Chapter Twenty-Eight
PHILIP REFUSED TO speak to me. He also refused to sleep. I left him with his slacks on and shirt still missing, a glass of scotch in his hand and a scowl on his face.
I couldn’t condemn Adrian for what he’d done, even knowing the horrible consequences. I had spent my entire life seeking connection, family—love. And I had only ended up more alone, caught in the net of people who would hurt me, use me. Sometimes we don’t know which things will hurt us until we’re hurt. We don’t know the devil until we speak his name.
Adrian had lived too long in Philip’s shadow, looking at what he couldn’t touch. He’d sought a moment of solace, and it had ruined him.
Eventually I found a restless, dreamless sleep curled up on the striped sofa where Philip had once pounded into me so hard I still felt his imprint.
I forced myself to get up in the morning, to take a shower, even though the house felt eerily empty. Adrian was quiet—when he wasn’t in a conversation with you—but without him the whole place had turned into a museum.
The strident ring of a doorbell startled me so much I dropped the jeans I was holding. I grabbed them and slung them on, hopping across the bedroom in my haste.
The doorbell had rung three more times before I could make it downstairs and to the door.
No sign of Philip.
Was he still drinking scotch in his study? He wouldn’t be used to answering the door. That was Adrian’s door. Still, it was impossible to miss this doorbell. He must have decided not to answer.
I peered through the peephole, expecting to see Adrian returning to plead his case. Or maybe even the cops. What I didn’t expect was Colin, Philip’s younger brother. Younger, but still hard and rough. He looked more like a construction worker than the restaurateur and devoted family man I knew him to be.
There were three locks, but at least they all opened easily from inside.
Colin didn’t look surprised to see me. “Are you okay?” he asked without preamble.
“Of course,” I said, too surprised by the question to answer with anything but the truth.
“And Philip?”
My heart sank, remembering the veiled devastation on his face. He wasn’t a man who trusted easily—and he had trusted Adrian. “Not okay.”
He nodded. “May I come in?”
“Oh. Yes.” I took a step back and gave an embarrassed laugh. Colin had as much right to be here as I did. More actually. “This isn’t my house.”
Grim amusement crossed his face. “Philip might not agree. He wouldn’t let just anyone answer his door. Where is the bastard?”
I suspected that had more to do with his current mental state than any permissiveness on his part. “I’m not sure. Maybe his study. The one behind the—”
Colin was already heading in that direction, clearly familiar with the layout of this safe house.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll just let you talk.”
He paused and turned back. “You should come with me when I leave.”
My chest felt tight. “Oh?”
“You’re in danger. I can take you to the shelter. No one will find you there. And Luke can get the cops involved with getting your brother back.”
I felt confused, adrift. I wasn’t even sure anymore. I had thought Philip had more power, more connections in the underworld than anyone. And then in the pawn shop, it had seemed as if the kidnapping was connected to him somehow—which made it more imperative that I stay close to him, that I use his methods.
But maybe I was just fooling myself. Maybe I was just hoping for some kind of dark fairy-tale ending where Tyler would be fine. Maybe the cops could resolve this.
“What would you do?” I meant the question honestly, almost desperately. “If it was Allie’s brother or—”
I couldn’t bring myself to even suggest Allie’s young daughter, even as a hypothetical situation.
“I would blast them into the ground,” he said without pause. “And if I didn’t have enough firepower myself, I’d use Philip to do it.”
His eyes held mine in a shared moment of understanding—that the world had taught us one way to deal with problems. The cops, the authorities. Trust the system. But our experiences went outside that. They showed us that we couldn’t trust the system. We could only trust power.
I didn’t hear anything coming from inside the room for the hour that passed, and I considered that a good sign. I knew there was discord between them, but if they didn’t come to blows and didn’t shout at each other, things couldn’t be that bad.
Then I wondered if the room had extreme soundproofing—and started to worry again.
When Colin came out, he seemed tense but all in one piece.
“You should come with me,” he said softly, with something like sympathy in his voice.
“But you said—”
“That’s what I would do, but that doesn’t mean it’s the safest choice. And if I used Philip to get at my enemies, I would expect to pay a price.”
Under his regard I flushed hotly. I already had paid a price, with my body. Judging by the even look Colin gave me, he’d guessed as much. Or maybe Philip had told him. Had they discussed me? Had they discussed that? I lowered my gaze.
He sighed, resigned. “I didn’t think you would come, but I had to offer.”
After locking the door behind him, I was drawn like a magnet to the workout room. The hidden door to the office had been left partially open. I hoped that Philip would be in a calmer state.
He was sitting in the same place he had been during the small hours of the morning, when I’d left him. No shirt, his broad chest and tattoo striking. The tight muscles of his abs bunched as they led to his slacks. In his hand an empty glass dangled. His expression was hidden in the shadows of the room.
These rocks were jagged and sharp—the kind that jutted up from the ground in asymmetrical triangles, treacherous to climb. This was where an explorer might choose to turn back. This was where a person might fall, bleeding and broken between the rocks, never to be seen again.
Colin had thought I should turn back. He’d thought I would fall.
I sat on the leather ottoman opposite him, clutching the butter-soft leather in my hands. “Back when Adrian was describing the man he was with, the one he told about me…he said he looked like you. And it seemed like, like maybe you knew who he was talking about.”
“Always curious,” he said darkly, and unlike when he called me kitten, it didn’t sound like a compliment.
But regardless of whether it was a compliment, it was definitely the truth. I was curious—always pushing, always digging. And this was important enough that I wouldn’t give up. “Do you know who he is?”
“I might.”
“Who?”
“He told you, didn’t he?” A humorless laugh. “‘He could have been your brother.’”
My eyes widened. “Colin? No.”
Colin didn’t even look like Philip—not exactly. They both had a large build, big hands, and deep scowls. But that was where the similarities ended. Philip’s hair was dark, almost black—and Colin’s was a pale brown, at least what I could see of it in the short crop. And while both of their eyes could be cold and cruel, Philip’s eyes were so much darker and expressive than Colin’s, who kept everything well contained behind thick walls.
It didn’t make sense that Adrian would have been with someone like Colin just to simulate being with Philip. It also didn’t make sense that Colin would ever do that, considering he was happily married to Allie.
“Not Colin. Someone else.”
I blinked. But Colin was his only brother. There were three Murphy siblings: Philip, Rose, and Colin. “I don’t understand.”
Philip’s gaze studied me, almost challenging. “I know you liked that I was so loyal to my family. That I took care of them. It reminds you of what you never had.”
I couldn’t help but flinch. This was what dangerous rocks were like, slippery and sharp. “You didn’t take care of them, you pushed them away.”
He nodded. “I pushed them away, but I made sure they were safe. It’s part of why you were so interested in me from the beginning. Because if I could protect them, then there was hope for you too.”
It was getting harder to breathe. Don’t get a panic attack now, I told myself sternly. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that it’s a lie. I wasn’t loyal to family. Didn’t protect them. At least, not all of them.”
I sucked in a breath. “There was another brother?”
“A half brother. I didn’t find out about him until later, after our parents had passed and I had gotten Rose back from the foster homes.”
“God, Philip. That wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened to him—”
“You have no idea what happened to him,” Philip growled. “I don’t either, because I turned him away. My custody of Rose was already uncertain. Even though I had a legit job, it didn’t pay much, so I had to earn extra on the side so I could bribe the judge.”
“You bribed the judge?”
“Fuck yes, I bribed the judge. You think they’re some kind of holy ground? Fucking pricks, claiming they were acting in her best interests. They were hurting her in that home, in that school. I would have taken her and disappeared if they hadn’t given me custody.”
This is where you come from. This is who you are. The words didn’t only apply to me. They applied to him, and the father who had hurt him, the mother who he believed he’d failed, the sister he had saved. The brother he hadn’t been able to help. Philip had grown up so quickly, scaling up the ranks of the criminal underworld in order to protect his family—in order to protect himself.
My heart squeezed. “Oh Philip.”
“Get dressed,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.
I fidgeted, wondering where this dark path had led him. I’d wanted to ask questions, to dig, to uncover what was underneath. I just wasn’t sure I was ready for whatever I had unearthed. “I am dressed.”
“In something warmer. Shoes. Jacket.”
“Oh. Are we…going somewhere?” He just stared at me. Okay, dumb question. “Where are we going?”
“To find who’s pulling the strings. To find my brother.”
“The drop is tomorrow. You said you’d give me the ransom.” I made my voice even, as if I wasn’t pressuring him—even though, God. He knew it was life or death. “Are you still going to?”
“I’ll protect you,” he said fiercely, and the promise of it, the strength, was so alluring I fell into it. His dark gaze held me captive, and I swam around in its depths. And it was only later that I realized he hadn’t answered my question after all. He’d said he would protect me.
He hadn’t said he would save my brother.