man, with his large brown eyes, thick, beautifully shaped eyebrows and olive-toned skin. His lips are full and wide, and I think for a split second what they would be like to kiss. He has cut his dark brown hair close to his skull. All of this is juxtaposed with the look in his eyes that screams “boy”, a look of innocence and naivety.

He looks vaguely familiar, but I’m not worried that he will recognize me. I’ve studied profiles of every active member of the Gypsy Brothers MC Venice Beach chapter and he hasn’t featured.

“Can I help you?” he says, his deep voice like honey and butter.

I plaster a fake smile on and stand a little straighter. My boobs are practically bursting out of my tiny singlet, but he doesn’t even give them a cursory glance. He isn’t pinging my gaydar, though, so perhaps he’s just a gentleman.

“I’m looking for Mr Ross,” I say sweetly, delivering my words with a slight southern twang. One highlight of living in a shithole for the past six years is picking up the accent. I don’t want to risk anyone recognizing my voice. “I’ve got an audition.”

“Wait here.” He turns, giving me a chance to appreciate his ass and…

My heart freezes for a second when I see he’s got the Gypsy Brothers family crest on the back of his neck. The crest that’s reserved exclusively for the club president, his brothers, and his sons.

Oh fuck. Is he…?

My worst fears are confirmed when he stops at the top of the stairs that lead into the office and shouts into the ajar door, “Pop! Some chick here to see you about a job.”

Of course, it’s him. Jason Ross. Dornan’s youngest son. I almost choke as I remember the last time I saw him.

The boy was screaming. Two of his older brothers held him firmly as he struggled futilely against them.

“Are you going to take your turn, son?” Dornan addressed his youngest son. Jase had only been in the care of his father for a very short time – less than a year – and he had struggled to adjust to the MC way of life after his mother’s death. Everyone thought that Dornan had been the one to inject Jase’s mother with a deadly overdose of heroin – the woman had been clean for sixteen years, since she discovered she was pregnant with Jason and left the club life to raise her son in normality.

I remember lying on the ground, splinters digging into my naked back, wishing I could just die already. Dornan and his six older sons had all taken turns – some, several turns – and my body was dangerously close to shutting down. I had been beaten within an inch of my life, I could taste blood in my mouth from where Dornan had broken my nose, and I was throbbing so badly between my legs it felt like someone was trying to rip me in half.

I had never gone past second base before. It had been a gruesome and devastating way to lose my virginity –to have it stolen.

I watched through blood-encrusted eyelashes as baby-faced Jase fought against his father, even as he knew he would pay dearly for it.

“Please, Pop, please don’t, they’re hurting her, please stop, STOP STOP STOP!”

“Come on, son,” Dornan growled, and I heard the click of a gun being cocked. “Be a man.”

Oh God, I remember thinking. This is it. They are going to kill me.

I would have felt pity for Jason, had I not been close to blacking out from the pain.

I whimpered as something cold and metallic was forced between my chattering teeth. Dornan had his gun in my mouth.

I cowered in anticipation. This was it. He was going to shoot me, and I was going to die.

“You better get your dick out and fuck this little bitch, or I’m going to shoot her in the face. Do you understand, son?”

I was listening, but I was floating away at the same time. Little white spots started to appear in my vision as the unbearable pain began to recede.

Jase lunged at his father and I heard a crash, followed by a scuffle and yelling. It was getting hard to hear, though. Everything was turning white and I floated away on that whiteness, relieved to finally be coming to the final moments of my suffering.

“Pop,” I heard Chad say. “Pop!”

“What?!” Dornan roared.

“I think she’s dying.”

“Bullshit.” Rough hands shook my body, and there was swearing and jostling as I was picked up and carried.

The world turned white, and then it turned dark as I drifted peacefully away.

When I awoke, the world was not white, but a depressing beige. The pain crept up and socked me hard in the stomach, winding me. I tried to sit up and failed miserably. Some of my ribs were definitely broken.

I felt a warm hand in mine and looked next to me, expecting my mother. Instead, I saw a nightmare that I thought I had woken from.

A scream died in my throat as Dornan gestured with a finger to his lips for me to remain silent. I never even considered defying him, I was so terribly afraid.

“The police would like to talk to you,” Dornan said gravely. “I told them my dear niece was going to need some time alone with family first.” I stared at him in disbelief, disgusted at what he was implying. Uncle Dornan, posing as a fucking hero in the wake of my father’s absence.

I tried to wrench my hand away but he squeezed tighter, cutting off the circulation and forcing a gasp from me.

“What are you going to tell them, Julie, baby?”

I slumped against the bed, defeated. “Nothing.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing!” I said a little louder, and snatched my hand back as he released his grip.

“Good,” he said, standing up and straightening his leather cut. “I’d hate to have to do to your mother what we did to you.”

I cringed at his not-so-subtle threat and shuddered as he planted a kiss on my forehead. “Don’t act like the victim,” he whispered in my ear. “I know you loved it.”

He plastered a fake smile on, tossed a bunch of flowers on the bed next to me, and left the room.

It was the last time I saw him.

And, ironically, the thing that had burned at me the most, more than the betrayal, was the reasoning. I wanted to know why. But then, Dornan murdered my father two days later, shot him in the head at point-blank range with a shotgun. Blew his head clean off.

After that, after Elliot told me my father was dead, I stopped wondering why.

Jase comes back down the stairs, taking them two by two, as if he’s in a hurry to be away from the office. He returns to his spot behind the bar and picks up his polishing cloth. “He’ll be down soon.” I don’t answer straight away, and he looks at me from beneath those gorgeous black eyelashes that I used to tease him about. I must look dreadful, because he jerks his head up and frowns.

“Are you okay?”

I nod my head slowly, gripping the bar with both hands.

“Are you sure?” He lifts the cut-out section of the bar counter and comes around to where I am, a glass of iced water appearing in his hand as if by magic.

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” he says, placing the water on a cardboard coaster in front of me. He brings a bar stool over and sets it down behind me.

I take the water and the seat gratefully, my entire body suddenly aching and tired.

You knew there was a chance you would see him. You knew this was part of the deal.

I shrug and take a sip of water, attempting to pull myself together. If my plan is going to work, I have got to keep it together.

“It must be the sun,” I say, smiling innocently. “I’m not used to this heat.” I hope he doesn’t ask me where I’m from. Nebraska is even hotter than California. I feel my story already beginning to crumple under the weight of its artifice.

“Well, take it easy,” he says, going back to his side of the bar.

“Thank you,” I say meekly, the words tasting like bitter lies on my tongue.

Dornan appears a short time later at the top of the stairs, whistling loudly. “Come on up,” he says, beckoning to his office beyond. I look around, unsure if he is even speaking to me.

“Yes, you. Hurry up, I ain’t got all goddamn day.” He disappears past the doorway and I slide off my stool. I take a deep breath. This is my moment of truth.

This is my one shot to get onside with Dornan and bring this motherfucking family to its shattered kneecaps.