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.”
Nothing.
“Goddamn it, Philip. This isn’t funny. This is not okay. Let me out of here.”
I imagined him with a glass of amber liquid in his hand, shirtless, his tattoos stark against his broad chest. If he was in his study, would he even hear me?
“Philip. Open the door now.” In a fit of frustration, I slammed my palm against the door. The solid wood didn’t give a single millimeter, and I winced as my hand smarted from the blow.
Then I had a worse thought: what if he wasn’t downstairs in his study? What if he had actually left me here? What if he had gone to the drop himself, without me, alone.
As soon as I had the thought, I knew that was exactly what he’d done. He would have thought he was protecting me, the same way he’d pushed his brother away, his sister. He pushed everyone he cared about away, and I couldn’t pretend that he didn’t care about me—not after everything we had been through. He wouldn’t ever be the sweet, emotionally available kind of man. This was the kind of man he was, the kind who would lock up the woman he cared about to keep her safe.
The walls closed in on me, and no amount of will could hold them away. I gasped out a breathless denial, but it was too late.
“Philip,” I tried again, my voice cracking. My hand curled against the door, shaking. Please. You said you would protect me.
This isn’t protection. This is hell.
Slowly I slid to the floor, fighting for breath, spots dancing behind my eyes as consciousness faded out and then back again. I could feel the metal handcuffs around my wrists, the cold pipe against my arms, the cracked tile beneath my legs.
I was back in that bathroom, in an abandoned tenement not far from the meat market. Kidnapped. Restrained. The lack of oxygen made me hazy enough to almost believe I was really back there.
There was laughter outside the bathroom—male laughter that sounded cruel to my teenage ears. There would be grunts and slaps when women would visit them. And long stretches of silence that somehow became scarier in my mind.
The worst part wasn’t what I heard outside. It was what happened when they came in.
Some of the men would just ignore me, as if I wasn’t even a person—as if I were part of the plumbing.
Other men would speak to me—dirty words, cruel words.
They would taunt me. Mock me.
I was back in that moment, in that dirty tenement, in the bathroom.
One man in particular—they called him Red for the bloom of red roses tattooed across his chest and down his arms. That might sound sweet, maybe even feminine, but it was terrifying on him, the blooms settled between black-eyed skulls, the petals dripping with blood, the thorn-studded stems wrapping around his arm like barbed wire.
The toilet seat remained up most of the time, and the men—they weren’t always conscientious about staying within the bowl. I would cover my face with my hands as best I could and close my eyes, trying in vain to ignore the pungent smell that filled the air in the small, dank room.
Red wouldn’t miss on accident, though. He would miss on purpose, swerving toward me and then away again, painting the wall, splashing warm piss on my curled-up toes. I had tried not to let him see me cry. That was what he wanted. For me to scream or beg or break down. And I tried not to give it to him.
It was that same stubborn bravado that had carried me through the penthouse, that had punched Shelly in the face, that had let me strip in front of Philip to pay a debt I owed.
I swam around in that space, fighting to breathe, fighting not to cry.
Fighting to survive.
All I could see was red, all I could smell was hot piss. All I could think about was Philip, and how he had left me here, chained to these pipes.
Except no, I hadn’t known Philip then.
I was hallucinating, mixed up between the past and the present. I wasn’t in the bathroom, not really. I was in the present, curled up on the floor in Philip’s room, having a panic attack.
*
I DIDN’T KNOW how long I remained like that, shivering on the floor, desperate and alone. I thought I would die—and sometimes I wanted to. It seemed like anything would be better than fighting for breath and losing.
From some faraway distance I heard the sound of voices.
“Philip,” I whispered hoarsely.
It wasn’t him. I realized that as the voices got louder, echoing my own plea.
“Philip!” someone said. “Where the hell are you?”
Help me. I’m here. Let me out. I tried to form the words, but they came out as rough breaths.
“There’s a million rooms,” someone said. A female. Could it be…Rose? Philip’s sister. I had only met her once, but that time period was emblazoned into my mind, never to be forgotten. “It will take forever to check them all. He might not even be here.”
“A car was missing,” came a male voice. Her husband. Drew. “They might have left already.”
Oh no, they were leaving. I had to do something. With all my strength, all my desperation, all my twisted love for Philip, I slammed my foot against the door—the pain of it reverberated through my shin, a sharp and welcome ache that distracted me from my lungs.
There was silence on the other side of the door, then footsteps.
“Philip?” Rose called. “Are you in there?”
I couldn’t answer, but I could already hear them discussing how to break down the thick door. I would get out of here. I would be safe, but if Philip had made me stay here, it meant he thought the drop would be too dangerous. It meant he thought he might not make it out alive.
It felt like forever, but finally they procured a key from somewhere and opened the door.
Rose checked the bathroom and closet while Drew helped me sit up.
She knelt by my side, eyes wide with worry. “Where is he?”
“Church,” I managed to gasp.
Confusion flickered across her pretty face. “What—”
“Rose,” her husband murmured. “She doesn’t look okay.” Then to me, “Do you need a doctor?”
She bit her lip. “Oh God. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
My muscles were still quivery, my breaths shuddering, but I would be okay. “I’m fine. Just a panic attack. I don’t do well with…locks.”
Horror filled her pretty dark eyes, so similar to Philip’s. “He’s keeping you here?”
No. Maybe. “It’s complicated. But I have to get to him. He’s making a ransom drop for my brother and I…” I trailed off, suddenly uncertain of how much to say. Did Rose know about this other Murphy sibling, one cast out of the fold before he’d ever been a part of it? “It’s someone from his past.”
Drew’s expression grew grim. “His brother?”
“Yes,” I said, relieved I wouldn’t be the one to spill family secrets.
Rose gasped. “Colin?”
Drew shook his head. “I’ll explain on the way. If this is really him, we need to hurry.”
Rose helped me stand, but I stumbled on my first step.
“I can carry you,” Drew said, solicitous but firm. I knew him to be a calming influence on Philip—and he had quit recently, I had learned from Adrian, which was part of why Philip had gone off the rails. But if Drew was acting like it was urgent, then it wasn’t just in my head.
I nodded, and Drew lifted me into his arms. I clutched his suit fabric in my hand, burying my head in his shoulder. He was almost a stranger to me, and I longed for Philip’s smell, his strength. My breathing was still coming fast, but less due to the panic attack and more due to my increasing fear over what might be happening right now in the church.
Drew settled me into the backseat. He and Rose took the front seats.
Only when they had directions to St. Mary’s and had set off down the one-lane empty road leading away from Philip’s safe house did Rose demand answers. “What were you talking about? Who has her brother?”
Drew’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Do you remember I told you when I started working for Philip, how he told me the most important job, my only job really, was to protect his family, you and Colin?”
“Yes.”
“There were a lot of people to protect you from—other criminal types who would have liked to take his business, enemies he had made. But one of the biggest threats came from his brother. Your brother. Not Colin. He was your father’s son with another woman.”
Rose stared at him across the dark car. “But why? Why wouldn’t he tell us? Why would Philip keep him from us?”
“Shit,” Drew muttered. “He should have told you. He should be the one telling you this now. When your brother approached him, Philip had just begun making a name for himself as a problem solver. This man approached Philip and explained that he was your half brother. He wanted money.”
A dismayed sound came from Rose. “How did Philip know it was real?”
“He had a test done to confirm it. Because Philip would have given him money, if that’s all it was, either out of family loyalty or to make him go away. The problem was that this man… Marco is his name. He… Shit. He hurt people, Rose. I’m sorry. That was what he needed the money for—paying off people to stay silent.”
“I don’t understand.” She glanced back at me from the front seat. “I love my brother, but I know what kind of man he is. He hurts people too.”
“Not like this.” Drew swallowed, and I felt the car speed up. “Not for fun.”
Oh God. This man hurt people for fun, and he had my brother.