Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(55)

“Oh my God.”

“I didn’t even know until the next day, when I went to my shift at the construction site.”

“Oh Philip. That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, Ella. Don’t you f*cking dare. That’s the kind of man I am, the kind who wants to get you pregnant, the kind who can’t protect you if you are.”

My heart seized. It was my greatest hope and my darkest fear mixed together.

“I never would have gotten Shelly pregnant,” he said. “It wasn’t like that with her, with anyone. I never thought I would want that again. And then you were there, so f*cking pretty. So soft and scared even though you tried not to be. The world could break you, kitten. I could break you.”

My heart twisted. “You wouldn’t.”

“You really think that?” His voice hardened. “You’re wrong. I dream about breaking you. About shackling you to me. About keeping you hidden, so no one gets to look at you but me.”

I swallowed hard, afraid and a little aroused. “No,” I whispered.

“That’s why I stayed away from you for so long, kitten. Because I cared about you. Because I f*cking love you, and you deserve better than this.”





Chapter Thirty-Two

WHEN I WOKE again, the curtains had been drawn apart, revealing the night sky. My mind was half in dreamland, with fire and shadows, a deep cave where I was Persephone and Philip a mocking king of the underworld. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Maybe the backward sleep schedule was getting to me. Or maybe I had spent too much time with my mythology studies textbook.

School felt like light-years away from where I was now, in Philip’s house—in Philip’s bed. All the things I’d worked so hard for: a normal life, a family.

Light-years away.

And I was alone. The sheets were cool when I smoothed my palm across the indentation left by his body. He had been here, but he’d managed to leave without waking me. Either he was stealthy or I had been dead tired. Probably both.

I turned my head to the adjoining bathroom, but the door was cracked open and inside was dark. Not there either. He must be downstairs, maybe brooding in his study or on the phone with the men who had come with us to visit the judge yesterday. This was my life now, guns and liquor and sex.

Right now I was at least trying to get my brother back, but when this was over, I would leave. I would go back to my old life, to my endless search for family, for safety.

Would Philip keep watching me?

Would he keep sending me blank postcards?

I didn’t think so. The mother of his child had died. His own mother. Neither had been his fault, but he blamed himself. And he would never get close to another woman—never allow himself to fall in love. Even when he tried to get me pregnant, there was distance between us—the way he took the choice away from me. The way he forced me.

Tonight was the ransom exchange. There’d be no reason I couldn’t go back then.

I would never see him again.

Unless I was pregnant. He would stay with me, support me, if that happened. I knew that in my soul. Was that why he came inside me without protection? Was that why he was so bent on making me pregnant?

Was it the only way he knew how to bind me to him?

A hot shower soothed away the rest of my dream, but it also brought me fully awake. My brother could be injured. He could be…well, I couldn’t think about that now. The important thing was to get him back. Then we could deal with whatever trauma he had been through, together. I would be there for him the way he had been there for me. Our relationship had never really gotten close, even though he had been the only one to care about me after my “ordeal.” But I already knew how ill-equipped my parents were to deal with this. And the professional therapists, for that matter. Whatever had happened to him, I would help him. In some ways, he was the only family I had, the only person who actually considered me family back.

A drawer in Philip’s dresser was half-opened, and I could see the shirts and jeans that I’d been wearing. He must have moved them in here. My eyebrows went up. Getting my own drawer. In most relationships that was a big step. I wasn’t sure what it meant in one as impossible as ours.

I dressed and brushed my hair, determined to prepare myself mentally for whatever I would see that night. And then there was nothing left to do, no way left to delay the inevitable.

I went to the door and turned the knob—

Locked.

For a minute I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand. I jiggled the knob and turned it harder—nothing. I shook the handle and rattled the door. Panic grew in my chest, expanding like a balloon—stealing all the air so I didn’t have any left to breathe.

No, hold yourself together.

I didn’t have a choice. I had to hold myself together or I’d be trapped in this room…

That wasn’t helping.

“Philip,” I managed to say, though it came out a little breathy.

I had made it through being kidnapped, being chained to bathroom pipes. I had made it through being assaulted in a swanky hotel penthouse. I could make it through this. Somewhere deep inside I found some untapped strength and used it to straighten my body, to breathe in deep.

“Philip,” I shouted. And then even louder, “Philip! Open the door.”