Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(40)

That part wasn’t particularly shocking. It wasn’t particularly hurtful.

No, the hurtful part was knowing that my mother had learned who I was, where I was, enough that she could pass something to me via Shelly—and still had opted not to meet me herself.

“Throw it away,” I said.

“Ella…”

“She didn’t give it to me herself, did she? She didn’t call me up, ask to meet me. She doesn’t care about me, so tell me—why should I care about her?”

Shelly’s lower lip trembled, and I felt bad for putting her in the middle of this. She had done nothing but protect me, but this felt like a betrayal. But I wasn’t the one putting her in the middle of this. My birth mother was, this faceless woman who wanted to give me a necklace instead of love.

“I almost did throw it away,” Shelly said, her voice almost pleading. “So many times. I wanted to. But then I couldn’t. The same way I can’t throw away the stones from my mother’s jewelry. Legacy is a powerful thing, Ella.”

The necklace wasn’t a legacy. It was a curse.

But it was my curse. I took the necklace, still warm from Shelly’s hand. And I walked away, unable to respond to her whispered apology, unable to answer Philip’s questioning expression.

Of course he didn’t accept my silence.

“What did she give you? A listening device?”

“God. Are you always so paranoid? How do you live like that?”

“Very well,” he said, not the least bit cowed.

I clenched the metal and small stone in my fist until it hurt. “Not everything is about you.”

“What is it about then?” he challenged.

Family. “Legacy.”

He smiled faintly. “I thought you said it wasn’t about me.”

And because he was being so cocky, because I wanted to tear him down a notch—because I thought he would shrink away from any real intimacy—I told him the truth. “It was my mother’s,” I said, and then realized what I’d done.

Too late, I realized I had exposed a weakness to a man who would exploit it.

A man of opportunity, he called himself.

Without another word I crossed the gravel driveway and climbed into the backseat. I folded my arms and stared straight ahead, impatient for him to join me. Being Philip, he took his time. He made me wait.

When he finally deigned to join me, he climbed into the seat facing me and shut the door.

The SUV didn’t move.

“You dislike it,” he said, his voice no longer smug, no longer challenging.

And only because of that could I tell him. “I hate it. If she wanted to meet me, to know me, she could have sent a message instead. A cell phone number. An email address. But this… this is, what? A pity gift?”

Philip said nothing.

“What?” I said, angry now. “You don’t agree?”

“What I think doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a first,” I muttered.

“If you don’t want it, throw it away.”

Except it wasn’t that simple, and he knew it. “Tell me about the ring, the one you wear on a chain,” I demanded.

I expected him to refuse me, and I was looking forward to the fight. He wasn’t the person I was mad at, but he was the only one here, in the shadowed backseat of the vehicle. Luke and Shelly had gone back inside their house, doors locked, lights off. The privacy divider was up, blocking Adrian from view. We were alone.

“It was my mother’s,” he said. “Her wedding band. I keep it as a reminder of what happens if I’m not strong.”

“Oh, Philip.” My heart clenched. “It wasn’t your fault, what your father did.”

“She died because I didn’t protect her.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“God, Philip. You can’t—”

He rapped twice on the roof of the car, and it immediately glided forward. “What I can and cannot do is not the question. The question is, what are you going to do with that, now that you have it?”

And the sad truth was, I just didn’t know.





Chapter Twenty-Five

WE DROVE HOME in silence, the necklace like a hot ember in my jeans pocket.

Tension ran through Philip’s body in thick, furious waves, radiating from him. His posture was relaxed enough, body leaned back, one leg slung over the other. He might have been a billionaire playboy coming home from a night of fast money and fast women. Only if you looked at his eyes would you see the banked rage over who had targeted him—who targeted my family to get to him.

We arrived back at the house just as dawn touched the horizon, spilling yellow over treetops and distant steeples. A thick fog made everything look hazy, like being a little drunk even if I hadn’t had a drink. I wasn’t sure whether it was tiredness or the stress of the past few days. We had spent the whole night chasing scary possibilities, nightmares, and I thought it was a metaphor for my entire time with Philip—a race toward some dark finish line.

Inside the safe house I crossed the cream marble floor to the far wall. Windows stretched from the ceiling to the floor, my reflection staring back at me. Only up close could I see the trees and city lights. They seemed small from where I stood, as if I looked into a curio cabinet of little figurines. This was how Philip must feel every day, as if we were small—as if I was small.