Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(58)

Hidden rooms, like the office in Philip’s safe house.

When I reached the alter, I veered left and headed to the hallway that stretched into darkness. There were pictures at regular intervals—depictions of the saints made with mosaics. I trailed my fingers along them, feeling the individual ceramic pieces that made the whole.

“Ella,” Drew murmured, keeping pace with me. “We should go.”

Each picture had a plaque underneath with the name of the patron saint and his patronage.

The patron saint of pregnant women, of the disabled, of children.

Saint Leonard, the patron of prisoners, captives, and slaves.

I stopped and studied this one. In the depiction the man wore a traditional monk robe that tied at the waist with a rope. His hood was back, revealing longish hair and a beard. His face was drawn in sharp lines, focused on prayer, with his palms toward a large open book and a crucifix. He looked to be sitting in some kind of cave with crude steps carved into the rock. The book—a Bible?—rested on a shelf cut away in the side of the passage, but other parts of the wall still sloped like a natural cave.

Something triggered me to run both palms over the mosaic, as if I could read it like braille. It didn’t reveal its secrets to me, though it seemed a little more detailed than some of the other depictions. It was one of the only ones with any background at all—most simply had a halo of light surrounding them or an adoring sheep or child looking up at them.

It was only as I pulled away that my fingertip caught at the frame of the picture and tugged.

The picture slid off course as if on a well-used track. It snapped back into place almost infinitesimally, but I had already seen the trick. I had already been looking for it. I grasped the frame in both hands and tilted—the picture clicked diagonally, and the whole panel it hung on shifted, like a door being unlatched.

Anticipation and dread filled my veins.

“Oh my God,” Rose whispered.

I pushed inside, into the pitch-black. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. And as the shadows formed into people, I saw Philip facing off with a man, guns drawn and pointed at each other. Philip looked fierce—and furious to see me.

And there was a man who could have almost been his twin. He had the same bone structure, the same tall build. He wasn’t quite as stocky, as powerful as Philip. And there was something more cunning about his expression, a gauntness to his cheeks that spoke of leaner times than Philip’s underground royalty.

And he held someone hostage there at the base of the stone-carved steps. Tyler.





Chapter Thirty-Four

“WHAT THE FUCK are you doing here?” Philip sounded as cold as the stone walls around me.

“I was—” I was worried about you. But it was hard to admit that when he looked like he despised me.

The other man—Marco. He smiled, and it sent a shiver down my spine. “Here she is. I thought about f*cking her instead, but she was too…what’s the word? Well, she’d already seen so much. She would never have trusted me.”

“Don’t talk to her,” Philip ground out. “Don’t even look at her.”

Tyler’s eyes were red as if he’d been crying. He met my gaze, terrified.

Drew and Rose had been behind me, but there was no room for them to come in. And they had been silent, so I prayed that they had sneaked away to call the police.

And probably an ambulance. We wouldn’t all be getting out of this tunnel alive.

Marco continued, “Well, and there’s the fact that she would have recognized me. Even if she wouldn’t have known we were related, it would have been something out of the ordinary.”

“How dare you,” I said, my voice shaky. “He had nothing to do with this. He’s innocent.”

“Well,” Marco said, looking smug, “he was innocent. Not anymore.”

Which meant that Marco had raped him. My brother. I felt sick. “And for what? To get back at Philip? He didn’t even know Tyler!”

A faint shrug. “I just wanted an audience with my dear brother. It’s so hard for him to find the time, isn’t it? But I really had to insist.”

“You’re sick,” I said.

His smile faded, and I saw in his dark expression the man who had planned and executed the kidnapping of an innocent teenage boy. “I’m sick of being ignored. Sick of being cast aside like there’s something wrong with me, just because I was born from the wrong f*cking whore.”

“You must have known I would kill you,” Philip said in a low tone.

“Fine,” Marco spat. “At least then you won’t forget me. Fuck, the way you looked at me. Like I was the dirt underneath your expensive Italian leather shoes.”

“Your funeral,” Philip said with a casual nonchalance that chilled me—then he lifted his gun.

Marco tightened his hold on my brother and twisted his body to take the hit.

“No,” I shouted, stumbling forward, my hands out. “He’ll hurt him.”

Philip looked pained. “The bullet will go through him. This is why you shouldn’t have come.”

My eyes widened. “So you can shoot my brother? No.”

“It’s okay,” Tyler said, his voice hoarse. “Do what you have to do.”

“See,” Philip said pleasantly. “Your brother understands. Now you need to leave.”