Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(3)

“Fuck you.” My heart threatened to break my ribs. “I’m not doing that.”

It shouldn’t have been possible for me to feel betrayed by her. She was a stranger, even if we had just kissed. Somehow I had expected her to try and save me, to protect me, and she was doing that—just not enough. She would take the rough ones, and I should have been grateful for that. It was more help than I would have gotten without her. Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie still and spread my legs. I couldn’t let them, let them.

She sighed. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Like she cared. I made my voice hard. “Go to hell.”

“You’ve at least had sex before, right?”

No. A few make-out sessions in the corners of the club hadn’t prepared me for this. “Of course I have.”

And then I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me that my father’s debts got me into this, that I was paying for a family that never really wanted me. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t hurting everywhere, my body aching and broken. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter that this stranger could have helped me get away—and instead was trying to convince me to give up the last piece of myself. Tears tracked down my cheeks.

It was almost worse. If she had been cold and cruel, I could have kept my facade. But her fake kindness was more painful, gently encouraging me to give up, to give in, sweetly leading me to my ruin.

She patted my shoulder, and something inside me snapped. A week’s worth of terror and abuse fueled my punch, and I hit her flush in the face. I stared as she stumbled back, her perfectly manicured hand covering the red mark on her cheek.

Oh God, who have I become? What have I become?

Then I was off like a shot, running through the hallway. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t really care. I’d run until I fell over dead—anything to get out of this place.

I half expected the men in the living room to form a barricade, to keep me in, but they seemed too surprised, too sluggish with drink and smoke, to get in the way. Or maybe they thought this was part of the show.

Somehow I made it out of the room and into the elevators—the regular ones this time, with their mirrored walls and marble floors, cold on my bare feet.





Chapter Three

DURING THE LATTER part of my rebellious phase, I’d learned how to steal things—lip gloss, wallets. Kristy could even swipe cell phones. By the time I made it through the busy lobby and into the staff-only kitchens, I had myself a fancy new wallet and a security pass so I could get out of locked exits without setting off alarms. All in all, I thought I was doing pretty well—until a beefy security guard saw me. I tried to run, but without shoes I just ended up sliding on a spill of some kind of food sauce. He caught me by the arm, his grip bruising.

I kicked his shin, but that only made him angrier. He snarled at me and shouted into his walkie-talkie for backup. Backup would inevitably call the cops, who I would be kind of relieved to see. Except that the men who brought me here would find out what I’d done—and they would know exactly where to find me.

Look, hon. It won’t be that bad. I’ll take the rough ones for myself, and—

Even if these people couldn’t get to me in a police precinct or a hospital, they could definitely get to me when I got home. And now they’d know I’d messed up their party. They’d think I owed them even more than my father already did.

Shit. I couldn’t see a way out of this.

Then I turned and saw someone running up to me—the woman who’d called herself my fairy godmother. Relief filled me because I doubted she was coming after me just to insult me again. I needed help, and for whatever twisted reason, she had decided to give it to me.

“There you are,” she said, and the guy holding me immediately froze.

He checked her out—of course he did. She was a bombshell blonde, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in real life. And judging from the way this guy’s jaw dropped, his too. The * had had no trouble hauling me up against him, but he wouldn’t touch her that way.

“Ella,” she said in a chiding tone. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

I had no idea who Ella was, but I was going along with whatever game she was playing. She was one of the only people I’d seen in the past week who wasn’t manhandling me or trying to rape me.

“You know Daddy doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” she added as if I knew who that was either.

It seemed to be the magic trick, though, because the guy released me. I suppose that, between her looks and confidence, it seemed like he should defer to her.

“She dropped this,” he said, picking up the black leather wallet that had fallen from my grasp. Damn it. I needed that money to get home, to get safe. Walking out into downtown dressed like this with no money was asking for trouble—as much trouble as I’d had in the penthouse or even worse.

“I assumed it wasn’t hers,” he added, sounding a little nervous now. Because if it was mine, and if I was rich and powerful—or at least part of a rich and powerful family—he might be screwed.

The woman sighed. “Really, Ella? Wrecking the Mercedes wasn’t good enough? Now you have to steal something? Where’d you pick that up—the hotel restaurant?”