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 fucking 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 fucking 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.”
I couldn’t believe he thought I’d do that. “How dare you? God. You’re just as bad as your brother!” I thought I saw the faintest flinch from Philip, but I was too far gone to stop. “You hurt people. You hurt me.”
Philip’s eyes narrowed. “And what’s your point, kitten? I made it clear what kind of man I was, and you still asked me to handle this for you. You still wanted my help.”
“That’s right,” I said, desperately latching on to that. “We made a deal. A deal that you would pay the ransom and get my brother back. That’s it. Not risk his life. Not get him killed. And I know you’re a man of your word.”
Philip looked enraged, but he pulled his gun back, palm up. “Fine. Is this what you want? The money’s in that bag.” He gestured to a dark satchel I hadn’t noticed before, tossed against the floor. “You think that’s what this is about? Money?”
“Everything’s about money,” I said breathlessly. “That’s what you taught me. Money and violence. Power.”
“And now I have them both,” Marco said, pointing his gun at Philip.
“No.” The cry was torn from my throat. I launched myself at them both, catching his arm and falling with them as a shot rang out. There was a loud thud and then a rain of pebbles around my head as I landed hard on a jumble of bodies.
A hand grabbed my wrist, and I was yanked away. I tumbled to the ground, the smooth concrete floor hard against my knees. I rolled to the side, struggled to make out who was where. They looked so alike—Philip and his brother. So alike.
Then Philip stood, and I knew it was him—by the way he stood half in front of me, protecting me with his body. He pointed his gun at Marco.
My brother launched himself forward with a cry of denial. “No!”
But it was too late. A shot rang out, blasting our eardrums and shaking the whole cavern. Red bloomed on Marco’s white dress shirt. He fell in slow motion, right into Tyler’s arms.
“Marco,” Tyler whispered urgently. “No, no. Please no.”
I couldn’t make sense of his concern for a man who had hurt him, who had raped him. I could only fall back in relief that it was over.
Except it wasn’t over.
Philip looked at me, and his eyes were savage. “Is that what you wanted to see? Me killing my brother? Spilling my own fucking blood?”
I was shaking, clutching my arms around myself as if I could hold myself together that way. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. That hadn’t been what I wanted, but it had also been necessary. There was no payment I could give him for that, no way my body could be recompense.
And then I saw the worst thing of all, glittering in Philip’s dark eyes. Tears.
He was crying over shooting his brother. This man who was nothing but steel bars.
My heart twisted painfully. I reached out for him.
But he was already gone.