Page 3 of Deep (Chicago Underground 8)
That was how I ended up in a penthouse suite when I should have been going to the high school football game. That penthouse was where I learned secrets and made a few of my own. That penthouse was where I became a woman, though not in the way that they intended.
Chapter Two
; I MAY HAVE only been worth fifty dollars a hole, but they were spending a lot more than that on this party. I was taken in through the freight elevator, as if I was a piece of furniture instead of a person. The man in the suit escorted me the entire way, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my arm. I wasn’t sure I could have walked without his support. I’d never worn four-inch heels before.
They had tossed me a bag full of used makeup after they’d shoved me into the car. My hand had shaken as I’d used the stubby eyeliner in the cracked mirror, making myself pretty so that they could enjoy hurting me more.
By the time we got to the door of the suite, I was sore and hungry—and mad.
The man who opened the door looked about the same age as my father. He wore the same kind of suit, though his was rumpled now, his shirt loosened at the neck. He even had the same gray around the temples.
But he didn’t look at me with benign affection. He didn’t look at me with bemusement, the way my dad sometimes did when he came back from a late-night card game, like he couldn’t figure out who I was and how I’d ended up in his house.
No, this man looked at my body with pure lust.
“Entertainment’s here, boys,” he shouted behind him, not taking his eyes off my cleavage.
A cheer went up from a group of men I couldn’t see. Then I was stumbling forward, pushed there by the man who had brought me. I expected him to follow me inside, to make sure that I complied. Instead he left, shutting the door behind him.
“Please,” I whispered to the man who’d opened the door. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
There was a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. A flare of hope in my chest.
“They made me come,” I said urgently, knowing I only had minutes, seconds. I could already hear the sounds of the group moving, converging on me like pack animals.
And I was prey.
“Bring her to the bedroom,” one of them called.
“My parents—those men. They’ve been holding me. They brought me here.”
One of the other men appeared, this one younger, closer to my age. Like the sons of my father’s work friends. “What’s the holdup?”
The older man frowned. “I don’t know. She said there’s been a mistake.”
A mistake. Yes, that was what we were calling kidnapping these days. A sob caught in my throat. “Please.”
The younger man smiled at me, cold and cruel. “You’re pretty enough. I say there’s no mistake.” Other men crowded behind him, all in rumpled suits, all reeking of alcohol, lust like a fire in their eyes. “Let’s show her how we do things, boys.”
“No, wait—” My words were swept away by their shouts of appreciation, by their dark promises of what they’d do to me. Firm hands propelled me toward a bedroom. As I was pushed along, I glimpsed another girl surrounded by at least five men. We were outnumbered.
The bedroom was almost impossibly large, the bed like an island.
A hard shove and I landed face-first on the soft satin bedspread, ankle twisting out of the high-heeled shoe. A cry of pain and shock and humiliation tore from my throat.
The younger man pressed his hands on my shoulder, keeping me from getting up, and leaned down by my ear. “That’s the idea. You’re getting it now.”
Rage was the first feeling that formed inside me, pure and hard as a diamond. Toward the men who held me down. Toward my father who had put me in this position. And even toward my nameless, faceless birth parents who had given up on me before they’d even known me.
Anger and helplessness collided inside me, turning me into a weapon.
I slammed my elbow back and connected with flesh. It was hard with muscle, but my bone and my desperation were even harder. He grunted and loosened his grip. I sucked in sweet air and whipped around.
Then I realized my mistake.
The pack had been circling before. Now that I’d struck them first, they smelled blood.
