by Skye Warren
It was why he dragged me from the dorm at gunpoint.
Why he held me down and filled me with his come.
“Family,” he said, with a cold laugh. “Yes, family. Don’t know what I’ll do to you? How I’ll hurt you and fuck you and break you? When I look at you, that’s all I can see, how much I’ll destroy everything that you are.”
His fingers worked quickly at my jeans. Then he shoved them down with my panties until they pooled around my thighs. The hard length of his cock was heavy on the top curve of my ass, resting there, threatening.
He bent close to my head. “But then you know that,” he murmured. “You saw that firsthand. When I let you stay in my house, when I locked you in my fucking bedroom. I don’t want anyone to touch you. Don’t want anyone to even see you.”
The blunt head of his cock nudged my sex. He thrust deep in a single push, and I cried out, impaled, split open. My whole body was shoved forward, and my forehead fell to my arms, resting there—the only soft thing I could feel. His cock inside me was steel, his fingers on my hips like a vice.
“Except for me,” he said hollowly, almost haunted. “And I’ll ruin you all by myself.”
I wanted to tell him no, no, you didn’t, you won’t, I’m fine, but he thrust back inside me, stealing my breath. I cried out, because it did hurt, it hurt so much I couldn’t breathe—like the panic but different, again. He was doing this to me, turning me inside out, and I couldn’t respond, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but take it.
“That’s what you said, didn’t you?” He thrust deep, punctuating the question with a groan of pleasure. “I’m just like those fuckers in the penthouse. I want to fuck you, to own you, isn’t that right? Just like them.”
I was sobbing now, head in my arms, being impaled from behind. “No, no,” I said, even though I did—God help me, I did think that. I wanted him to fuck me, to fill me. I wanted him to claim me in the most primal way a man can claim a woman.
“I do,” he whispered, harsh and cruel against my neck. “Say it.”
“No,” I whimpered, weaker now.
“If you don’t say it, I won’t come inside you.”
I was trembling, on the verge of coming, shaking with the need to hide the truth, to expose it. “Please. Please, take me. Use me. Take me.” Tears tightened my throat, making my voice thick, my words somehow more raw. “Like them.”
He surged back inside me with a grunt of triumph, his hands harder than before, almost bruising me to the bone, and I reveled in the violence, the need of it. As if for one moment he might actually follow through. He might actually keep me.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m just like them. No fucking good. Hurting you, using you—and you like it, don’t you? Making you mine so you’ll never be able to leave. You fucking love it.”
I whimpered, unable to deny the truth of it. I loved what he did to me, how he broke me and put me back together. I loved the way I felt when he touched me, as if he were the soil wrapped around my roots, holding me so tight I could never get free.
He pounded into me, furious, turning my body soft and liquid—that was the only way to be in the face of such force, with the cuts on my hands and knees, spilling over. “You’re so good, kitten. So fucking good.”
His body stiffened around me, pushing some of his fury into me, his strength, something to carry with me even when the inevitable happened.…
And then he pulled out.
His cock pulsed against the flesh of my ass and his come—hot and liquid lava, that had only ever been inside me, deep in my body—spilled over my back. In a matter of milliseconds it was cooling, hardening, turning from something hot and intimate into something cold. No.
My chest constricted with grief. I didn’t want to come anymore.
Except he reached around my body to play with my clit. It only took two circles of callused finger pads, and then I was coming too, squeezing around nothing, dampened only by own arousal instead of his come.
I was crying by the end, soft tears that felt like goodbye. A wordless denial.
He pulled away and straightened our clothes. A handkerchief cleaned my back, taking away what he usually forced inside me. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. He had always forced me to him, even when he thought it wasn’t the best thing for me. He had always come inside me, even when I hadn’t consented to it.
So what did it mean that he pulled out?
He laid me down on something soft and bunched up under my head—his suit jacket? Something else draped over me, a thin and wide blanket. I fingered the fine material and felt a collar, buttons—his shirt.
But he would be cold. He would be—
“Shhhh,” he said, stroking my hair. “Rest now. You’ll be out of here soon.”
And I drifted like that, his hand on my head, his voice in my mind. I floated until the sound of scraping rock told me that someone was coming on the other side. I scrambled to stand up, watching as light broke through suddenly, men with picks and hard hats on the other side calling my name. A rescue.
Philip had gone, sometime after I had drifted to sleep but before they had come. He’d gone deeper into the tunnel and disappeared. He’d pulled out so that he wouldn’t come inside me, that last time. It had been a goodbye.
Don’t ever leave, I’d begged him.
You’re so good, kitten. So fucking good.
But I wasn’t enough. I never had been. Not for family. And definitely not for Philip.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE ROCKS FELL away, revealing a piercing light. I took a step into the darkness to avoid rocks tumbling to the ground.
“Where is he?” a voice demanded. It took me a second to place it… Barnes. The detective who was determined to catch Philip. So determined that he had been willing to blackmail a judge.
I didn’t answer—couldn’t. My throat was filled from dust, coating the air I breathed after the rocks came down. I didn’t know where he was by now, but I hoped he was safe.
He stepped inside, a looming shadow. I could only see the tip of his short-cropped white hair. He grasped my arms and shook—not too roughly but enough to jolt me. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
It wasn’t hard to act disoriented since that was how I felt. “I don’t know.”
A harsh curse and then he was brushing past me—a thump and another swear word as he must have stumbled on the uneven ground and hit sharp rock. I put a hand over my mouth to hide a smile even though it was too dark to see.
Philip was always a step ahead.
My smile faded. He was always a step ahead of me too.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?” A medic appeared at the entrance and helped me through the break in the rocks, shielding me from pebbles still falling from overhead.
It was stable enough for now. I supposed I should have been embarrassed to be covered in dust, probably smelling of sex and earth—but I didn’t. This was me right now, as much a mess on the inside as out, as crushed as the tunnel itself, barely supported.
I limped down the aisle of the church with the help of the medic.
The sunlight was blinding when we reached the stone steps. This street had been empty when we got here. Now it was filled with cop cars and ambulances—even a big fire truck. I supposed a shoot-out and cave-in underneath a church was a big deal.
Sitting on the back of an ambulance was Tyler, a blanket around his shoulders. And hovering over him, looking worried, was Adrian. My heart seized to see two people I cared about—battered but safe.
Adrian looked up and saw me. His eyes lightened with relief, and he rushed over to embrace me. I lost any semblance of calm and threw my arms around him, crying.
“Oh, Ella,” was all he said, and in those words was a world of understanding.
We had both loved Philip. We had both lost him—never had a chance, we realized far too late.
“He’s okay,” I said, gasping. Because I knew Adrian would worry. “He’s okay.”
Adri
an pulled back and cupped my face. “And you?”
“I’m…” Not okay. Almost shaking with grief over the loss of him. It wasn’t new, though. This was how it felt to be with Philip, always knowing he would leave eventually, living in the future pain. “I’m here,” I said at least. Because that was all I could offer, my presence, a small and strained smile. “I’m safe.”
All my life I had been searching for acceptance, destined to love people who would not love me back. Parents I had never known and parents who had adopted me. Philip. It wouldn’t break me. I had been through enough to know that now, but it was cold comfort.
“My brother?” I asked.
Adrian glanced back, a worried expression on his face. “No serious injuries. At least, no physical ones. He’s not talking much.”
I knew if anyone could give him the support and safety he would need, it would be Adrian. He had done that for me years ago in those weeks I’d lived in Philip’s home. And he was doing it for me now. “Do you think he was…”
The word refused to come out. Raped.
A dark thundercloud crossed Adrian’s face, and I remembered that he had also slept with Marco—a one-night stand that had led to the betrayal. “He said no. They’ll examine him at the hospital to be sure.”
My stomach clenched as I realized what someone would find if they examined me: traced of Philip’s come on my back, bruises covering my body from his hard hands and the sharp rocks in the tunnel. No, I couldn’t bear for anyone to look at me now. “I want to go home. Adrian, I need to go home.”
His expression turned sympathetic. “You should get checked out, just to be sure you’re okay. It won’t get him in trouble, whatever happens.”
I wasn’t certain of that, considering how desperate Barnes was to put Philip behind bars. It wasn’t only worry for Philip though. It was worry for myself. I felt like I was fragile, made of thin glass in dark colors, like the stained-glass windows lining the church. If they touched me, I would break.
“Please,” I whispered. “Help me get out of here.”
I imagined me sneaking away into the back alley while Adrian distracted them, but he winked at me. “Leave it to me.”
I blinked, surprised out of my panic. “What do you mean?”
“Give me a little credit,” he said, mock affronted. “I didn’t work for Philip for years and not pick up any tricks of my own.”
He looked over my shoulder, and his eyes narrowed. I glanced back to see the cop, Barnes, hurrying down the steps—heading straight for us.
I tensed up, but Adrian shook his head with a faint smile. “Don’t worry about him.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered.
He just laughed, which seemed to make Barnes’s expression darken as he approached.
“You,” he said, accusing, as if I had Philip stashed away just to spite him. “I have questions for you.”
“And she’ll be happy to cooperate,” Adrian said smoothly, “as soon as her lawyer is present. He’s just over there speaking to your colleagues. Drew Laramie. I understand you’ve met.”
Barnes scoffed. “Philip’s lawyer? He can hardly represent her interests at the same time.”
“He’s not Philip’s lawyer anymore,” I said. “And I would trust Drew with my life.”
He’d already saved me once. And he’d saved Philip countless times. As if conjuring him, he circled a flashing police cruiser and spotted us. And I knew that I would be okay, at least physically.
Emotionally—that was a different story.
I had worked my whole life for acceptance from people who wouldn’t love me back, the princess of lost causes. They would never come true, not in this lifetime—but that pursuit had given me other friends, other family. My brother, Tyler. Adrian. Drew.
A car pulled to a stop outside the police tape, and I saw Shelly and Luke step out. I had acceptance. I was loved, even if it wasn’t by the man who had my heart.
“Why are you so determined to catch Philip?” I asked, unable to hide the censure in my voice. By violating the law, by blackmailing a judge, he had lost any right to the moral high ground.
Barnes narrowed his bloodshot eyes, receiving my message loud and clear—and he didn’t like it. “Philip Murphy is a knife lodged in the heart of this city. I will do anything to pull it out.”
I blinked. “Even if that stops the heart?”
“You believe that because you don’t know what Philip is capable of. You think he, what? Sells candy on the street corner? That the guns get sold to the CPD?”
My eyes narrowed. “I know more about the dark side of Chicago than you think.”
He studied me. “That might be true, but you don’t know the dark side of Philip Murphy. You don’t know what he’s truly capable of.”
“Then tell me,” I challenged.
“Fine.” He studied me. “You want to know what your boyfriend is capable of? A few years back we found a group of men in some abandoned tenements in the meat packing district. Lowlife types, picking up odd jobs from bigger criminals. Criminals like Murphy.”
There was only one phrase that rang in my head: the meat packing district. What were the odds this story about Philip’s evil deeds connected back to that place?
“He killed them. We don’t know what work they did for him—never found that link. But he must have decided he had no more use for them, because he had them killed. That wasn’t the worst part, though. We see death all the fucking time. No, the worst part was the way they were killed—burned to a fucking crisp. They had been chained to the pipes in the bathroom.”
The sunlight seemed too sharp suddenly, the air too thin. They had been chained to the pipes in the bathroom. A group of criminals, chained to the pipes of a bathroom.
Like the ones who had held me captive back then. Philip had avenged me.
Barnes’s eyes narrowed. “But that’s not why I’m really after him, and I’m guessing you figured that out. No my beef with Murphy is personal. He fucked my daughter. He got her pregnant. And then he left her to die.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
THE TALE IS as old as time—boy meets girl. Boy saves girl. Boy leaves.
A broken heart was usually the souvenir, but I was worried that he’d left behind something more. Worried, and maybe a little hopeful. Two months at home was long enough to know I was late but not long enough to show. If I were pregnant, he would come back, he would support me. That much I knew for sure, even if he never let me in emotionally, not really.
Girl pees on stick, the part the stories left out.
My gaze darted around the small bathroom, from the clean white tile to the bland oceanside print on the wall—anywhere but the little piece of plastic sitting on the back of the toilet. Finally, stomach a tight knot, I glanced at the pregnancy test.
And the screen was…blank.
Ugh.
It had probably been three seconds since I peed on it and set it down, not two minutes. My heart was racing so fast it was making time go slowly. I was going to go crazy like this.
I looked at the necklace in my hand. It had been my birth mother’s, a small and fragile legacy—the only piece I had of her. Suddenly it made me angry, the way she could have thrown me away, the way she still didn’t care. What was the point of blood if it didn’t protect me?
Philip had protected me.
Furious now, almost trembling with it, I took the necklace to the bathroom adjoining my bedroom. The old necklace hardly shone over the dull matting. It was a memento of my burnt heritage and the terrible ordeal I’d just come back from. Violence. Pain. Abandonment.
This necklace was everything that I hated.
I dropped it into the toilet and watched it sink to the bottom. It looked so innocuous there.
Harmless.
With shaking fingers I flushed the toilet. Water swirled violently, turning the gold chain into a whip contained in white porcelain. Then it disappeared in a noisy whoosh.
And just like that
I wanted it back, the only connection I had to a birth mother who didn’t want me.
The only connection I had to a mysterious, powerful man who hadn’t wanted me either.
Without looking at the little test, I left the small room and shut the door behind me. Then I sat down right outside it, like I could barricade the truth inside with my body, hold it in somehow. Truth that might bring Philip back to me, truth that might fulfill his worst fears.
The woman that Philip had tried to do right by… I didn’t blame her for rejecting Philip, for trying to build a more stable life for herself and her child. And the fact that it hadn’t worked, the fact that she had died in childbirth—that as a tragedy. One that her father, Barnes, lived with every day. One that ate him from the inside out.
I wrapped my arms around my knees and tucked my chin on top.
Downstairs I could hear my mother baking. This from the woman who had stopped at the grocery store for cupcakes on the way to school for a bake sale.
I had half expected her to disown me completely once she learned the truth about who had taken Tyler, that it had been his connection to me that endangered him. But she had rallied around me instead, some long-dormant maternal instinct deciding the world was a scary place and that we both needed her at home.
My father had come slinking back a few days after we had returned, but my mother had told him to leave. Even if they hadn’t been the reason for Tyler’s experience, his debts could hurt any one of us again. He hadn’t even had the strength to stand by us when it happened.
So it was just the three of us, struggling to form some kind of new order. My mother still fretted over my brother the most, but that was okay. She tried to talk to me, too, now—stilted, sweet moments that I had longed for once upon a time.
But I couldn’t tell her about this, about what I was waiting for now. It was too personal.
The hallway door opened, and my brother stepped out. He took one look at me and one look at the closed door behind me, and his face paled.
