Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(39)

I took his hand in mine, so large and powerful and scarred.

A sense of possessiveness grabbed hold of me, stronger than anything I’d imagined. He said that I was his, but the truth was that he was mine too. He had come to that dorm room to protect me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

After a long moment he said, “There’s too much piling up. Too many coincidences. First someone attacks me on my way to you and then—”

“So you were coming to me,” I said softly.

His expression grew dark. “Yes. I wouldn’t have let them touch you.”

And I would have been taken, I realized. Without Philip’s presence, I would have been kidnapped just like my brother had been. As much as it pained me that it had happened to Tyler, I couldn’t help my relief that I had escaped it. I had barely survived the first time. I didn’t think I’d be so lucky a second time.

“Someone knew where you were going,” Luke said quietly.

Shelly moved to the kitchen and returned with a mug for me. I inhaled the spiced aroma with pleasure and took a sip. The creamy liquid slid down my throat, warming me from the inside. Philip studied my face, almost mesmerized.

He tore his gaze away as if fighting himself for focus.

“That’s right,” Philip said finally. “It was a trap.”

My eyes widened at the implications. I was the trap. “That’s…horrible.”

Shelly sat on a plush ottoman on the opposite side of Philip. She looked him in the eye. “I have never told anyone about you except for Luke. And I never would.”

Philip stared at her for a long moment, distilling her words for truth. Then he said gruffly, “All right. I had to check.”

She nodded, not offended despite the clear insult. “There are others who could know. If you kept tabs on her, had investigators…” She offered me a small smile. “Sorry, but I know how he works.”

“Me too,” I said quietly.

And I was beginning to understand as well, both the things he had said and the things he could not. Control was about more than guns and fists. It was about desire. It was about obsession. That was what he’d meant in the car, the words he’d been able to speak.

There was more, though. Words he couldn’t say yet, about love.

“I’ve been careful,” Philip said slowly. “But clearly not careful enough. I’ll find the leak.”

“And the brother?” Luke asked. “My contact didn’t mention another kidnapping. They wouldn’t know that it’s connected.”

“There hasn’t been a hostage demand,” I said quietly. “Not yet.”

Luke’s eyes darkened with sympathy. “The cops can help setup the drop.”

“They won’t go to them.” My parents would follow any ransom demands to the letter, including leaving out the cops. They wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize my brother’s life. And they already knew how little the police could do against men like this—nothing, in my case.

I was their test run. Their throwaway. Only the people in this room had ever seemed to think otherwise. That I was worth saving, worth loving.

Only Philip had wanted me the way a man does a woman, even knowing every dark thing about me, but had the cold integrity to hold himself back. And I thought I’d always loved him for it, even when I was just a broken little girl. Always loved and hated him for it, just the way he had loved and hated me.

*

“ELLA, WAIT.” SHELLY stopped me as I was leaving.

Curious, I followed her back into the house, leaving Philip outside. I glanced back, where he stood silhouetted by the moon, his figure tall and proud like some kind of lone cowboy. And that was what he was, I realized. He didn’t answer to anyone, except maybe nature—the crux of the city. He forged his own path.

“What’s up?” I asked when we were out of ear-shot.

She glanced around, looking… guilty. Then she pulled something out of her pocket. “Maybe I should have given you this a long time ago.”

In her palm was a delicate gold necklace with a pale green jade stone pendant. It was innocuous and pretty, but the sight of it sent shivers down my spine. “Is that yours?”

“No.” She bit her lip, looking younger than me. She was only a few years older, but she seemed wise beyond her years. Except now, when she seemed mostly nervous. “It’s yours.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When that shit happened a few years ago… God, Ella. I didn’t want to tell you. You had gotten back safely, you were with your family. I wanted that for you. Peace. Happiness.”

I had never found peace or happiness in my adopted home, but I didn’t tell her that. “I’m fine,” I said instead, softly, knowing she still worried about me.

“It’s from your mother.”

My breath stuttered, stopped. I stared at the pretty jade pendant as if it had suddenly come alive, a snake in her hand. “Why would you have that? You met her?”

The worry on her face answered me. “She gave it to me. I met her… She was a…”

“Don’t,” I said sharply. I knew what the odds were, a mother who had given away her child, a city full of danger and sin. And it explained how Shelly had met her, either through her network or at the shelter. My birth mother was a prostitute.