Deep Read online

  Philip opened a heavy wooden inner door, half blocking me with his large body. I couldn’t see around him, could only hear an older man’s voice protesting, “Hey, you can’t come in here. Who do you think you—”

  There must have been some kind of signal. Or was this all choreographed ahead of time?

  Either way, something changed in an instant. The men who had been trailing behind us, quiet and watchful, suddenly sprang into action. They charged past Philip and entered the room, heading straight for the desk. The office was spacious, clearly luxurious with wood paneling and an elaborate rug on the floor, but the armed men overwhelmed the large space.

  Marcus dragged the man out from behind the desk by the lapels of his suit, hopelessly crushing and tearing the fabric in his iron grip.

  The judge gasped and growled with frightened indignation. “How dare you? Do you know who I am?”

  Philip took a small step forward, and that was their cue—the men tossed the judge onto the floor like a sack of garbage. He tumbled and cried out in pain as his knee twisted. He landed awkwardly on his ass in the middle of a rug that probably cost as much as a car.

  The judge glared up at Philip, clearly struggling to maintain his bravado. “You have no right.”

  “I have every right,” Philip said, almost mild in tone. His relaxed manner was in sharp contrast to the judge’s bristling anger and fear. “When a judge signs an illegal warrant, I have a right to know why.”

  “Illegal?” A trembling sneer. “How dare you question me? How would you know—”

  “It’s my business to know the law,” Philip said. “Just like it’s yours. And I know as well as you do that the warrant is bunk, that the arrest would never stand. There isn’t enough evidence. There isn’t any evidence. No judge would have granted it based on its merits, so you must have had another reason. What was it?”

  “Now see here. If you’re so sure it wouldn’t hold up, why not arrange a meeting with the DA?”

  “Is that what you wanted?” Philip asked calmly. “For me to settle this calmly and peaceably and no one would ever have to know about the bribes you took.”

  “Bribes?” he gasped. “I would never—”

  “The fact remains that someone wanted to see me in handcuffs. They wanted me incapacitated, unable to protect what is mine.” He sent me a meaningful look, and the judge seemed to notice me there for the first time.

  The judge’s eyes widened as if suddenly more afraid by the presence of a young woman than by dangerous men. “You brought someone here? She’ll tell. How are you going to keep this quiet now?”

  Really, even the supposed good guys talked about me as if I didn’t have a voice. Except his worry didn’t make sense. Why would he be worried about me telling someone? Wouldn’t he want me to tell what had happened here? Surely he would report all of this to the police when we left.

  Unless he had some reason to want this secret. Unless what Philip said about the warrant was true.

  “She won’t tell,” Philip said softly. “Not if you give me what I need.”

  The judge seemed to crumple. “It wasn’t a bribe. God.”

  Philip crouched and placed his hand on the judge’s shoulder, almost commiserating man to man, as if it wasn’t his order that had sent the judge tumbling to the floor in the first place. “This is how it ends.”

  “Blackmail.” The judge took a shuddering breath. “My grandson. He starts college in the fall. I couldn’t let his life be ruined. He’s so young.”

  “Who?”

  “Barnes. That fucker. He told me…” He shut his eyes, looking pained. “He gave me instructions.”

  Barnes—I remembered the cop from the dorm hallway, the one so determined to arrest Philip. His dark wrinkled face and white hair would have looked grandfatherly without the almost violent determination in his eyes.

  Philip didn’t look impressed. “He has been after me for years. What changed?”

  The judge met his gaze directly. “I don’t know. I swear it. I only know that someone bankrolled him. Someone gave him the…leverage he needed to secure my cooperation. There were…pictures.”

  I sensed Philip’s disappointment, though he didn’t show it. “You’ll call it off,” he said softly.

  “Yes, yes,” the judge babbled, and then winced when Philip squeezed his shoulder tightly.

  “Wait,” I said, pulling Philip’s arm. “He told you what you wanted to know. He’s revoking the warrant. You got what you needed. Don’t hurt him.”

  Philip wasn’t moved by my pulling or my pleas, but he said to the judge, “Tell her what the pictures were of. Tell her what your grandson does for fun.”

  The judge turned white. He glanced at me, and in his eyes I saw a flicker of malevolence. “He has sex with girls. Like any boy his age.”

  The hand on his shoulder must have squeezed harder, because his mouth tightened in pain and his whole body jerked.

  “Okay,” he gasped. “She was drunk. Maybe he’d slipped her a pill. She was tied up. God, I don’t know why he does it, okay? He had the best of everything. Money. Education. I don’t know why he hurts them.”

  I stared at him in horror. I’d been nervous about Philip coming here, threatening him, because the man was a judge. He was supposed to be one of the good guys. Even if he’d taken some kind of a bribe to sign the warrant, we all knew Philip was a criminal—with or without evidence. I could have still respected him.

  But this? This was disgusting, horrible. This was subhuman. His grandson hurt women, raped them, but his judge of a grandfather protected him? He did illegal things just to keep his monster grandson out of jail—and going to college? He would be one of the fresh-faced freshman around campus next year. No one would know how dark he was inside.

  And I realized then what Philip had been trying to tell me in his own way. This was the real reason he’d brought me here. There was no good and bad, not in this city. No clean hands. There was only money and violence—and Philip remained on top by using both to his advantage.

  There would never be room in his life for love, for kindness. Those things were only weaknesses. They would only ruin him, the same way money and violence had ruined me. Steel bars, he had said. That was all he was made of. It was a cold embrace but a strong one. And he would never let me leave.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE RIDE HOME was silent. Philip didn’t seem inclined to speak, and I wasn’t sure what I could even say. My mind was held captive by images of the judge on the ground, looking pathetic and weak—and of the flash of malevolence in his eyes.

  It was just like that moment in the penthouse years ago, the dark realization that wolves wore sheep clothing. It had shocked me then. I’d spent years after that trying to understand it, to accept it—studying sociology as if it could explain it. As if I could somehow find the difference between good and evil. And what I’d seen earlier tonight was the same thing, the same gory underside—flipping a rock over and exposing the worms holding it up.

  There was no difference between good and evil.

  There were two sides to every person: the one we showed the world and the one we hid.

  Philip pulled the car into the garage and stilled the engine. I sat there staring at the blank wall in front of me—closed in bulletproof glass, in sheetrock, in brick. Protected on all sides by sturdy materials, but I couldn’t feel safe. I never felt safe.

  “Kitten?”

  Distantly I heard the car door opposite me. Time seemed to swim around me, and then Philip was at my door, opening it, gently leading me out. He took me by the hand, and I came willingly—I had nowhere else to go. That was the story of my life. No one else to trust.

  And so I trusted him, this man who showed the world his darkest side.

  “I know,” he said softly, holding me in his arms. And it seemed for a second as if he did know, as if he was as horrified by the corruption and cruelty around him as I was.

  He led me up the stairs and into his bathroo
m. He undressed me slowly, almost tenderly, moving my limbs and adjusting me until I stood naked, toes buried in the plush bath rug.

  The shower felt shockingly hot against my skin, needles burning into me—and then Philip was there, blocking the spray with his large body. His hands were covered in soap, and he ran them over my cold skin, washing me. Cleaning me. Leaving no part of me untouched.

  Blunt fingers slid through the slick folds of my sex, fondling my clit until it throbbed. Black fog kept me from thinking too much, but in a detached way I could feel my body responding, readying itself.

  The invasion was wide and fast, my thighs spread by his palms, my back against tile, my sex pulsing around his thick erection. I cried out in shock and denial and relief.

  He pressed damp kisses to my neck, my shoulder, the tops of my breasts. “I know,” he murmured again. “It’s hard at first. You’ll get used to it. It won’t hurt so much.”

  Except I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. It should hurt to see someone being hurt—whether that person was a nameless girl in blackmail photos or the innocent sister of a man caught up with the mafia. It wasn’t better to be numb, but somehow I already was.

  He pulled back and thrust in, deeper this time—and I cried out again in pain at the invasion, the sharp stretch of him, the control. My feet weren’t even on the ceramic anymore. He held them up and lifted my entire body for every thrust, levering me to bring the most pleasure for his cock.

  My eyes met his—and I don’t know what he saw in me. The fear? The desperation?

  Whatever it was, something snapped inside him. He fucked me with renewed intensity, his cock slamming into me, his body slapping against mine, the water easing his way deep inside me while I fought to survive the storm.

  He came with a shudder and a groan that echoed around me.

  Large hands gripped my flesh, leaving bruises on the insides of my legs. When his body jerked and grew still, he remained like that, heaving his breaths, holding me open.

  “Philip?” I whispered.

  “No,” he said, his voice unsteady.

  He unclenched his hand from one thigh, and I winced as my leg fell to the tiled floor. Then his free hand was on my clit, rubbing me—he wasn’t tender anymore. He was hard on me, almost furious with me. He drew tight circles around my clit until I clenched his softening cock.

  “That’s right,” he muttered. “You pull my seed up inside you. Don’t let a drop out, kitten.”

  “Why?” I said, breathless, but I already knew. I wanted him to tell me the dark, forbidden words.

  His hand moved up to my stomach—still flat. “I’m going to make this round with my seed. You’ll be tied to me body and soul. I’ll give you everything you want, but I’ll never let you leave.”

  My body strung up tight at the words—somehow sweet when they filtered through my mind. Was that broken of me? Had the events years ago damaged me beyond repair, that I wanted a man like him? Or was I born this way, desperate for someone to capture me and not let go? That was a question for the textbooks—right here and right now, all I felt was a soul-deep satisfaction.

  His fingers moved back to my clit, circling and rubbing until I came—a tight climax this time, a tensing of my entire body, muscles sore and aching when it passed.

  I shifted, trying to disentangle myself, but he stopped me. “Again,” he said.

  “I can’t. I’ve already come twice.”

  “Again.”

  And I didn’t have a choice, one leg still held up by him, his cock still inside me, his fingers at my clit. He played with me until I rocked my hips against the tile and begged for another, and then another, and then another. When I had orgasmed five times, keeping all his seed inside me, he pulled away—and the shower’s warm caress cleaned us both.

  He dried me with a towel while I stood, barely breathing. And then he carried me to the bed, where he wrapped his body around me. I’d been protected by armed men tonight, by steel and brick and bulletproof glass tonight. But it was only in the shelter of his body that I finally felt safe.

  I’m going to make this round with my seed. You’ll be tied to me body and soul.

  It was a game, wasn’t it? Something kinky and dark, like Philip. He wouldn’t really want me pregnant, wouldn’t really want to be tied to me. Except he’d said I was his, forever. I wasn’t on birth control and he wasn’t using protection. It could really happen…

  I was always coming for you, kitten. You were always mine.

  Maybe physically. Emotional intimacy was another matter. It was as if the closer he got to me, the more he cared about me, the more determined he was to push me away. I couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he ever fell in love with me—he’d probably lock me in the basement.

  “Am I really yours?” I whispered into the dark. “Are you really going to keep me?”

  “Of course you’re mine,” he said roughly. “You always have been, from the moment I saw you. I think you knew that, even then.”

  Something held him back, though. Something deep inside. “Is it Shelly?”

  He stilled, perhaps surprised. “What?”

  “It’s okay,” I rushed to reassure him. It hurt, but I didn’t blame him. She was beautiful and smart. I was half in love with her myself. “I know how you felt about her. That you…loved her.”

  His arm tensed around me, a steel band, his body a concrete wall behind me. “Maybe I did love her, in a way. And I loved her more that she brought you to me. But she has nothing to do with this, here, now.”

  “Then why?” I asked, my voice small, pride turned translucent with tears. I was losing him, had already lost him—he was never really mine. And even while I knew that was for the best, that he was too cruel, too terrifying, to ever really trust, my heart mourned the loss.

  “Fuck.” He rolled to his back, leaving cool air between us. “I wanted Shelly because she was experienced. She knew how it would work between us. I thought that would be enough.”

  And then she had married someone else. Maybe that should make me glad, considering my own ache, but I loved Philip too much to want him unhappy. Loved him.

  Maybe I always had, even as a broken little girl. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “She didn’t break my heart, kitten.” The word kitten wasn’t a caress this time. It was a whip, fast and sharp. “You did. Just by being here, so fucking vulnerable, so damn hopeful. It hurts me just to look at you.”

  That sounded horrible and somehow sweet. “Then why—”

  “I’m not a saint, Ella.”

  My heart beat faster, and I turned to face him. His features were set in shadows, a nose bent by violence and lips that had kissed my body with gentleness. He stared at the ceiling.

  “I know that, Philip. I know you.”

  “Do you?” His expression darkened. “Do you know about the girl I knocked up?”

  My throat tightened. Knocked up? He had come inside me again and again. I had believed he would support me if I’d gotten pregnant, that he would have stood by me, but there was no child in his life now. “What happened?”

  “There was a girl I was seeing,” he said gruffly. “When I was building my reputation as a problem solver, even before I got custody of Rose. It started off just fucking around. Stress relief with a girl down the street. I told you I wasn’t a saint.”

  “I’m not judging you,” I said softly.

  “You will.” He sighed, gathering me close, as if he needed my warmth, my comfort, to tell the rest of the story. “Then it got serious between us. And she got pregnant. It was an accident, at the time. I wasn’t ready for that, didn’t have anything to offer. I wanted to do right by her.”

  Of course he did. “What happened next?”

  “I asked to marry her. She said no.” His large body tensed. “Maybe she was worried I’d knock her around like my old man. Or maybe she just didn’t like the criminal shit I was into. I don’t fucking blame her.”

  I rubbed my hand across his chest,
imagining a young Philip trying to be responsible, to be loving. That was what love meant to him: protection, money. Power, before he really had any.

  “She married some other guy at the construction company where I worked during the day. Honest enough guy. I never even knew if he thought the baby was his or what she told him. She said it was how she wanted it to be, and I didn’t want to fuck that up for her. And hell, a baby would be better off without me for a father.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “It didn’t matter.” His voice had gotten raw. “She went into labor early. Too early. She lost the baby and then bled out on a cot in some fucking third ward hospital.”

  “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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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.